Restaurant Review: The Sushi Bar

I almost gave The Sushi Bar four spoons.

As my regular readers know, I don't give full marks very often. That's not because I'm trying to be difficult, or because I don't think this country has any great restaurants. I guess it's just that my standards are pretty high, and I haven't been met with a lot of perfect dining experiences lately.

Until, that is, I went to The Sushi Bar. Or so I thought. Then I looked at my receipt.

The Sushi Bar's been around since 1999, when it was, according to its website, the only sushi place in the Czech Republic. The little restaurant gets its most important ingredients from the partner shop next door called Seafood Shop, which also provides high-quality fresh fish to many local dining establishments.

The first, and still the best: that is The Sushi Bar's motto, and after eating their precisely crafted, unforgettable food – and comparing it to some of the more pathetic renditions of sushi available in this town – I can't argue otherwise. I would, however, add the qualifier that The Sushi Bar's sushi is not only The First and The Best, but also The Most Expensive. An eight-piece "exclusive" maki roll can run you as high as 1190 CZK, although you can also get a cucumber roll for 150 CZK or a salmon roll for 290 CZK. So if you're on a budget, order wisely.

But do order something here, at least once. They take the art of sushi-making seriously at The Sushi Bar. They're not doing it because it's trendy; they don't throw in a few maki rolls as an afterthought to a menu loaded with spaghetti and knedlík. They don't think, "most of our customers won't know the difference between good and bad sushi, so who cares if we use this borderline-rancid tuna fish?" And they don't offer Thai spring rolls and tom kha gai soups to appease people who aren't sushi-lovers – they do have a kimchi salad, but at least the menu makes it clear that the dish is Korean.

The menu, by the way, is a work of art in itself. An appetizing photograph of each dish is set against a background of matte white paper, next to loving descriptions typed in crisp fonts. Picking the right kind and amount of sushi can sometimes be tricky, but thanks to their carefully-compiled 'boat' sets and a clever graph system for the nigiri, it's easy to choose a well-rounded meal.

My table chose the nigiri sushi menu number 1 (990 CZK), a fairly straightforward six-piece combination that included salmon, tuna, and red snapper. But it also featured the less-common freshwater shrimp, as well as toro, or tuna belly, a highly-prized, fatty delicacy that melts upon contact with the tongue (only restaurants that order large whole tuna fish can offer toro, since the belly makes up such a small percentage of the flesh). Each piece of nigiri was just as it should be: small and easy to eat in one bite, with only a modest amount of vinegared rice covered by a cleanly-cut slice of raw fish. And it goes without saying that the fish was as fresh as fresh can be.

What's so exclusive about an 'exclusive maki,' besides the price? None of the sakana ura maki's (1190 CZK) ingredients – salmon, cucumber, seaweed, mango, and avocado – seemed especially luxurious. But bundled up together in a tight inside-out roll and draped with elegant slivers of salmon and cucumber, each bite was a gorgeous medley of tastes and textures: the cool, smooth salmon; the creamy avocado; the crunch of cucumber and the fragrant mango. The roll was not only sublime, but huge. I would order it again.

Throughout the meal, the service was fantastic – attentive, but unpretentious. Our table was wiped down after each course, and the waiters were happy to make suggestions. One of the fish that was supposed to be part of our nigiri set was unavailable that night, so it was replaced with two pieces of a different kind. We were also given full portions of tuna and avocado sashimi on the house, and each female customer got a red rose when she left. We felt like we were really being looked after.

I was especially impressed by what happened when my companion asked if they had any Czech beer. "We do," our waiter said, "but only bottled. If you like, though, I can bring you freshly-tapped beer from next door."

This was fabulous news. Next door, you see, is the gastropub Olympia, where they serve tanked Plzeň – that meant some first-rate beer to go with the first-rate sushi. The waiter promptly returned clutching a frosty mug of the good stuff, and set it down on a paper coaster in front of my friend.

Now comes the part with the receipt. When we paid the bill, I noticed that it seemed a little high. But it was only after I got home that I took a closer look and realized that the two next-door Plzeňs – the very same ones that cost 39 CZK at Olympia – had cost us 150 CZK each.

