This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 11/10/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
As I'm tucking in to my řízek dinner at the newest branch of Potrefená Husa, I receive a text message from a friend. "At Husa," he writes. "Want to come by?"
I look around the restaurant. My friend is nowhere to be seen. "Which Husa?" I reply.
If that anecdote doesn't sound familiar to you yet, it will soon enough. I can't be the only one who's been ge
tting the sense that it's impossible to walk five blocks in any direction in the center of Prague without coming across a Staropramen -branded restaurant.
The brewery's concept – a chain of modern franchised pubs that are pricier than your average hospoda but offer quality beer, good food, and friendly service – has proven to be an enormous success. The first Potrefená Husa (which opened in Vinohrady in 1999) was quickly followed by sister restaurants in Plzeň and Liberec. And over the past couple of years, new Husas have been appearing in cities across the Czech Republic with terrifying speed.
A well-run franchise operation guarantees its customers a certain level of consistency from location to location. A Big Mac is going to taste the same whether you're in Brno or San Francisco – in theory, anyway. Fast food lovers like to debate which parts of the world have the best-tasting McDonald's food (Asia, I've heard) and the worst (definitely America, at least in my limited experience).
It's a similar story with Potrefená Husa. Some Husas are better than others. And not all of the individual restaurants manage to keep up the level of quality their corporate overlords expect.
The recently-opened Husa on Platnéřská, for example, seems to have a higher standard of food service than most of its counterparts. Unfortunately, it lacks the atmosphere of the nearby branch on Bílkova – which, after an apparent change in management, has lately become home to some incompetent and surly staff. And unlike at McDonald's, the burger present on most (if not all) Husa menus is completely different from location to location.
So where does the latest incarnation of this Czech pub chain stand among its counterparts? For now, at least, I'd say it's somewhere near the top of the pack.
The Husa I'm referring to is on the corner of Hybernská and Dlážděná, just adjacent to the Masarykovo train station at a spot formerly occupied by a very sketchy Chinese bufet. It's the twenty-fifth Husa to date, and also the largest, seating around 200 people on three floors. Huge windows shine plenty of light on the by now familiar style of décor: a long bar at the front, raised wooden tables, and yellow linoleum floors. Upstairs is a kind of mezzanine with comfortable lounge chairs, and the basement houses a cozy beer cellar with room for 100 customers.
As far as I'm concerned, though, this Husa's claim to fame isn't its size, but its service. All of the servers (and there were lots of them – Husas tend to be well-staffed) I encountered during my visits were not only cordial, but downright enthusiastic. They went out of their way to greet us when we entered the restaurant, they moved with a sense of urgency, and they systematically stopped by our table to ask if everything was all right after we had gotten our food. That last gesture is standard practice in American restaurants and one that should be adopted here more often – a quick check-in allows the customer to ask for that missing fork or a second Mattoni or to have their steak thrown back on the grill.
And, crucially, they weren't annoying. We didn't have waiters hovering around our table or filling up my water glass every time I took a sip; they simply went about their business politely and efficiently. Even the waitress who had an "In training" badge pinned to her shirt was better than most servers I've come across lately. I wouldn't mind sending a few managers of high-end Prague restaurants to Potrefená Husa to see how proper staff training is done.
The news isn't all good in the food department: a chicken broth featured overcooked noodles and peas so hard you could break your teeth on them, the svíčková na smetaně's meat was pretty tough to swallow, and the hamburgers come with cucumbers instead of pickles. But as I've found with every Husa I've visited, there are always a couple of gems on the menu. You just need to figure out what they are.
So far, I've managed to unearth a few goodies at the Hybernská location. One of them is the chicken schnitzel with mashed potatoes and cucumber salad (129 CZK) – a simple dish cooked well, with the chicken freshly fried in clean oil and the mash fluffy and rich -- a great comfort food. The koprová omáčka (beef with dill sauce) I tried as a lunch special falls into that category, too. I'd also recommend the beef carpaccio with arugula, capers, olives, and parmesan (179 CZK), and the fresh strawberries marinated in Grand Marnier served with a scoop of creamy chocolate ice cream (89 CZK).
Old-school pub-goers have been known to grumble about the Husification of Czech pubs, and there is something to their complaints. It can be disheartening to see a classic neighborhood watering hole displaced by a corporate franchise outlet that will look and feel just about the same as twenty-four others (and counting).
