The Prague Spoon: Independent restaurant reviews by Prague's most opinionated eater: Mediterranean

Showing posts with label Mediterranean. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Restaurant Review: Mirellie

It's not hard to see why the most-asked question about Mirellie is whether or not it's affiliated with the popular restaurant chain Kogo. All you have to do is open their menu.

Anyone familiar with Kogo's offerings will experience a little déjà vu at Mirellie. The divisions between dishes are the same and in the same order – starters, fish starters, soups, pastas, risottos, etc. – and many of the dishes themselves are word-for-word copies. Plus, just like at Kogo, the selection is enormous.

The difference is in the prices. At Kogo Slovanský Dům, the grilled roast beef with arugula and parmesan cheese goes for 310 CZK. The same dish at Mirellie costs 135 CZK. At Kogo, a simple plate of linguine with olive oil, garlic and shrimps will set you back 295 CZK. Mirellie charges 165 CZK. A fish soup at Kogo? 210 CZK. Mirellie's is priced at 90 CZK.

No, Mirellie is not affiliated with Kogo. At least some of its owners, however, are former Kogo employees, and it seems they've decided to beat their fellow countrymen-restaurateurs at their own game (both Kogo's and Mirellie's proprietors are from the former Yugoslavia): serving a large range of Mediterranean classics in a modestly upscale atmosphere.

Mirellie's location on a quiet Bubeneč street used to be home to the Asian fusion restaurant Monsoon, and not much has changed in terms of the décor. The dining area is separated into upstairs and downstairs sections, the walls and furniture various shades of brown, grey and beige. The upper space has a bar, a couple of leather couches, and a flat-screen TV; the tables down below are adjacent to the kitchen and toilets. Unfortunately, the non-smoking section is in the far less pleasant downstairs area – a decision that makes sense in terms of its proximity to the kitchen, but continues the city's depressing trend of giving priority to smokers.

Since it opened at the beginning of this year, Mirellie has gained quite a few regular customers. Some of them might be neighborhood diners looking for a decent place to eat – Bubeneč and Dejvice are still low on quality restaurants, and one of the few comparable upper-scale Italian options, Da Emanuel, is very much on the expensive side. Other patrons are former fans of Kogo who have become disillusioned with its constant price hikes and are willing to travel out of the center to get their Yugo-pasta fix.

I count myself as one of the latter. I don't want to mislead anybody; I'm still a big fan of Kogo's, and for years, their restaurants have been some of the most consistently high-quality spots in town. But Kogo is now the kind of place I can't eat in very often without feeling guilty about the money I'm spending.

So on my first visit to Mirellie, naturally, I ordered my favorite Kogo dish: the tagliatelle with arugula and shrimp. At Kogo, this would have set me back 285 CZK; here, it was a mere 170 CZK. But the Mirellie version wasn't as good as Kogo's. The pasta seemed a little dry, as if there wasn't enough sauce or the sauce wasn't especially flavorful. The shrimp, however, were plentiful and perfectly cooked (on a recent Kogo Slovanský Dům visit, the shrimp had been way too soft), as was the pasta, so I was pretty happy overall.

And there were some real delights: a huge portion of bean soup (60 CZK), loaded with the musky aroma of smoked bacon; a small grilled sea bass (290 CZK), so fresh it still tasted of the ocean, served whole but deboned. One of the weekly specials, a lobster salad (260 CZK), could only be described as a fabulous deal. Almost anywhere else, you don't even get to smell a lobster for under 300 CZK. Here, there was a solid half-lobster, several shrimp, and a generous amount of garden salad in a creamy, Russian-style dressing (I didn't get to taste another intriguing special, the polenta with porcini mushrooms, because it wasn't available on either of my visits).

It's certainly not the quantity of food that Mirellie's saving its money on; my pizza Vegetariana (129 CZK) was so big it spilled over the edges of a large dinner plate. It had a thin, cripsy crust and was topped with marinated bell peppers, (undercooked) eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, and kalamata olives. I got half of it wrapped up to go. The grilled octopus with beans and leek (160 CZK) was another large dish, even for an appetizer, with lots of gently browned octopus. I suspected the beans had come out of the can, but they still tasted good. When you've got over two hundred dishes on the menu, I guess you have to cut corners somewhere.

