This blog is not dead - Luka lu and some personal stuff

This restaurant has been a favorite of ours ever since it opened. We mostly find ourselves there when we have a family celebration or when there is a larger party of us. Funny, but we never go there when there is just the two of us. What makes this restaurant so popular is the consistent quality of food and flexible service, it doesn’t pose a problem for them to assemble assorted plates of food for the whole table and they will easily adjust any dish according to the customer’s wish. The interior is a bit cramped, but there is a certain charm to it and their garden is beautiful.
This time we were there for another family celebration.

The usual bread and spreads arrived. I love their white bread, I could it eat all the time.
We ordered appetizers for the table.

Grilled calamari. This is a crowd pleaser and we always order this, these were fresh, moist and very good.

This is the assorted appetizer platter with a double portion of grilled peppers. The cured ham is very good, it’s soft and moist, not one of those overly dry hams you would get elsewhere. The cheeses are quite forgettable. Grilled, marinated peppers are one of my all time favorite foods. I make them at home all the time in season. Too bad they don’t serve any salty feta-like cheese with them, but otherwise they’re delicious.

Lamb sausages, another popular dish. Juicy, savory sausages go very well with the grilled peppers and the fluffy, soft bread.

The main courses:

Grilled dorade (sea bream) – I don’t know where they get these small sea breams, the ones sold in shops around town are much bigger. This was as good as it always is - moist and flaky. I bet that sea bream and the seabass are the two most popular fishes in this restaurant and I must admit that we never order other fish. It’s always fresh and perfectly cooked.

Grilled lamb chops – they could be a tad softer, but still these are better than many of the lamb chops you’ll get elsewhere.

Lamb sač (pod pekom) – this is another big favorite. The tender chunks of slow cooked meat, stewed with potatoes and carrots melt in your mouth. But this time the dish needed a good pinch of salt. Next to the lamb is the šopský salat, it is quite big and costs only 65 crowns, it’s one of the best value šopský salads I know of. Most importantly they don’t skimp on cheese and the tomatoes in their salads are edible all year round.

Seafood risotto – it tasted rather of cream than of tomato and was a bit too dry, although it doesn't look like it. There was plenty of seafood, mostly small prawns and squid and 3 big mussels. It was flavorful but there are better seafood risottos in Prague.

We were too full to fit in desserts.

I wouldn’t call this place cheap, but most of the dishes are reasonably priced. Add this to the considerably “expensive” location and you will realize that the ROI ratio is very reasonable. What I don’t like is the fact that they serve German mineral water in big bottles, local Mattoni is readily available and I do not appreciate these widely spread attempts to make money out of nothing. We can always ask for imported water if we want some. What we do like is their house wine and the wide choice of fruit spirits.

*** It's been more than a month since I posted for the last time. The reason for it was the fact that I wasn't too keen on food in the last 3 months. There are certain changes going on in my body that prevented me from eating most stuff except Mcdonald's, apples, kefir and crackers...if you know what I mean ;-) I couldn't look at food, I couldn's smell food and I couldn't cook food. Poor husband had to cook himself and eat in the bedroom sometimes. But now it seems that I'm beginning to feel fine and so this blog is alive again, at least until late August :-)

ThaiOishi

We stopped by at this new Thai restaurant when we arrived to Prague from our holiday yesterday, to grab some takeaway food. Our flight was 4 hours late due to the weather and we weren’t in the mood for shopping and cooking.
The place is rather small, only 7 tables for about 20 people. It’s a non smoking restaurant and has free wifi, the place is clean and not kitschy.
The drink prices are quite unique for Prague - 15kc for a small Aquila or Mattoni and 30kc for a 0,75l bottle. They have Holba beer on tap, a big glass is only 22 kc and it’s very very good. This is the second place in Prague that I know of that serves this beer, Bukanýr being the other one. There was one friendly waiter/manager whose English was much better than Czech and another customer having a meal when we came in.

The placemats on the tables caught my attention. They depicted and described some of the most famous Thai dishes and their main ingredients. A label on the placemats said that they were produced by the Thailand ministry of commerce.
Our food took about 20 minutes to arrive, it came neatly packed, complete with the bill. We paid and headed back home.