But there's a plus side to Husa's presence in our restaurant market, too. When the world's first gastropub, The Eagle, was opened in London's Clerkenwell in 1991, its owners expressed a desire to promote good-quality food in places where ordinary people liked to hang out. At that time, English cuisine was widely considered to be inedible. Now, countless gastropubs and a handful of celebrity chefs later, the U.K. is at the forefront of high-end gastronomy.
We won't necessarily see the same kind of phenomenon happening in the Czech Republic, but there are already signs that all those Husas are having an influence. The food at the famed U Zlatého Tygra pub, for example, used to be absolutely inedible. Now, for 85 CZK, they serve some of the best roast beef in town. I can't vouch for the rest of their menu, but still – awesome beer and great beef? I'm not going to argue with that kind of change.
And neither should you.
Potrefená Husa
Dlážděná 1003/7
Praha 1 – Nové Město
map
Open Sun – Thurs 11.00 - 24.00, Fri – Sat 11.00 - 01.00
Tel.: 224 243 631
images: Staropramen.cz, Prague Spoon
Monday, November 3, 2008
Restaurant Review: Potrefená Husa
Monday, October 27, 2008
Restaurant Review: U Modré Kachničky
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 04/10/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
When U Modré Kachničky (At the Blue Duckling) was in its heyday, the restaurant was locally famous for its romantic atmosphere, home-style food and, at least among my family, its wonky Czech-to-English translations.
The only menu gaffe I can remember now is the name of a certain side dish – "lubricated potatoes" – 
though there must have been many more (on one visit, a friend of my parents' who could understand the German and French translations as well almost peed herself laughing).
Alas, U Modré Kachničky's menu has by now been tidied and polished to a perfectly comprehensible (if not always strictly correct) standard of English. And something else has happened here, too. Over the years, Kachnička's once-elegant interior has become worn and shabby, and the quality of the food has dropped to a pathetic low.
Now before you start composing your letter of complaint to my over-burdened superiors at Lidovky, do me a personal favor and try to picture the following situation in your mind.
After arriving at U Modré Kachničky for a special dinner with your significant other, you peruse the menu and decide to forgo the traditional duck. Instead, you order vepřo knedlo zelo (roast pork with dumplings and cabbage); it's a Czech classic, and one that has disappeared from many pubs and restaurants, so you're delighted to see it on offer.
Unfortunately, by the time the plate reaches your table, the food is almost cold. It includes two very small portions of cabbage, one white and the other red. Both are fairly tasteless and have been thickened by a slimy clear gravy. The špekový knedlík (bacon dumpling) is decent, if a little dry.
But the vepřo itself is the real insult. The meat is of poor quality, stringy and hard to chew. It is also so salty that you can't help but suspect it has been marinated in the stuff, perhaps in an effort to keep the meat fresh. And when you slice into it, you see that the inside is pink: raw, which, of course, cooked pork should never be.
Let's assume you don't have a particular fondness for contracting trichinosis in fancy restaurants. How much would you pay for that vepřo knedlo I just described? 150 CZK? No?
Try 420 CZK.
Those poor American tourists sitting in the other room. If they'd only saved their hard-earned $24 and spent it on an entrée back home, they would be enjoying a meal of an entirely different caliber. But since their dishonest hotel or guidebook must have told them that this was the place to go for authentic Czech fare, they're stuck here. And when they return home, they're bound to tell their friends in America that the food in Prague is expensive and terrible.
No wonder foreign visitors have been keeping their distance from the Czech Republic lately – a bad reputation, after all, spreads quickly.
But for some reason, U Modré Kachničky has managed to keep up a good name, even among locals. Could it be the yellowed newspaper clippings posted outside the door proudly announcing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's visit to the restaurant back in 1995? Or maybe Czech people enjoy drinking their Plzeň from 0.33l-bottles for 80 CZK apiece? I'm Slovak, you see, so it's hard for me to be sure.
Seriously, though: a Czech restaurant specializing in roast duck that doesn't serve tapped beer? Either Kachnička is playing some kind of joke on its customers or it really just doesn't give a damn.
I did try one of the duck dishes, by the way. It was served on a sauce of dried plums and slivovice (480 CZK, pictured above). There wasn't much to it – just some stewed prunes that had been marinated in alcohol – so it tasted very boozy and sour. The duck meat was all right, but its skin was bunched-up and soggy, wet rag style. And the potato pancakes served on the side were nothing more than some mashed potatoes (obviously belonging to another dish) that had been pressed into patties and fried on a greasy pan.