What. The. Hell. This was truly an outrage. Yes, charging a little extra – maybe even double – for the additional trouble is understandable. But charging four times the original price? Without any warning at all? Who's ever even heard of a 150 CZK beer in this town?

I posed that last question to my beer-loving brother. He thought it over for some time. "Once," he said, slowly. "When I was at a stag party at this strip club, Goldfingers. They charged us 150 CZK there." He shook his head, apparently distressed by the memory.

And I shake my head, too. Because I really wanted to give The Sushi Bar four spoons. But see? I can't go around saying the service is perfect and then have you dip into your savings fund to pay for a glass of beer.

The sushi, on the other hand – that might be worth going bankrupt for.

The Sushi Bar
Zborovská 49
Prague 5 – Malá Strana
Tel.: 603 244 882

Open Mon-Sun 12:00-22:00

photographs 1, 3 Lidové Noviny; all others sushi.cz

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 05/09/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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Restaurant Review: China Fusion

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 02/05/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

The restaurant was empty. Except, that is, for a table in the far corner, occupied by two men and a woman who were evidently well on their way to being very drunk. As she tried to light a cigarette, the woman knocked a glass of red wine across the table; the other two shouted and jeered. Their profanities almost drowned out the waiter's inquiry as to whether he should take our coats.

I settled into my seat and took in the ambiance, or what little of it there was. With its stark energy-saving light bulbs and bare walls, the large room felt cold and gloomy, and a soundtrack of woozy ambient music didn't help, either. I wasn't sure if the atmosphere would have been better or worse if our sloshed co-patrons hadn't been there.

So this was China Fusion. I'd wondered about the restaurant for some time, but had never made it up the stairs in Světozor to check it out. Now I was close to regretting even coming here in the first place.

Still, I had to give the food a try. I'd heard it wasn’t bad, and I'd been looking for some good Chinese for a while now. I was intrigued by the energizing soup (140 CZK), which was described as including ten different Chinese herbs. Maybe it would help me get rid of the migraine I'd been nursing for the past few days.

Now, I'll admit that my palate probably isn't developed enough to distinguish ten different Chinese herbs in a broth, but I can definitely recognize when two dishes are almost exactly the same. My mother had ordered the chicken broth with ginseng (180 CZK), but it was more or less indistinguishable from my special energizing soup. Both were black in color, contained chicken and some unchewable herbs, and were basically flavorless. I did not feel particularly energized.

Or maybe I was just annoyed by our waitress, who every few minutes came over to commit one of the most egregious sins of Czech service: the refilling of Mattoni. Again and again, she came by to pick up our water bottles and fill up our glasses.

Can somebody please explain to me why so many waiters feel it necessary to do this? Why do they haunt my table, ready to pop in and interrupt my conversation every time I take a sip of water? Do I look incapable of picking up the Mattoni bottle and pouring it myself? Maybe it never occurred to any of them that I might want to keep my drink cold and my bubbles bubbly for as long as possible.

This practice is especially obnoxious when done with bottled beer, as it becomes warm and flat much more quickly in the glass. One of my companions had to request that the waitress refrain from pouring his Plzeň for him (the beer is bottled only; one of the choices is Asahi, a Japanese beer that our waitress claimed was from China).
At least the food came promptly. My main course was the Cantonese duck (1/4 duck for 370 CZK), which came with the traditional chopped spring onions and cucumbers, hoi sin sauce, and Chinese pancakes (ordered separately for 50 CZK). The meat could have been a little more tender and its skin more flavorful, but it still tasted great rolled up in the pancake with the other ingredients.

Another successful dish was the chicken steak fried in almonds with lime sauce (310 CZK). The sauce was a bright, radioactive-looking yellow, so I was a little skeptical of it – but combined with the slightly sweet, crispy chicken battered in almonds, its sharp flavor was surprisingly delicious.

The same couldn't be said for the marinated octopus (130 CZK), which was super-rubbery, or the spring rolls (110 CZK), which were nicely crunchy but were filled with a negligible amount of vegetables and came with a boring dipping sauce (when will Asian restaurants stop using that same bottled sweet chili sauce already? If anyone finds a restaurant that makes their own dipping sauce for spring rolls, I want to hear about it). Then there was the udon noodle soup with vegetables (148 CZK), whose veggies bore a very close resemblance to the familiar supermarket mixture of frozen peas, corn, and diced carrots.