I appreciated the “double packaging” (in a plastic bag or in alfoil and in a plastic container). I know it's not environmentally responsible, but nothing spilled on the way home and it was still warm after a 15 minute drive a 5 minute walk.

The tom kha kung soup was very good, bursting with flavor and not to hot, but I did skim off some of the fat before eating. It did not contain cherry tomatoes like some varieties in Prague do, but had lots of oyster mushrooms instead. There were 3 medium sized prawns. Tom kha kung, 75kc.

The green curry with pork was alright, although the meat could have been more tender and I like a curry with more vegetables, this one only had bamboo. But the sauce itself was very tasty with a medium heat factor. See those kaffir leaves? Not a common sight is it? Kaeng kiaw wan moo, 130kc.

I don’t eat eggs so we ordered the pad thai kung minus the eggs. I thought it was a tad too dry, this was because it wasn’t mixed very well. Half of it stuck together in a clump while the other half had just the right balance between noodles, peanuts and bean sprouts. It wasn’t too sweet and we actually liked it. Pad thai kung, 150kc.

The chicken dish was rather unremarkable, it had no taste whatsoever and I do not recommend ordering it. It had a Čínské bistro feeling to it. Kai kra tiam, 130kc.

Husband doesn’t really fancy hot food so he ordered a miso soup for himself from the Japanese menu. It was a decent classic miso with tofu and seaweed. Misoshiru, 45kc.
The rice was very fragrant but a little clumpy. It was 30kc per serving.

The total bill was 649kc, together with 2 beers and one small Aquila. No charge for the packaging.
I didn’t study the Japanese menu any deeper, it’s all online on the restaurant’s web. I don't really trust Japanese food in non-Japanese restaurants, but I may be wrong.There are no translations in the online menu which is a major flaw IMHO, the printed menu in the restaurant has Czech and English descriptions.
The restaurant also offers delivery, but the website does not specify the conditions and whether this service is free or not. ThaiOishi is located almost next door to a new Indian restaurant called Curry House. Their websites look very alike and the close by location may indicate that the restaurants are affiliated.
We enjoyed some of the food, the prices are decent and we might take advantage of the delivery in the future. This isn’t the best Thai restaurant in Prague but if you’re in that area it’s definitely worth checking out.

Milléme pâtisserie boulangerie café

About once or twice a month I make my way to Jířího s Poděbrad, for work. When I do, I almost always stop by at Aromi la Bottega, but this time I was going to visit a nearby French style bakery called Milléme. Brewsta, whom I’m a huge fan of, wrote up a review on this place and I wanted to visit it for ages. I was quite busy and so I just grabbed a few things to take home.

The selection wasn't as big as I expected but the stuff looked very good. I was surprised to see macarons!

Tahiti (59kc)

My favourite probably. The cream has a very pronounced and refreshing qumquat flavour. The spongecake is fluffy and very good.

Noisette (69kc)

No pastry here, it's a combination of two very delicate creams, almost like a souffle.

Chocoline (59kc)

Soft layers of sponge cake and a very light chocolate cream. Nice.

Apple tart (40kc)

Crispy, and thin pastry on the bottom and lots of thin apple slices. The apples were soft but not mushy and kept their shape well, which is always good. It had just the right amount of cinammon and was not too sweet.

6 different mini macarons (140kc)

They were alright, not the best I've ever eaten. Some of them may have sat around for too long, but the pink and green ones were delicious. They only offered packages of macarons, not individual ones.

I haven't seen any regular cakes (big ones) on offer, the selection is limited to individual sized desserts, fruit tarts and puff pastries. Milléme also offers French style breads and baguettes, sandwiches, quiches and other savoury stuff for takeaway. The eat in menu offers salads, ommelets and other small dishes. The prices range significantly. A chocolate and nut slice of some kind that costed 59kc stood next to one that looked almost the same but costed 99kc. A medium sized baguette costs 28kc and it looked very appetizing. Breads cost around 50-70kc.

Everything I bought was very good and totally worth the prices, I was even surprised it wasn't more expensive. I would recommend their desserts to anyone. However, I haven't tried anything from the regular menu.