I wasn't bowled over by the famous atmosphere, either. Maybe that was because I was seated in a kind of anteroom to the kitchen and toilets and I was treated to the comings and goings of waitstaff printing out checks at the register beside me and noisily gathering cutlery from the sideboard. Sometimes, as servers went in and out of the kitchen, I would catch a glimpse of a bunch of clutter and a dirty-looking tiled floor and hear the yelling of the cooking staff.
Even the main rooms didn't strike me as especially pleasant. The antique furniture and painted murals do lend the place a sense of old-world authenticity, but there is something unattractive about the cold quality of the lighting and the way the tables are all crammed in very close to one another.
Given all this amateurishness, it was surprising to find a service staff so on point. They were professional and friendly even with customers who were obvious tourists. I did have to wonder about the water, though. Non-sparkling mineral water was served from a glass pitcher (for 180 CZK) and tasted suspiciously like the kind you'd find coming from your kitchen tap.
Or maybe the tap water was just my imagination, now biased from having endured that painful vepřo knedlo. Still, the waiters should be pouring water from the bottle into the pitcher in front of their patrons so they can be sure they're not being cheated.
It doesn't really matter, though. Customers are being cheated at U Modré Kachničky either way. And if you don't believe me, try it for yourself. If you can justify those prices for that food, go ahead and write that letter.
Just don't say I didn't warn you.
U Modré Kachničky
Nebovidská 6
Praha 1 – Malá Strana
map
Tel: 257 320 308
images: umodrekachnicky.cz, praguespoon.com
Monday, October 20, 2008
Restaurant Review: Luka Lu
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 27/09/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Every week, I have the task of figuring out which restaurant I'm going to review next. I take into consideration the kinds of places I did recently, what people might enjoy reading about, and any interesting tips I may have received.
Once I've made a decision, I schedule my visits. I like to go at least twice to each restaurant, preferably for both lunch and dinner. Eating at the same spot two or three days in a row can be kind of boring, so I try to leave some time in between.
And then I need to work out who's coming with me.
Believe i
t or not, it can be hard to recruit people. Friends and family who once saw eating out with a restaurant critic as an exciting novelty have started angling for a little more choice in the matter, realizing that they'd prefer to eat at the restaurants they already know and love. "Can't we just go to Café Savoy again?" they say. "We know it's good." One friend has even become convinced that her presence is a curse and the food turns out to be bad every time she comes along (it has, but I'm pretty sure it's not her fault).
Although trying out restaurants that I otherwise might never set foot into is part of my job, eating alone isn't all that fun. That's why I occasionally do my restaurant-going companions – and myself – a favor and pick a place I know they're going to love.
This week, that place was Luka Lu. When I wrote about it for a different publication some time ago, I brought my brother along to dinner and he fell in love with a certain octopus dish he tried there. So he was very happy to have an excuse to visit again.
As his luck would have it, of course, the restaurant didn't have any octopus left. After the waitress informed him of this, my brother promptly shot me an accusatory look, as if I was the one who'd done Luka Lu's grocery shopping that day. He reluctantly picked another dish.
Fortunately, it's hard to make a bad choice at Luka Lu. The menu features a nice selection of Balkan- and Italian-inspired meals, including čevapčiči, pastas, and various fish entrées. It's not the most sophisticated food in the city, but that's partly why I like it. This is straightforward, family-style fare, the kind you might find in a tucked-away little restaurant in Sarajevo, or, better yet, on the dining table of a Balkan home.
Luka Lu describes itself as the child of an adventurous Italian father and a calm, simple Bosnian mother. This assessment makes perfect sense: the unpretentious food is, naturally, the work of the mama. And you only need to take one look at the interior design to see where the boisterous Italian side comes in.
Owner Veso Djorem's long culinary career has seen him open ten different restaurants in Prague and Sarajevo, including the now-defunct Dolly Bell in Vyšehrad and another Malá Strana spot called Gitanes. His ventures are known for their signature decorative style: colorful and cluttered, with the occasional upside-down table hanging from the ceiling.
Glance upwards in Luka Lu's front room and you'll see a fully-laid-out sewing table, complete with machine, half-finished garment, and a pair of fluffy slippers. Bright murals depict a cartoon-ish harbor, and wooden windows and a little balcony are superimposed on the walls. It's playful kitsch, warm and welcoming and entirely different from the morose minimalism espoused by so many Prague restaurants.
