This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 14/03/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
As of the first of this year, the Mexican-themed dive bar and restaurant La Casa Blů – formerly an unbearably smoky hole – is entirely cigarette-free. The decision came after the restaurant's owners held an online poll of its customers, who voted overwhelmingly for a smokeless atmosphere. Meanwhile, an internet petition protesting smoking in public places has collected over 100,000 signatures. And for the second time in a few days, when I called up a restaurant to make a reservation, I was informed that they only had room in the smoking section.
Fewer and fewer people, it seems, want to eat cigarette smoke along with their biftek. Our government
has been frustratingly stubborn in passing the inevitable anti-smoking laws now enjoyed by most of Europe, but the Czech Republic is moving with the times despite them.
Of course, most restaurants in our country still welcome smokers, with some handling them better than others. The ones that care least about their food and how their customers experience it – low-level pubs, for example – generally have the most pervasive smoking areas. But even many that do purport to focus on their cuisine serve it in a haze of cigarette smoke.
Lemon Leaf was one of the restaurants that informed me there were seats available in the smoking section only. When I got there, I understood why: the smoking area was enormous, taking up the most attractive part of the restaurant, while the non-smoking section occupies a small, less appealing area tucked away from the main action. Worse still, the non-smokers are subject to the swinging doors of the kitchen and the cold blue glow emanating from, of all things, a big cigarette vending machine (I found out later that the smoking and non-smoking sections change places during lunchtime).
If it were up to me, I would model the smoking rules in restaurants according to those of the modern airport. The vast majority would not allow smoking anywhere on the premises, and the few that insisted on doing so would confine smokers (as I witnessed recently at the Vienna Airport) to a tiny, glass-enclosed space where they might inhale as much second-hand smoke as they could ever possibly want while the rest of the world walks past, shaking their heads in disgust at the few whiffs of toxic fumes that manage to escape.
Don't get me wrong. It's not as if the food at Lemon Leaf is so good that it deserves to be eaten in a pristine atmosphere; I'm just using it as an example of the wider smoking problem. In spite of the restaurant's ongoing popularity, the food is actually quite bad.
The first tip-off is right there in the menu. Whenever I see risotto, couscous, and steak with pepper sauce thrown in with the other dishes in an otherwise all-Asian restaurant, I can't help but get suspicious. There's just something unappetizing about a kitchen of all trades. Are they not confident in their Thai cooking? Are they trying to please everybody? It's never a good sign.
Neither was the fact that the curry dishes came with hardly any vegetables, only some Thai eggplant, a few sad-looking pieces of chicken and, in the case of the panang curry (219 CZK), some woefully undercooked shrimp. The yellow curry with chicken (179 CZK) had cashew nuts in it, but they were soft and mushy. And both dishes were too heavy on the salt.
The fried potato balls (79 CZK) were very salty too, and filled with some chopped-up shrimp mixed with… I'm not sure what, to be honest; the menu said something about lemongrass, ginger, and cilantro, but I couldn't taste any of it. A prawn and octopus salad (163 CZK) was served on a nice bed of fresh greens and mixed veggies but featured limp overcooked octopus and the same crunchy shrimp that came with the curry.
Still, all that was nothing compared to the abomination that was the chicken breast in pistachios with oranges (189 CZK). This came in a creamy white sauce that did taste orange-y but somehow – either in its flavor or consistency, or both – reminded me of liquefied cheese. A few slices of strawberry were on the plate, too, in a possible attempt at being interesting. (For the record, the person who ordered this concoction actually seemed to enjoy it; in the interest of protecting his reputation, he will go unnamed).
I did have a fairly good chicken pad Thai (166 CZK), and the neua daet diao (dried marinated beef sirloin, 129 CZK) was all right, too. But you can get better for similar prices elsewhere – Noi on Újezd comes immediately to mind, along with a few others.
Is it that people don't know there's better Thai food in this city or is there something special about Lemon Leaf that I'm missing out on? I'm thinking it's probably not the latter, because I made three visits before this writing and was seriously unimpressed. Maybe people like the space, with its high ceilings and large windows, or maybe there just aren't too many other half-decent restaurants in that particular neighborhood. But the service is nothing more than okay, and the food is okay at best.
Yet for all my complaints about smoking and non-smoking sections and dubious cream sauces, nobody could have been having a worse time than the woman sitting at the table next to mine during my last dinner. She was on what seemed like a first date, with a French guy who, for an entire two hours straight, did not stop talking. About life, his family history, his own fabulousness. It was the monologue of monologues, and somehow continued even as he was chewing his food. I would be surprised if she said ten words the entire time.
Having to sit through that and eat a Lemon Leaf dinner? Talk about the date from hell.