Mussel night in Vozovna Stromovka

I don't like writing negative stuff and I avoid it at all cost when it's avoidable. This time it’s not and the bad thing is that I actually liked this place before. The place has major organization problems it must adress as soon as possible. There were only 2 waiters, but the place is not that big! There was also a gentleman in a white shirt wandering around and looking very important, something like a manager probably. I’ll come back to him later.

It all started the very moment we came in. I have reserved a table about 3 weeks ago, but they had no note of our reservation. I’ve made the reservation via email and got a confirmation. They looked in the computer and in the diary, our name wasn’t there. They were apologetic and reacted promptly by bringing in a table and 2 chairs from outside. BTW the place was fully booked; if they hadn’t come up with bringing in the table, we would have been turned away. The furniture is hard plastic and it’s obvious that the chairs were ice cold for another 30 minutes, I had to sit on my jacket. The waiter seated us, smiled and walked away not to return for 15 minutes. He hasn’t given us menus, hasn’t taken our orders, nothing. Husband walked to the bar and got us the menus. About 10 minutes after that the smiley and actually quite pleasant waiter came along and took our orders. We ordered 2 different Belgian beers, 2 kinds of mussels, French fries and 3 oysters.

Do you see the menu above? It quoted the prices for 1, 3 and 6 oysters, just as the official menu I was sent did. We’re absolutely not into oysters and just wanted to sample 2 pieces for the sake of it. But our waiter promptly told us that we could only order 3 or 6. He couldn’t answer why they quoted the price for singular oysters. We were “forced” to order 3. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not about money, it’s about the principle.

We waited and waited for our beers. A woman with a teenage boy and a baby that came in after us and who was obviously friends with the “manager” was served food earlier than we were served our drinks!!! We arrived at 7 p.m. and were served our first beers at 7.45 p.m, I’m not joking. Husband wanted to get up and leave, but knowing how much I wanted the mussels he stepped on his pride.

The beer was alright and although pricy (at 49-55kc for ¼ litre) we kinda enjoyed it. I think they only had those 3 Belgian beers on tap this night, I haven’t seen anyone drinking any other kind of beer.

The oysters were served on a spectacular plate with pebbles. As I said, we’re not really into oysters, but I quite liked those. They were meaty and smelled good, I ate the two of them. Husband still hates oyster BTW. The menu said that these were Belon oysters. Belon oysters are a delicacy and expensive, because the French AOC standard says that they should only be harvested in a certain region along the Belon river. Was this the case here? I don’t know, but hey were round like Belon oysters should be, and not oval like the usual oysters.

The mussels, steamed in wine and steamed in Leffe beer.
There was lots of them, probably more than the ½ kg quoted in the menu. So there are plus points for the portion size. They were very fresh, plus points for that too. But, the majority of them was half raw!!! We felt like idiots. I mean, I have eaten mussels for dozens, maybe hundreds of times but I’ve never been to Belgium and so I thought that maybe this is the way they are eaten there. For me, a mussel should be fully open, the majority of those was only half open and their shells were so brittle that it was a real problem opening them up without cutting yourself. They were slimy inside and you could not peel them away from the shell in one piece, they tore apart, revealing their slimy and unattractive guts. I thought that they were tasty, but something was terribly wrong with the texture.

As I looked around, I saw several other people showing each other the opened mussels and shaking their heads while wondering whether this is right. Husband ate about 10 or 12 of them, proclaimed them disgusting and stuck to the fries. I kept eating the mussels, picking out those that were more or less cooked. Yeah, I’m desperate. I still regret not having made a photo of one of the partially raw mussels. What a horrible waste of good quality raw material. It is necessary to mention that the place is obviously owned by the same owner as the Les Moules restaurant. The name means mussels and it’s a fairly upscale Belgian beer restaurant specializing in mussels. Funny, huh?

Oh, the fries were great! Crispy on the outside and soft inside. The mustardy mayo was good too.

There was a number of other very annoying things, like the fact that we weren’t served bowls for empty shells, napkins, bowls of lemon water, we got the first two after we asked but never got the latter. Most other tables had to ask for those things too. The staff constantly forgot to bring us our drinks and had very stupid excuses for it. We weren’t asking for any excuses but the waiter felt that he had to comment on the missing beer with “Oh, I draught it but I forgot for whom it was! Hahaha” WTF? Just say “Sorry, I forgot about your order.”

