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Panca
Rating Details »
Category: Latin American [Edit]
Neighborhood: West Village92 7th Ave S
New York, NY 10184
(212) 488-3900
- Nearest Transit:
-
Christopher St (1)
W 4th St (A, C, E, B, D, F, V)
Christopher St (PATH)
- Attire:
- Casual
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
20 reviews for Panca
Very good :) 3.5 definitely.
I had mostly the cerviche type dishes. Light and still filling, I was happy. The service was very good because it was very early in the evening. The deserts were excellent. I must say you should get the sample of three.
Why do I say 3.5? Because I would take half a point off for STALE chips at the table. I guess those things don't keep well.
So my Peruvian friend Jose took two of my buddies and I here the other night. Jose is quite opinionated about Peruvian food and the quality of ceviche. Apparently this is one of the few places in the city that both meets his standards and is very authentic. We had to try it. The four of us sat at one of the tables outside.
+1 Star for the outdoor seating. It was a nice temperate New York summer evening at around 6 PM. Is there anything better than enjoying great seafood and people watching in the Village on a night like that?
We started with the 3 C's of Peruvian appetizers: Ceviche, Choros a la Chalaca, y Causa.
The Ceviche Clasico de Pescado was delicious. Nice big pieces of white fish and plenty of onions and corn swimming around in the lime juice. Ceviche has got to be the best summer appetizer of all time. It's so refreshing and plays very nicely with beer.
The Choros a la Chalaca are mussels marinated with lime juice and stuffed with finely chopped cilantro, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and corn. They were quite good. The Choros appetizer also comes with 12 mussels which is plenty to share with a group.
This was my first experience with Causa. Causa is like a mashed potato cake mixed with lemon juice. Panca gives you three cakes, one topped with shrimp, one topped with crab, and one topped with octopus. They were all tasty but the acidity from the lemon in the potatoes mixed with the lime from the fish was a bit much for me. Maybe next time I'll try the chicken causa.
For entrees, we got the Lomo Soltado, the Jalea, and the Seco de Cordero . Lomo Soltado is of course stir fried steak, tomatoes, onions, french fries, and rice garnished with a pinch of finely chopped cilantro. It was excellent. The meat was tender and this dish was perfectly balanced.
The Jalea is my favorite Peruvian dish because it reminds me of the food I ate in Richmond Virginia. In our parlance, it's a big ol' fish fry wit' calamari, shrimp, octopus, and fish. Lord have mercy!
The Seco de Cordero is a lamb shank cooked low and slow in a cilantro stew. It was served with potatoes, sweet peas, and yellow beans. Dear God! The lamb was perfectly cooked and literally fell off of the bone. I highly recommend this place.
Any establishment that offers complimentary fried corn or cancha is worth dining at. I munched on it while looking over the menu. I crunched while waiting for my entree. I hope for a refill but alas there was none.
Panca offers up Peruvian cuisine in a non-Peruvian interior, with outdoor seating as well. I could have been dining at any non-descript, quasi-modern locale with semi-Swedish design.
However, once I examined the menu it was clear that my appetite was taking a trek to Machu Picchu. But which menu? My fiancee had a menu that described slightly different dishes than the menu before my eyes. Was the pescadito frito red snapper or some other fish? According to my menu it was red snapper, whereas hers simply stated 'fish'.
Once the menu was clarified, we ordered and awaited our jalea mixta appetizer. Lightly coated seafood, fried that was a mixed bag of calamari, cubes of fish accompanied by fried yucca sticks and a tasty dipping sauce. Missing was any overpowering grease bomb that can accompany fried foods; present was a delicious taste that ran a little high on the salt side.
The wait between appetizer and entree was prolonged but not uncomfortable. That can be attributed to the generous portion of the appetizer that would prohibit the completing of the entrees.
I ordered Aji De Gallina, a chicken dish that had never met my mouth, until now. Asked if I wanted it spicy, I consented and upon first bite realized that this was hardly a dash of pepper but rather a flood of heat.