Lemon Leaf
Myslíkova 14
Praha 2 - Nové Město
map
Tel: 224 919 056
Open Mon-Thurs 11:00-23:00, Fri 11:00-00:30, Sat 12:30-00:30, Sun 12:30-23:00
photographs 2,5,6 František Vlček for Lidové Noviny; all others lemonleaf.cz
Monday, March 23, 2009
Restaurant Review: Lemon Leaf
Monday, August 4, 2008
Restaurant Review: Noi
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 26/07/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
When I visit a Thai restaurant for the first time, I always make sure to taste their pad Thai. The salty-sweet noodle dish is one of Thailand's signature culinary exports, and sampling it can be a good measure of how serious a restaurant is about making quality ethnic cuisine.
Noi's version (180 CZK with chicken, 220 CZK with shrimp) passes the test. The flat ric
e noodles had been cooked just right and they were coated in enough oil to keep them moist, but not so much as to make them heavy on the stomach (in fact, "real" pad Thai – the kind served from food carts on the streets of Bangkok – is drier and less rich than the Western version, but it's rarely made that way outside of Asia). Many Asian restaurants, including some in Prague, use monosodium glutamate to enhance their dishes' flavor, but Noi doesn't seem to be one of them – their pad Thai wasn't overpoweringly salty, as it can be in kitchens that do use artificial flavor enhancers.
All the right ingredients were there: scallions, peanuts, fried tofu, scrambled egg, and cilantro, with a hint of fish sauce and tamarind. I would have added some fresh bean sprouts, and my shrimp were a little undercooked, but this was nonetheless one of the better pad Thais I've had in Prague.
The good food was a pleasant surprise. Just a couple of months ago, Noi was Downtown Café, a hip restaurant serving up salads and sandwiches and house music. The thumping beats are still there, courtesy of a DJ booth nestled into the corner (I'm not sure if it gels with the supposedly Zen-like atmosphere, but whatever), and you can still order a club sandwich off their breakfast menu. Now, though, Thai food is the focus, and the switchover doesn't seem to have been a bad idea at all.
On a recent midweek visit, Noi was packed with customers – a testament, perhaps, to the popularity of Thai cuisine among local restaurant-goers. Behind an orange glass wall, Thai chefs could be seen chopping fresh vegetables and frying up noodles in woks as hungry patrons reclined in leather armchairs. If the colonial-style décor seems a little familiar, it might be because it's been brought in from the Le Patio store next door. Le Patio made its name importing furniture and decorative items from Southeast Asia, and since the mid-'90s, the shop's distinctive goods have been spotted in many a restaurant around town. So the interior isn't the most original, but at least it's well-suited to the overall theme.
I prefer the small courtyard out back, where stone statues rest alongside laurel trees and fresh flowers adorn the tables. The relaxed atmosphere is complemented by a laid-back approach to table service on the part of the wait staff – and that's putting it kindly. During both of my meals at Noi, the servers were friendly but seemed disorganized, frazzled, and forgetful; they came off more as first-timers than professionals.
For one thing, they didn't seem to know much about the food. When I asked what distinguishes the red and green curries (the difference tends to be quite subtle, but one is usually spicier than the other; on Noi's menu, though, their description and spiciness level were the same), our waitress simply shrugged and said she had no idea. And when my companion requested chopsticks with his meal, she ran off without asking if the rest of the table might want some, too.
I'm hoping the service will improve as Noi settles in over the next few months. For their part, the kitchen staff seems to have their routines figured out – minus the occasional hiccup, such as when one of my main courses appeared at the table long before I was finished with my starter.
What's more important is that the food they're whipping up back there really is good. The green curry with chicken (160 CZK) was properly spicy and packed with vegetables, including eggplant, bell peppers, pea pods, fresh ginger, and Thai basil. Miraculously, the veggies hadn't been overcooked to death; they retained their crunchiness and natural color, which together with the creamy green curry sauce made for a meal as aesthetically pleasing as it was flavorful.
I also enjoyed Noi's tom kah kai (70 CZK), a rich soup made with coconut cream and lemongrass and served with mushrooms and chicken, but I was less satisfied with the vegetarian spring rolls (80 CZK). They weren't bad – I did like the crispy texture of the roll itself – but the stuffing of glass noodles, shiitake mushrooms, and carrots was a little bland and could have used some more fresh vegetables. Plus, the dipping sauce the rolls came with was the usual sweet-and-sour from a bottle that you find almost anyplace else. A homemade sauce would go a long way towards differentiating Noi from other Thai restaurants.
It does stand out from most of the rest, anyway. For reasonable prices, it offers more or less authentic Thai cuisine prepared with fresh ingredients and careful attention. If they'd tighten up the service and a few of the problems in the kitchen, Noi could very well become the best Thai restaurant in Prague. Which isn't saying much, of course. But we have to start somewhere.
Noi
Újezd 19
Praha 1 - Malá Strana
map
tel.: +420 257 311 411
images: praguespoon.com