But the best part of the interior isn't even visible until you turn a corner and walk down a narrow hallway. That's where you'll find Luka Lu's winter garden, a beautiful, airy room with a glass ceiling, pretty tiles, and plenty of plants. There were a couple of new additions here on my last visit, neither of which I'm too sure about: a big soda fridge and a birdcage full of squawking parakeets. The fridge detracts from the atmosphere for obvious reasons; the birdcage does add some liveliness, but assorted avian debris had ended up on the table and chairs we were led to by the waitress. We ended up changing seats.
In the very back of Luka Lu is a beautiful outdoor courtyard with wooden plank floors and glowing lanterns. I discovered this gem of a garden a little too late for the summer season, but I'll be sure to remember it for next year. The service can be a bit slow – especially if you're sitting in the rear areas – and there's been the occasional mix-up on my visits there, but at least everyone's friendly and relaxed.
Luka Lu (which translates as Harbor Lu) has been designed to evoke a konoba, or traditional Croatian-style seaside restaurant equivalent to a Greek taverna. Fittingly, seafood is the specialty here. Besides the aforementioned traditionally prepared octopus (350 CZK), there are also fried anchovies and fried sardines (175 and 180 CZK, respectively), and various fresh fish prepared on the restaurant's lava grill.
Red meat lovers will appreciate some of the Balkan specialties, such as the tasty kebab-like čevapčiči (160 CZK for 10 pieces; they're not as good as some I've had in Sarajevo, but are still worth a try) and the rich pljeskavice (something like a hamburger patty) stuffed with cheese (195 CZK). I was especially impressed by a traditional lamb dish (285 CZK) made in a special pan called a sač – the meat was so juicy and tender it was falling off the bone.
The broken English on Luka Lu's website says that "Wicked tongues say that most people cross the Vltava river and stay in the Lesser Quarter because of [Luka Lu]'s untameable beauty and not because of good food and wine." They're selling themselves a little short. The atmosphere might be the big initial draw, but there's more to like than the pretty décor.
Just ask my brother. Octopus or no octopus, he's already itching to go again.
Luka Lu
Újezd 33
Praha 1 – Malá Strana
Tel: 257 212 388
images: lukalu.cz
Monday, October 13, 2008
Restaurant Review: Villa Richter
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 20/09/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Three restaurants, multiple terraces, an extensive wine cellar, and a newly-planted vineyard: no one could accuse Villa Richter of lacking ambition.
Anyone who'd undertake the necessarily substantial renovation of this castle-side Classicist summerhouse and its accompanying 7000 square meter property would have to prepare themselves for a formidable task. Built in the 1830s by architect Josef Peschka, the building was confiscated from the German Richter family in 1945 and eventually housed private apartments, the Cu
ban embassy, and the Communist Interior Ministry. After winning a ten-year-long restitution dispute during the 1990s, the Prague Castle decided to rent out the decaying Villa and its overgrown former vineyard to those who proposed the best project for the site's rejuvenation.
Just a couple of months ago, Villa Richter was opened to the public for the first time. Locals and tourists are free to walk its pretty grounds and enjoy either a Czech-style meal at the Piano Terra restaurant or a more upscale dinner upstairs at Piano Nobile. Or they can opt for coffee and a snack at Pergola, a vineyard-side outdoor café.
But will they want to?
At the very least, they'll come for the view. All of Villa Richter's restaurants boast stunning outdoor seating with vistas over Malá Strana, the castle, and beyond. Unfortunately, the Villa is also home to some pretty steep prices and a whole lot of uneven cooking.
Looking at Piano Terra's menu, it's hard not to immediately categorize it as a tourist trap. Although this is the less expensive restaurant option at Villa Richter, a 0.4l glass of Plzen will set you back 59 CZK. A bowl of kulajda (a traditional Czech soup made with potatoes, mushrooms and dill), meanwhile, is priced at 110 CZK. The prices are sure to scare off a few curious locals, but I wasn't put off right away. I've always wished there were more restaurants serving Czech food that isn't the usual hospoda grizzle – even if it would mean paying a little extra to get it (Café Savoy is one exception; another, apparently, is the Krogen Soldaten Svejk restaurant in Stockholm, where a friend of mine claims to have eaten better Czech food than she's ever had in a restaurant at home).