The Aji De Gallina is described as spicy " aji amarillo" chicken, cream served with boiled eggs. "botijas" olives, potatoes and white rice.
Given my ignorance of the dish, I was slightly surprised by what appeared as a chicken salad, with rice on the side. Instead of mayo, there was cream holding together the shredded chicken. This mixture rested atop three potato plateaus. To my disappointment, the boiled eggs were not whole but rather two lonely slices. I couldn't spot any olives.
The white rice provided comfort and respite from the heat of the chicken paste/salad/cream mixture.
I took a chance and ordered an item I wasn't familiar with and now I know what aji de gallina is. It was an educational experience.
My fiancee's red snapper was aptly described: "It doesn't look that good but tastes great".
Two fillets that appeared from the Gorton's fisherman boat was how I saw them. But the taste was apparently spot on and it was accompanied by white rice. (But no beans)
So that was Panca, a pleasant experience overall with a few moments of menu confusion, heat and supermarket comparisons proven wrong.
The plantain chips and fried corn ("tostadas," my boyfriend tells me) that were placed on the table when we sat down were exciting -- but the rest of the food was not. I had the fish with shrimp and he had the strip steak, and, while both were tasty, there was nothing really special about them.
Maybe if I had read the reviews first (instead of happening on it by walking past while hungry and exclaiming "Peruvian food! yay!"), I would have ordered one of the items others have mentioned as being delicious -- but, as it stands, I was not that impressed.
About 3 years ago, Susan N. and I went to Peru. We had never travelled together before. Heck, we were doing some kind of long-distance friendship for several months before we decided to seal the deal and take a trip together.
And what a trip that was!
Note to future travellers to Peru - take at least 2 weeks because there is too much to see, do, eat and experience to cram into 10 days (which is what we did). I think the experience has made a permanent dent into my memory banks.
One of the things I took away from Peru (other than that bag of...err..."leaves") was the taste and composition of a Pisco Sour.
Since I've been back in NYC, I've been looking for a decent Pisco Sour and many times, I have been disappointed. Until I came here. Armed with my memories, I ordered a round for my dining companions and I and everyone unanimously agreed that this was one tasty drink. I just was glad to be able to taste a little bit of my memory again.
The food here is really good as well - my Aji de Gallina reminded me of a meal I had in a little restaurant in Miraflores. The ceviche was similar to the plates Susan and I devoured everyday we were there and everyone else's dish seemed to please them very much.
I think I would like to come back to Panca, very soon, and keep on chasing those memories. Or just a Pisco Sour.
Panca is a great little neighborhood spot. I haven't yet eaten my way through more than 1/4 of the menu, but based on what I have had, the food is solid by any standard. For this price range, it is very good. As others have noted, ceviche is a strong point and comes in a plethora of interesting options. I haven't really loved preps with pulpo (octopus) because I find the octopus a little tough after being marinated in lime juice, but the white fish preparations are all fantastic. The fish is tender, the ceviche is balanced.
Beef heart anticuchos are also good, very tender, well marinated and well spiced.
Yuca fries are hard to dislike under any circumstance, but here, they are beautiful... worthy of choir music, really. They're not at all greasy, wonderfully crisp on the outside, nice and tender on the inside.
I have liked, but not swooned over my arroz con pollo. The arroz con pata is more complex as a dish and presents a nice mix of flavors. The aji de gallina is stick-to-your ribs, authentic and nicely garlicky.
The algarrobina cocktail is one of the few cocktails I know of that uses egg yolk rather than egg white. The result is a creamy concoction reminiscent of cold eggnog, but just barely sweet, with a hint of cinnamon. Panca makes a good one.
Others have mentioned having service issues. I have personally not encountered any, though I guess it's worth noting that the owner was there each of the four meals I've had there. Wait staff were extremely pleasant, food took a while to come, but we never had an unreasonably long wait, the owner (playing host) accommodated a few of our odd-numbered groups with grace.
