Ceská Kuchyné

I put on some notable weight during my week in Prague. Pheeew! Seriously! From the previous trip, I remember the food having been sort of greasy and short on vegetables. This still exists, but nowadays Prague is blooming with all kinds of international kitchens. Czechs themselves even still don't seem to be so keen on fresh and green stuff.

Ceská Kuchyné - the traditional
I wanted to reminiscence the traditional way of dining the local way. My friends Johanna and Anar took me on my first day to very very local place. The name of the restaurant is Ceská Kychyné aka. Czech Kitchen. It is reallt reasonably priced funny place in downtown Prague. In this place you can find full menu including drinks for the price of main course in any other neighboring restaurant. But you need a local to accompany you if you don't speak the language.

When you enter the restaurant through a little swing gate, you are given this small piece of paper. This you have to give to the personnel on each service point and they'll mark down code for your choices. All the menus are written on the wall in czech only, so at that point a native will prove handy. Othervise your choice is to point at one of various brown sauces and take your chances with it. Depends totally on your taste, if you think you won with some internal organ sauce or not. And anyhow, one shouldn't be too judgmental, it might turn out to be delicious, no matter what it's made out of, right?

Meat sauce and potatoes and THE first beer lurking on the background.

So basically, you go through all this stations and select your stuff and finally settle down to savour it. When done, you should head back to the entrance and hand out your piece of paper with all those codes to the cashier.

In my opinion this was a nice place to eat. The space seems airy and light and definitely not too posh. Nice local touch that gives an impression of history. And food is okay, even if missing the fresh touches. My choices were not very adventurous and I went along with the recommendations of my friends. No complaints, belly full and girl happy.

Hermelin - the traditional
This is something everybody that visits the area has to taste, if maybe only once, but nonetheless. It's a strange phenomenon. A very greasy cheese which lies tastevise somewhere near "Camembert meeting goat cheese". Quite all right in small portions. The marinated one is THE traditional version of it, but you get it also grilled and breadcrusted variations of it.

Marinated Hermelin cheese

In general the Czechs seem to just love their cheeses. In every restaurant you find multiple different variouations and combinations. But rest assured, you will need a wheelcart to roll your belly out of the joint no matter which one you choose. Cheese really stocks you up. No need to consider eating for the rest of the day =)

El Centro and Cantina in Mala Strana - international

After some explorations on the local kitchen I set my sights to the international side. Had couple of real nice experiences!

First of them was this seemingly small Spanish place on Maltézské Námesti. El Centro. I was drawn to it just by the very cheery and colorful exterior of it. Bright red, blue and yellow invited me in and I found out that the place is ways bigger than I first thought, and that they also had this beautiful and peaceful garden on the backyard. 

My firend Nina in the garden.

Food is very good in El Centro. I really have to boast about this garlic&Serrano ham soup that they serve. I swallowed my tongue with it, really. So badly, that I went back on another day and ordered it again. Delicious and rich with some brilliantly fresh bread to go with it. Yummy!

Garlic and Serrano ham soup.

Another dining experience that I can warmly recommend to everybody is restaurant Cantina at Ujezd 38. It is a very popular place. We walked past it on one afternoon and I thought that dishes looked fresh and good. So we decided to dine there and went back on a hidious rainy evening in the middle of week and got the last seats available. Lots of people came after us and were turned away, because it was just full. So a reservation would be a sure bet.

Cantina serves enormous portions of very straightforward Mexican food. Enchiladas, burritos, tortillas, you name it. Simple and at the same time rich. And simply huge, too huge, but you cannot stop eating because it's just so good.

Conclusion

Czech kitchen is interesting, but nowadays Prague has really turned out to be a melting pot of various international kitchens. So one can really eat well and versatile there. And even outside the immediate turist traps you can find menus in English. So go there and plunge in! Recommended ***