I didn't have any dessert on either of my visits – I was too full, and besides, the dessert options seemed to be limited to the frozen Bindi cakes and profiteroles that so many other restaurants and cafés carry.

The service at Mirellie can be a little slow and forgetful sometimes (on one evening, two of us never got any napkins), and, at other times, a little too eager to clean up plates and pour out Mattoni bottles. I also didn't like that we were charged for bread (10 CZK each for a pizza dough-type roll) even if we didn't eat it. Were we expected to take it home?

Mirellie is destined to be compared to Kogo. People like me will come in and order their usual Kogo dish and will end up either disappointed or pleasantly surprised. But for all the similarities between the two restaurants, the newer one really is doing its own thing, and doing it well. Soon enough, perhaps, guests won't even think to ask about the connection. They'll just appreciate Mirellie for what it is.

Mirellie
V.P. Čkalova 14
Praha 6 – Bubeneč
Tel.: 222 959 999

Open Mon-Sun 11:00-23:00

photographs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 Tomáš Krist for Lidové noviny; all others mirellie.cz

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 22/08/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Restaurant Review: Oliva

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 26/04/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.

What happened to Oliva?

A year ago, I gave this cozy Prague 2 Mediterranean restaurant a great review. The food was honest, the service intimate and friendly, and the prices more than fair. When friends asked me for restaurant recommendations, I’d name Oliva as one of the few dependable mid-scale restaurants in the city.

Recently, after a long hiatus, I ate two meals there. The first was passable; the second was miserable. I wish I’d sent my friends someplace else.

Oliva is owned and run by a Slovak couple, Peter and Svetlana Červenka. After racking up some gastronomical experience in Vienna and Berlin, they realized their dream of opening a restaurant in Prague by taking over the space vacated by Le Bistrot de Marlène two years ago. Mr. Červenka used to work as a waiter for restaurants Pravda and Kampa Park, and he and his wife now serve most of their customers themselves. The personal attention is in accordance with their vision of Oliva as a casual neighborhood restaurant with good-quality food at decent prices. Unfortunately, the Červenkas seem to have forgotten some of their original intentions.

To those familiar with the typical life cycle of Prague restaurants, Oliva’s decline isn’t much of a mystery. We’ve seen it happen again and again: a new restaurant opens up and the owners try their very best. They take pride in their cuisine, and they smile a lot at their customers.

But after gaining a few good reviews and a regular flow of patrons, they become complacent. Maintaining a consistent level of quality hardly seems necessary now that the restaurant has made a name for itself. If we cut a few corners, they think, no one will notice.

Well, I certainly did -- and I can’t be the only one. It’s not hard to figure out that an entrée advertised as stewed chicken with fresh fig sauce (270 CZK) should probably include fresh figs in one form or another. It didn’t. The sauce might have had some traces of dried fig in it, but it was so watery and flavorless that it was impossible to tell. The chicken was pretty tasteless too, and on the dry side.

I would have expected the accompanying gnocchi to be homemade. But no, these potato dumplings were the same ones you’d find in Billa’s cold foods section, packaged in plastic and sporting a two- to three-month expiration window.

The source of the pan-seared foie gras (235 CZK) was similarly questionable. Where could they have possibly found this lumpy, vein-y, unevenly-textured mess of a duck liver? And if good-quality foie is a little too expensive for Oliva’s menu, then why serve whole foie gras at all? They would do better to offer only their foie gras terrine (225 CZK), a preparation more suitable for lower-grade liver.

Even some basic dishes seemed to confuse the chef. Lavender honey duck breast (375 CZK) ordered medium rare arrived medium well done (an almost standard Prague restaurant mistake, but frustrating nonetheless), and was tough and chewy as a result. And the molten chocolate cake with pistachio sauce (145 CZK) that I’d almost peed my pants over when I wrote the last review was now half-collapsed and mushy, like a big mushroom that had been stepped on. There wasn’t even any hot melted chocolate flowing from the inside -- obviously a criminal mistake as far as molten chocolate cakes are concerned.