But, what about the guy in the white shirt? He constantly kept returning to the table with the woman, the teenager and the baby. He asked them if everything was alright for at least 5 times, but totally and absolutely ignored the other 10 tables. He kept walking in and out from somewhere in the back and even though he clearly saw that the waiters had a hard time doing their job, he never helped them.

Now, I know this is all our fault. We should have complained about the service, sent back the food etc etc, but when it comes to it I’m always too shy to do it, as are most people around me. This is utterly and absolutely wrong and it’s about time we start doing something about this attitude of ours. I hereby promise to send back the next overcooked steak or non aldente pasta I get at a restaurant!

At least it wasn’t an expensive dinner. The mussels were 145kc each and if they had been good it would have been a major bargain.

But will I ever return for a thematic dinner at this place? Never!

Il Gattopardo

The place is operated by the owner of A Putia, a Sicilian specialty shop which is located opposite the restaurant, so clearly it’s a restaurant specializing in Sicilian cuisine.
It’s quite spacious, and has seating for about 50 people, but might easily host a party for 70 if more chairs were brought in. It’s decorated with photos of scenes from Il Gattopardo movie, generally the décor is a bit eclectic, but not bad.

We were the first customers, we came at about 11.45. We were waited by a nice Italian gentleman, service is a bit slow but attentive. He handed us the menus and informed us that we could order from special menu only, it was the lunch menu for this week. This special menu offered 2 antipasto dishes (prosciutto and bruschetta), 4 pasta dishes and 4 meat dishes (2 pork, 1 chicken and 1 beef). All dishes in this menu ranged from 110czk to 170czk, which is acceptable IMHO.

The main menu is quite extensive and also fairly priced, I will post some photos of the menu at the end of this post because the restaurant has no website. They also have a monthly special wine offer with 5 wines about 100-150czk cheaper than the regular price. There are wines around the 250czk mark but also some much more expensive ones. They also offer a wide variety of Italian drinks, including 6 kinds of Italian beer, soft drinks, mineral waters etc. I was pleased to see that they also offer the more decently priced Czech Korunní water, a thing not too common in places like this, where you end up ordering stuff like San Pellegrino and Aqua Panna.
We were after some pasta and so mom ordered tagliatelle with artichokes, chicken and cream (130czk), I ordered the lasagna (110czk) and we also ordered the tuna bruschettino (120czk) to share.

Mom’s tagliatelle were very good. They were clearly made from fresh pasta, not my favourite in Prague restaurants because it often comes out too soft and overcooked, these ones were perfectly al dente. There was a perfect amount of sauce, and although it needed some salt, it was very tasty and delicate. The chicken meat was not roasted, it was “pulled” and added a nice texture to the dish.

My lasagna was equally good, if not better. The photo is not too appetizing, in fact, it looks plain bad to say the least :)) The ragú had a pronounced meat flavor with a perfect amount of tomatoe. It looks like a small piece, but believe me, it was so rich that this smallish piece was more than enough.

The bruschettino was a bit odd IMHO. The huge piece of bread was smeared with some tuna paste that tasted very "sharp", it clearly contained tuna, onion and vinegar. On top of that there were small pieces of mozzarella, tuna, tomatoes and capers. The taste of the paste was very intensive and I’m not sure if I liked it. It’s probably an acquired taste.
We had espresso after the meal, it was extremely strong, it least for us. I’m not a big coffee drinker and felt like I drank 3 redbulls afterwards.

If you are looking for a fast lunch I suggest you get there later than we did, we waited almost 45 minutes for our food. People that came later were served faster, the kitchen must have started to fully operate by then, as I said, we were the first customers.

There is no other place in the area that serves such good pasta.

Next time we will sample some antipasti, meat and fish dishes from the regular menu. Generally, I thought that it was a nice spot and I would go back for the lasagna any time.

Sorry for the lousy photos, I still can’t get used to making photos in the dark.
Here are some pages from the menu, I think it looks interesting although a bit too extensive.