Udon noodles are Japanese, anyway, as is sushi, which China Fusion also has on its menu. Is that what the "fusion" part is supposed to be, or have they just added sushi as a kind of afterthought, as so many restaurants seem to be doing nowadays? I didn't manage to find out because I don't really like ordering sushi when it's just a sidebar on the menu and the restaurant isn't very popular. I always worry that the fish isn't going to be fresh.

I have mixed feelings about China Fusion. Some of the food is good, quite authentic, and different from the regular kuřecí kung pao you'll find at the cheaper Chinese restaurants around town. But the menu seems to be a little too large for them to handle, so some dishes end up getting carbon-copied (like the soups) or faked a little (like the udon). And with its lack of windows, charmless décor, and drab setting in the Světozor pasáž, I wouldn’t want to be sitting there again anytime soon. Do they do takeout, perhaps?

As we waited for our check, a waiter uncorked the rowdy trio's third bottle of red wine since we'd gotten there. It didn't seem entirely necessary; one of the men had already fallen asleep with his chin resting on his chest in a drunken stupor, his forehead dangerously close to slamming itself down on top of his espresso cup.

Looks like the guy could have used some of that energizing soup.

China Fusion
Pasáž Světozor
Vodičkova 41
Praha 1 - New Town
Tel: 224 946 268

Open Mon-Sun 11:00-23:00

photographs Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others chinafusion.cz

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Food news: Confusion over Kolkovna, chaos in Palladium, and more sushi for Prague

There's been some apparent confusion over the Kolkovna Group lately. All of its Pilsner Urquell Original Resturants (including Olympia and Celnice) are now called Kolkovna, presumably to differentiate these locations from other, similar-looking PUOR franchises around Prague (such as Deminka and U Vejvodů). In a broken-English statement posted on Expats.cz, a Kolkovna Group representative accused Deminka's owners of breaching copyright by using Kolkovna's logographer. It was also confirmed that the group will be launching a fourth Prague Pilsner Urquell restaurant, Sokolovna, in Vinohrady.

Prague's second and third Starbucks locations opened in Palladium on February 19th, just one day before the electrical fire that is now expected to shut down the shopping mall for at least the next three weeks. Meanwhile, Starbucks rival Coffee Heaven continues to expand, with a new branch about to set up shop on heavily touristed street Na Můstku.

In other openings, Ivan Havel and his wife, Dagmar, have debuted their new restaurant in the Lucerna pasáž. Monarchie's menu is inspired by cuisine from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and much of the meat and produce is to be delivered fresh from the Havels' personal farm outside of Prague.

Finally, karaoke box club BeKaraOk! is now serving Japanese delicacies in its upstairs Sushi Bistro, where the sushi and maki come pre-packaged in handy take-out containers. Note: the Bistro's opening hours are from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday only.

images: kolkovna.cz, coffeeheaven.eu, lucerna.cz, bekaraok.cz

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Food news: Seafood and sushi, as the Václavák sausage party rages on

There've been a fair amount of seafood events happening around town lately. Now, CzecHouse is doing one of their own: a special lobster and shellfish menu that runs from the 15th to the 24th of February. See the full menu (including suggested wine pairings) here.

Zahrada v Opeře recently welcomed a new executive chef, Martial Clement, to their funky-hip quarters in the Radio Free Europe building. They've also begun featuring weekly "Sushi Days"every Tuesday through Saturday; the Japanese delicacies are prepared by chef Tadayoshi Ebina.

Upscale Indian restaurant Khajuraho has moved from its original location in the Iron Gate Hotel to a new spot down the street on Michalská. The hotel plans to open a new restaurant, The Iron Gate, in the spring.

And for those of you who love your klobása, you can rest a little easier tonight: it's been announced that the Václavské náměstí sausage stands will remain in business after all. Prague City Hall backed down from its plan to shut down the outdoor vendors after 9000 people signed a petition in protest.

images: hiltonprague.cz, zahradavopere.cz

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