Is it destination dining? Probably not unless you really have a hankering for Peruvian and don't want to leave Manhattan. But I'm pretty happy to have this in my neighborhood!
I wanted to eat here - I did. But when you have to spend 10 minutes just trying to get an employee's attention to tell you if they could possibly seat you ... and then when you do manage to flag someone down they act as though you've asked them to explain how to fix the global financial crisis .... well, I give up.
Next restaurant.
I came with a group of friends because we had meant to go to the restaurant next door, but it was packed and I didn't feel like waiting for 20 minutes. I was suspect at first since Panca's was much less busy, but I took a look at the menu and figured why not.
That was the decision of the day...the ceviche tasted so fresh and flavorful. This was the first time I ever enjoyed ceviche. The arroz con pollo isn't as good as Flor De Mayo, but the chicken was nice and moist. The rice was not seasoned enough and tasted a little old though.
While the food is great, the service was terrible. They were very aloof. Besides just taking a long time in general, they were very aloof and at one point, before we even got the main course dishes, they asked us if we were happy with the meal (as if we were done already). We told him we were still waiting and he walked away feeling dumb. It's not even like the restaurant was even crowded at this point which is why I was so shocked.
If the service wasn't so bad, I would give 4 stars.
when i studied abroad in buenos aires, many argentines informed me that if you wanted to eat well, lima was the place to go. i never did get a chance to travel north, but courtesy of my peruvian BFF from college, i eventually tried some cuisine from the motherland a few years back...
one dinner and i was hooked.
therefore, when i saw that a peruvian place had recently opened-up in the WV, i knew i had to try it ... and take my sweet bro along with me since it'd been awhile since we had a hermano/a bonding session. (we had actually wanted to eat here three weeks ago, but happened to be with company that hated seafood - i don't get it either - and it encompasses the majority of the menu.) although we had a choice to dine inside or out, we decided on the former because we had a shit load of bags with us (courtesy of the bro who enjoyed a weekend of outlet shopping).
peruvians are known for their ceviche, but we decided to forgo it so we could focus on the entrees. also, we had seen some of the generous-sized dishes making their way from the kitchen (which was a surprise because we were in a prime downtown location), and ultimately decided to get the red snapper with shrimp (me) and steak (him).
effing amazing! my seafood was succulent, garlicky and super-light (but keep in mind that i didn't eat my white rice) while my bro's beef was tender and accompanied by this savory rice side with onions. true to form, plates were clean at the end of the meal. no dessert because they were out of the tres leches we were craving. no worries - we were pretty satisfied with our meal.
now, you're probably asking: "with such a glowing review, why three stars?" well, that's because service kinda blew...
1) we got like 8 plantain chips in our bowl. when we asked for a refill, we got four more ... and they were stale.
2) we saw our waitress a total of two times - once to take our order and the second to foot us the bill. she did speak to us long enough to tell us she was colombian.
3) it took 98543543 years for our food to come, and there wasn't even a full house to warrant the wait.
not sure if the restaurant's just experiencing growing pains or what, but it's clear that panca needs to get their shit together. such a shame, too, since the food's so damn good.
Panca is excellent. I accidentally happened on this place, and what a gem it turned out to be! I have returned twice since then, and everything has been a solid hit!
Items not to be missed:
- Pisco sours
- Any and all ceviches (especially any with pulpito)
- The 3-way potatoes
- Yuca fries
- Tres Leches (why have I never tried this in my life before?!?!)
Service is friendly, although errs on the non-English speaking side. Great for a small group!
The Tiradito a la Chalaca was excellent. If you like sashimi you will love this.
The Tacu Tacu with Skirt Steak could be improved all around. I asked for medium rare and got well done. The Maracuya Sour (passion fruit sour) was OK. You need to go to Peru to find better.
Service was not great. It seems like there a lot of people working but only one waiter.
The portions seemed small for the price.
I will go back to try their other items.
Why is it that the only people reviewing this restaurant haven't ever eaten there?? Is this proper Yelp etiquette? I'm confused...