I was further annoyed by Oliva’s backward way of dealing with the smoking issue. Instead of putting smokers in a room of their own, the non-smokers are punished by being forced to sit in a small corner space of only three or four tables isolated from the main part of the restaurant.

Any establishment that truly puts stock in the quality of their cuisine should be as non-smoking as possible – completely so, if they are progressive enough. To allow the main serving room to be inundated with tobacco smoke (potentially, anyway; on both my visits, there didn’t appear to be any smokers at all) is to send out a signal to patrons that the food at this particular restaurant doesn’t deserve to be savored to the fullest degree.
In a way, of course, it doesn’t. Of the six dishes I recently ate at Oliva, only one was worthy of being served: the tiger prawns with beetroot tartare and tarragon vinaigrette (195 CZK). The lightly-grilled shrimp were spongy and perfectly cooked, served over a spicy salad of beet chunks, raw onion, and fresh parsley. I was pleased to see prawns paired with something a little more robust than the more typical sweet mango chutney or plum sauce; they can take bigger flavors than they are sometimes given credit for.

The other dishes had a few good elements – the baked grapes still on their stems served with the duck, or the luscious pistachio sauce that came with the failed chocolate cake – but the food was overwhelmingly disappointing. Even so, I’m sure that most customers will keep returning to Oliva, at least for a while. The service there continues to be friendly and the interior (inspired by olives, naturally), is warm and unassuming.

Not very long ago, when the three most fashionable eateries in town were all owned by Kampa Group, Prague was a city where restaurants could afford to let their quality slip. There wasn’t really anyplace else to go, and most of the patrons were unsophisticated enough to swallow pretty much anything if it looked like nouvelle cuisine. But today, Prague is on its way to becoming a major European capital. And just as is in other major European capitals, restaurants here should be called out when they decide to lower their standards and raise their prices. There’s too much competition now – and restaurant-goers are becoming too discerning – for it to be any other way.

I still really want to like Oliva. But if I told you it was a good restaurant, I’d be lying. At this point, Oliva is just okay.

And, if only because I’ve seen them do better, ‘okay’ simply isn’t good enough.

Oliva
Plavecká 4
Praha 2
map
Tel: +420 222 520 288
Open Mon – Sat 11:30-15:00, 18:00 – 00:00. Closed Sunday.

images: www.olivarestaurant.cz

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Food news: Calamari, Chinese New Year, and culinary facelifts

Oliva is having a great squid special this weekend: all-you-can-eat calamari for 690 CZK. The offer is available during dinner this Thursday and Friday and lunch and dinner on Saturday. More info -- including a full menu -- can be found here.

New Asian fusion restaurant Angel is also hosting a couple of events this week. They'll be putting together a special dinner in honor of Chinese New Year on Thursday, and will be serving their very first brunch on Sunday (the menu should be posted soon).

For another Chinese New Year option, check out Monsoon's website. They'll also be featuring a special set menu on Thursday, priced at 545 CZK for five courses.

The area around Vězeňská street has seen a fair amount of restaurant refurbishment action lately. Pilsner Urquell chain pub Kolkovna has reopened, looking about the same as it always did on the main floor (although I didn't get a chance to check the basement). Albar café (formerly Blatouch) is now Alforno, an Italian pizza joint; the Aldente Trattori a next door has stayed intact. And across the street, winery Vino di Vino is set to transform into Luna di Notte, a "restaurant and live music lounge," with the official opening scheduled for next week.

Finally, Polish casual dining chain Sphinx has opened its first Czech location on Na Příkopě, in the spot previously held by concept restaurant 120 Days. It's something along the lines of T.G.I. Friday's, but with a Middle Eastern twist: the menu lists kebabs and shawarma alongside steaks, onion rings, garlic bread, and pizza. Let's just hope Sphinx is a little less overpriced than its neighbor.

images: fishfanatics.co.uk, monsoon-restaurant.cz, aldentetrattoria.cz, sphinx.cz

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Oyster Weekend @ Oliva

Prague 2's popular Mediterranean restaurant Oliva is having a special oyster event this weekend. Oliva is one of my personal favorites, and I'm pretty sure these oysters will be great. Here's what you can expect (for those who don't like oysters, the traditional menu will also be available):