No matter how hard I look I simply can’t find the function with which the photos can be opened full size in a new window. The menu must be difficult to read in this size. Can anyone help me with that?? :-)

Letenská husa, Hvězda and Lokal

St Martin’s wine is available from 11 November, but we didn’t have the time to go out for dinner or wine tasting somewhere. We took advantage of a Sunday off.
This St Martin's wine trend trend that came out from nowhere is amazing. Following the tradition of Beaujolais Nouveau Czech wine makers decided to give it a go and make this into a full scale wine festival. Restaurants caught on quick, more and more of them offering goose specialties and St. Martin’s wine. It’s a marketing trick from A to Z but it works well.
But why are geese eaten during St Martin’s day? My Culinaria Germany book says that geese gave out St Martin’s hiding place by squeaking and so during this saint’s day geese’s necks were wringed and the geese eaten. A bloody habit…
Not having eaten any goose during the St Martin’s festival we decided to check out the Letenská husa in the agricultural museum. It’s a small presentation of young St. Martin’s wines and some thematic food.

Unfortunately, there was no goose! Only duck, and it wasn’t particularly cheap. I thought that 160czk for a leg of duck was quite a lot, regarding the fact that there was no seating and the food was served on plastic plates. We decided that it was not worth the money. It always amazes me how inflexible some vendors are, they sell klobasa for 40czk or duck legs for 160czk. Why not sell duck paté or picked duck meat in sandwiches etc.??? But it's always either the cheap stuff or the expensive stuff, nothing in between. 160czk is simply way too much money to spend on stánek food and I don’t think I saw anyone actually buying or eating the duck.

We turned our attention towards the stall with ostrich meat.

This is an ostrich steak. I never had ostrich before and thought it was interesting. The meat was juicy although too salty, it had this slight metal flavor (like blood) and tasted like something between beef, pork and lamb. I didn’t think it was well prepared but if it’s cooked and seasoned properly it might be a delicacy. This piece cost around 80czk which is fine but, I found it appalling that they charged 5czk for every serving of ketchup, mustard and bread. They’re incredible, these people! When will they learn?? I've been charged 5, 10 and even 45czk for single serve ketchup packets, but never for ketchup and mustard out of 10 litre plastic containers. OMG
We bought some Černá hora beer for my dad in law, he collects beer stickers, his collection holds more than 3000 pieces now. We bought just one bottle of rosé wine, we’re not into St Martin’s wine. It's all about the hype, not about the wine.

We also had a potato pancake with garlic and smoked pork. The pancakes were prepared in advance. Upon order the lady and her little helper put some minced garlic and smoked meat inside the pancake, folded it and grilled it on the griddle with some lard. It was tasty! The pork lard on the pic below is ours. Pork lard with škvarky is one of my many guilty pleasures, it's simple irresistable on a piece of warm dark bread.

Some koláčky. We had quite a few and they were delicious.

We had a nice walk in Hvězda park afterwards.

And then we headed to Lokal. I will not go into much detail about this place, it has been discussed by many before. It’s a spectacular place, I never thought that Dahab (the restaurant that occupied this space before) was that big. It’s HUGE. Even if all the tables would have been occupied it still would feel kinda empty. It was fairly dark inside, not good for photos.
I had boiled beef with horseradish sauce and bread dumplings. I now know that I’m no horseradish sauce fan :) IMHO the horseradish flavor is very weak and the sauce is floury, milky and bland. I’ve tried horseradish omáčka for a couple of times before and it’s probably just not my thing, because the people sitting at the table next to us said that the sauce was finger-licking good and better than their grandmother's. The beef was cooked perfectly and the dumplings were some of the best I had.

Husband’s fried cheese with tar tar sauce was very good. Wow, husband had a vegetarian dinner ;-) It was not greasy at all. He ordered a cucumber salad to go with it, it was a classic Czech style grated cucumber salad with a sweet and sour dressing, very refreshing.

The beer is exceptional here, one of the best in Prague. I really liked how stylish the place is. The curtains, the wall painting (I mean the green flowers) and other stuff, it all looks like the hospoda in the village where our weekend house is :)

We will be going back for sure to sample more items and to have some more of that great beer. I can’t wait to try the Svíčkova in Lokal. Service was exeptionally good. The barman (or rather the beerman) eagerly answered our questions about the beer system inhouse and he even admitted that the spectacular cooling spirals served a mere decorational purpose. The other staff was very friendly and helpful too.

Big thumbs up for Lokal!