When I lived in Lima two summers ago (or winters, from their point of view) I quickly discovered that ALMUERZO - lunch - was the main meal of the day, like in spain. Unlike in Spain, Peruvian food is actually good. Lima is considered to be the foodie capital of South America, because Peruvian chefs serve up SO much more than your typical rice and beans fare. Their food can be divided into two main categories... pescados y mariscos (freshest seafood you'll ever taste) and comida criolla, which is like a crazy delicious mixture of latin american, asian and african flavors (yes i know that encompasses almost the entire world).
Panca's fare represents this wild type of cuisine pretty accurately. It's true that this new incarnation of the restaurant has come a long way from its humble rotisserie chicken and fries beginnings, and while I loved gorging at Pardo's Chicken during 2-hour long almuerzos in Lima, I think the new menu here provides a better variety of classic Peruvian dishes. In fact, i had a hard time coming up with a dish that I'd seen in Peru but wasn't on the menu (maybe tripe? but who wants that...)
Lomo saltado, anticuchos, aji de gallina, ceviche... they seem to have it all. They even get the details right.. for instance, they've got cancha and big Inca corn to accompany the ceviche, and make fruity pisco sours and algorrabina for cocktails. The latter is something I NEVER expected to find outside Peru.
For dessert, just get anything with Lucuma in it. It's a fruit that you won't find in the US, and its Peru's most popular ice cream flavor (yes, right up there with chocolate)
The tuna ceviche is really tops, but the spicy mango guac is what keeps me coming back for more. Also, a very helpful young waiter selected the cucumber margarita and I was sold. The help can be hard to get, so not 5 stars, but the food is definitely worth the time.
A surprisingly good and relatively quiet spot on a loud, crowded stretch of the West Village. Very tasty pisco sours and attentive service. I can't speak to how authentic the Peruvian food is, but I had a creamy quinoa dish that was delicious.
Best sangria i have ever had... ever... in any country - and I am a picky picky bastard.
The food was outstanding. I ordered the chicken soup - forgot the name - but it was amazing. My friends got some fish dish and some chicken dish - all of which were ridiculous. I mean amazing.
The fact that we stumbled across this place after roaming around like idiots up and down 7th avenue is a story in and of itself... one of my best finds ever.
My favorite Peruvian in Manhattan - been there 3 times now.
The ceviches/tiraditos have always been excellent (of the 6-7 I've tried).
Had a couple of their soups this evening for the first time (one was the Chupe de Camarones) and both were delicious.
By comparison: Some (but not all) of the food I had during my only week in Lima was better, but not by much.
My only semi-disappointment there was the Arroz con Pato (Rice/duck) which was a great balance of interesting spices and rich duck meat, but slightly on the dry side.
Excellent food...my first ceviche experience...and because of this place, it won't be my last. I would return on every trip to NY. Vegans would be hard-pressed to find something to eat other than salad and yucca fries. Vegetarians would do a bit better.
Unreal...wonderful!!! Follow what the chef specials~
I was looking for a Peruvian Restaurant and I was on my way to Lima's taste when I stumbled upon this restaurant which had a great Peruvian menu with all the classic dishes I wanted to see. It was a great surprise as we had almost everything including ceviche, causa, anticuchos, aji de gallina, limo saltado, tacu tacu and it was all excellent including the pisco sours. This is a great find also because the prices are very reasonable. The food is just like you what will find in Lima.
Panca's has delicious ceviche, but I think that their entrees are what really shine. The ceviche while good, is a bit small for the price. The entrees on the other hand are both huge and incredibly delicious. I had the lamb shank stew, it was incredible. Panca has an odd vibe going on, the walls are all green, there are a few booths in the back and then tables scattered throughout. The only decorations they have are peruvian cookbooks and bottles of pisco on shelves, they should do something about that. I had one of the booths when I went, which was incredibly comfortable. I would recommend Panca for groups of 2-5, but no larger.
