Prague's Hard Rock Café may have opened just this year, but the American rock 'n' roll-themed restaurant chain had already had a presence here since the early 1990s. That's when tourist-oriented vendors began selling (next to those ubiquitous "Prague: Czech It Out" shirts) Hard Rock Café Prague T-shirts. The joke, of course, as that there was no Hard Rock Café, but that didn't prevent burger-craving tourists from pestering locals about where the Prague branch actually was.
Now, when a group of foreign teenagers asks me where the Hard Rock Café is (a surprisingly frequent request, surpassed only by inquiries about the metro, "The Clock," and – God only knows why – the Wax Museum), there's actually a direction in which I can point them. The Prague Hard Rock Café is located conveniently close to The Clock, on Malé Náměstí.
I can't be the only person who's walked past the new Hard Rock Café and felt a pang of nostalgia. For 150 years, the Dům U Rotta was home to one of the most well-known Czech department stores, a three-story family-owned hardware emporium that was famous for selling just about everything. In the height of the store's success in the 1930s, it carried 70,000 varieties of metal goods, along with electronic appliances, building materials, hockey equipment, and fishing gear. The interior was notable for its light-filled atrium, crowned by a glass and cement cupola – the first of its kind in Czechoslovakia.
The Rott building now has another, more dubious, achievement to add to its list: at 1900 square meters, it houses the largest Hard Rock Café in Europe. The décor is predictably rock-oriented, with rows of glass cases holding the memorabilia the Café is famous for – Bob Dylan's guitar and setlist, for example, or Jimi Hendrix's fringed leather vest, or (not as exciting) a hat and tambourine from local group Žlutý Pes. There are American-style booth seats and flat-screen televisions playing rock music videos, and in the middle of the famous atrium hangs a custom-made 5-meter-long crystal chandelier in the shape of an electric guitar, which sounds ghastly but is actually quite beautiful.
The energy at Hard Rock is kind of frenetic: the music is loud (deafeningly so when there's a live band playing), there are usually lots of customers, and the waiters rush around trying to keep everybody happy. I'm not sure exactly which drug they're giving the servers, by the way, but whatever it is, it seems to be working. Everyone is all smiles, all the time. The joy actually seems to be genuine; on my last visit, I saw a waitress, milkshake in hand, bounce her way down the steps, a big smile on her face as she danced to the thumping rock music.
That sort of thing may be bizarre for Prague, but it's normal for the Hard Rock Café, which prides itself on having replicated the very same menu, style of décor, and standard of service in 140 locations in 36 countries. The food is exactly what you'd expect of an American rock 'n' roll chain restaurant, which is to say it's low on greens and heavy on grease.
In short, don't come here if you're on a diet. You could always order the h
honey citrus grilled chicken salad (290 CZK), of course, but even that lone sort of low-fat dish on the menu comes with blue cheese on top – and besides, you wouldn't get to taste what Hard Rock is all about. The best way to accomplish that is to order the Jumbo Combo (420 CZK), which combines all of the appetizers onto one plate along with various sauces. There are deep-fried chicken tenders with a honey mustard sauce (good, crispy), potato skins with sour cream (dry and flavorless), chicken wings in a spicy "heavy metal" sauce and a blue cheese dip (nice and meaty), onion rings with barbecue sauce (huge), and Mexican-style spring rolls filled with spinach (totally gross). It's like the deep fryer's greatest hits, if you'll forgive the rock-themed pun.
I've written about the Hard Rock Café burger before, and it really is excellent, with ten different varieties and all the proper fixings. But on this visit, I decided to have something new. I went for the hickory-smoked barbecue ribs (390 CZK): 650 grams worth, served whole on the rack with a special knife for separating the ribs so you can pick them up with your fingers and suck off the meat. These were probably the best ribs I've had in Prague (if you don't count the ones made by my friend Steve from Alabama, which are unbeatable). The meat was tender and fell right off the bone, and had a nice smoky flavor. They were served with cole slaw and French fries, along with a side of ranch beans that were, unfortunately, cold.
I could have used an extra napkin or three after those ribs to wipe down my fingers – and my shirt, which had gotten splattered with barbecue sauce during the process. We'd gotten some wet napkins to go with our Jumbo Combo, but now there weren't any to be found, and I hadn't gotten a plate for my rib bones, either. On previous visits, I had found the service at Hard Rock to be stellar, but there were all kinds of problems now: we also waited ages for them to take our plates away, and they didn’t wipe down our table when it was covered in sauce and crumbs.
At least our waiter was super friendly. And besides, if you have a complaint about the service, you can go online to fill out a survey after your meal and get $5 off your next visit. How very American – and appropriately so.
Hard Rock Café
Dům U Rotta
Malé Náměstí 3
Praha 1 - Old Town
map
Tel.: 224 229 529
Open Mon-Sun 11:30AM - 01:00AM
photographs 1, 4, 5, 6 Jindřich Mynařík for Lidové noviny; all others hardrock.com
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 14/11/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Restaurant Review: Hard Rock Café
Monday, October 19, 2009
Restaurant Review: U Emy Destinnové
It seldom seems to happen – in this country, anyway – that a restaurant's best asset is its kitchen. Lots of places are long on atmosphere, and nowadays you can even count on reasonably good service at most higher-end restaurants. But good chefs are still few and far between.
One of the exceptions is U Emy Destinnové, whose owner and head chef Steven Trumpfheller outclasses both his restaurant's location and its waitstaff. His menu is eclectic but not unfocused, a mix of mostly American and Italian-style classics.
I just can't g
et over the pumpkin risotto (180 CZK) I had there the other night. Creamy without being too heavy, the dish was a perfect balance of flavors. That was also because of one other crucial addition: bacon, fried to near crispiness (this is an American chef, after all, who knows how to cook his bacon) and folded into the risotto in small pieces. The fact is that bacon will make more or less any dish taste better – I recently sampled some bacon-flavored chocolate, and I loved it – but in the risotto, combined with the pumpkin's distinctive sweetness and the sharp tang of Parmesan, it was a truly inspired combo.
I couldn't say as much for U Emy Destinnové's interior design. Before the restaurant's recent renovation, it had a quirky, old-fashioned living room feel to it, with lots of strange knickknacks and some ratty gray couches left over from its previous incarnation as Czech restaurant JB Club. The getup felt a bit inappropriate for the food, to be sure, so a refurb was definitely in order. Now, the place has been tidied up and the couches have been reupholstered, but it's lost some of its charm. The beige walls are a little drab, and the maroon-colored runners over the tables feel out of date, like something you'd find in an old hotel restaurant in Communist-era Czechoslovakia.
On my second visit, there was a massive group dinner taking up the whole of the large front room (U Emy Destinnové offers several banquet menus), so my friends and I were seated in the little room in the back. That would have been perfectly cozy if we hadn't been within spitting distance of the bathrooms – they were separated from us by a partition wall, but every time someone left the toilet door open we were washed over by a familiar, unpleasant aroma. Because there was no self-closing mechanism on the bathroom doors, one of us would have to get up and shut them ourselves – and I don't especially like playing toilet porter on an evening out to dinner.
Then there was the problem of the lights being too dim, making it hard to read the menu and see the food properly. And although live piano music is a nice idea, this particular piano player didn't really do it for me. His style was aggressive and unpleasant, not fading gently into the background as it should have, but overriding our conversation. Moreover, he had a creepy habit of staring directly at me and my female friend for long periods of time as he played.
During earlier, pre-renovation visits to U Emy Destinnové, I remember being bowled over by the service. This time, it wasn't bad by any means – particularly on my first visit, when the waiter was impressively on point – but it did occasionally seem slightly amateurish. During the first evening, the server eagerly told us what dishes they had available as specials, but on the second, I had to ask if they had any specials before he thought to tell us. And I found their rattling off of all the aperitifs they had on offer (even when we had already declined) a little annoying.
Still, I was impressed with how timely the service was, even with that massive group in the front room. I had been dismayed when we first walked in that night – usually, kitchens get overwhelmed by the demands of the banquet and the timing of the smaller tables' meals suffers. But everything came out at just the right moment, and they even found the opportunity to show us the lamb and swordfish they had on special that night.
I had the swordfish in the form of a carpaccio (215 CZK), and it was great – fresh, beautifully sliced, and arranged around a small salad with capers and cherry tomatoes. They have a thing for raw meat here, with three kinds of carpaccio (including bison carpaccio with dried figs and pecorino cheese, 215 CZK), a lamb tartare, and often a couple of additional types of carpaccio on the specials list. But there are other tasty appetizers, too, such as the deep-fried calamari, zucchini, and lemon (155 CZK) or the wild French duck breast with blackberry port wine demi-glaze (175 CZK).
There are a lot of originals here, and having seen the same dishes over and over again on local menus, I can appreciate the ingenuity – especially when it comes out right. The golden capon chicken served over sweet corn relish (230 CZK) was tender and juicy, with browned, crispy skin, and its mildly creamy sweet corn sauce was a nice little bit of Americana to go with it. Paired with some fluffy garlic mashed potatoes (65 CZK), this was real soul food.
So, the American in the basement of famous Czech opera singer Ema Destinnová's birth house can really cook. I'm not totally convinced by his baking (the Philadelphia cheesecake, 105 CZK, had a very soggy crust), but I only managed to sample one dessert. The portions are big, and the prices are remarkably decent. I would urge you to give U Emy Destinnové a chance. Even if a few of the other elements are a little out of place, the food is definitely worth it.
U Emy Destinnové
Kateřinská 7
Praha 2 - Nové Město
map
Tel.: 224 918 425
Open Mon-Fri 11:30-23:30, Sat 18:00-23:30. Closed Sunday.
images 1, 2, 6 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others uemydestinnove.cz
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 03/10/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Food news: Where to have Thanksgiving in Prague
Fear not, turkey-loving Americans: Prague has plenty of places where you can get your fill of Thanksgiving this Thursday.
If you want to eat your holiday dinner at home (but don't want to cook it yourself), Bakeshop will be selling Thanksgiving to go. They'll be making fresh turkey caramelized with dark beer, Italian sausage and bread stuffing, parmesan roasted butternut squash and more, all for 800 CZK per kilo. Pick up a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau while you're there, too.
Bohemia Bagel in Holešovice will be having an all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffet for 490 CZK per person starting at 7 pm, and Jáma is celebrating
For those who want to get all fancy-like, Allegro will be serving something along the lines of Thanksgiving dinner, and Hilton's CzecHouse and the Mandarin Oriental's Essensia will have holiday menus as well.
Reservations are strongly recommended for all of the above restaurants. Happy gobbling!
images: countryliving.com