While the food at Piano Terra is of higher quality than you'd usually find at a Czech place, it doesn’t live up to the promise of its prices. The house specialty is a plate of Prague ham served with apple horseradish, gherkins, and pickled vegetables. The ham was juicy and the horseradish sweet and powerfully spicy, but for 290 CZK I'd hope for a čalamáda (pickled vegetable mix) that wasn't completely bland and bread that wasn't stale and crumbly. Although the Wienerschnitzel came with a great potato salad, the meat itself was chewy and dry and hadn't been pounded out thin enough. With a price tag of 390 CZK, one would expect the schnitzel to be damn near perfect.
Because of Piano Terra's sprawling terraces and lovely view, the food may not have to be perfect – at least for now. But when guests will have to retreat into the small, stuffy-looking indoor dining rooms in the wintertime, they may be less willing to overlook the flawed food and overblown prices.
The upstairs restaurant, Piano Nobile (not to be confused with Chateau Mcely's restaurant of the same name), seems to have accounted for this problem a little better than its neighbor. In addition to its outdoor terrace, it also features a gorgeous greenhouse dining room that takes full advantage of the city view. But the very nice atmosphere can't make up for the fact that the food here is expensive, pretentious, and not especially good.
Somebody in Piano Nobile's kitchen needs to have his or her palate checked. Dish after dish came out tasting strange – and not in a good or interesting way, either. When my companion ordered the cold cucumber soup with mint (210 CZK), I'd hoped it would be a crisp, refreshing summer starter. Instead, the distinctive taste of cucumber was muddled by some oddly sweet and vinegary flavors, and it was served lukewarm when it should have been ice-cold.
An entrée of smoked duck breast, served with corn, chanterelles, and a cognac sauce (650 CZK), was memorable only for the fact that the corn – which, by the way, was so dull and rubbery I had to wonder if it was of the freezer variety – had been mindlessly doused in that omnipresent crutch of the lazy chef: truffle oil. The fragrant oil completely overpowered the chanterelles, rendering them nothing more than a garnish when they should have been one of the dish's key components.
As in all art forms (and high cuisine is certainly one), the greatest masterpieces are born when the artist has the capacity to self-edit, to pare down his initial creative mess and let the essentials shine. A chef who insists on dumping lots of sugar and salt and vinegar and flavored oils into his food strangles the natural flavor of the main ingredient – and that, of course, is one we most want to savor.
The problem of the chef's heavy hand is one we see in local restaurants again and again, particularly in those that imagine they are serving upscale cuisine. Sometimes, the bells and whistles are designed to mask an inferior product, such as a slightly-stinky piece of fish; on other occasions, a chef lacking in confidence or skill hides behind too many ingredients and a plateful of fancy tricks. My guess is that a little bit of both is going on at Piano Nobile.
It's a shame about Villa Richter. It's a beautiful spot with solid service, good wine, and, naturally, that breathtaking view. But until they make the food worth my while – and my wallet – I don't think I'll be coming back.
Villa Richter
Staré zámecké schody 6
Praha 1 – Pražský hrad
Tel: 257 219 079
Open Mon-Sun 10:00 – 23:00
images: praguespoon.com, villarichter.cz
Monday, September 22, 2008
Restaurant Review: La Casa Argentina
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 13/09/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
During the years I've lived in Prague, a good amount of my precious time has been spent touring American visitors around the city. Those who are making their first trip outside the United States usually end up regaling me with some charmingly idiotic comments. When glimpsing Týn church or some other Gothic structure, for example, more than one has uttered something to the effect of, "Oh my God, that looks just like Disneyland!!!" Out comes the camera. Snap snap snap.
That's when I muster up as much of the patient schoolteacher in me as I can and explain that it isn't Týn that looks like Disneyland, but the other way around. 
"Can you take a picture of me in front of the castle thingy??" Never mind.
What my culturally-challenged friends are referring to is the Sleeping Beauty Castle, the pastel-colored fairy tale structure built in 1955 at the heart of the Disneyland theme park in California that has become a Disney – and, by extension, American – icon. For them, this side of the pond is like a storybook come to life, the realization of a hundred childhood fantasies of 
Smug Europeans like to snicker at this American fetishization of their culture, but it would be unfair to say that we don't have a few exotic fixations of our own. Take, for example, our capital city's current mania for all things South and Central American: La Bodeguita del Medio, a Cuban-themed bar on Kaprova, is packed nightly, a Peruvian restaurant and club just opened its doors in Old Town, and even after years as Prague's most popular cocktail, no one seems to have gotten sick of the mojito.
The simmering hub of all this Latin loving – the South American craze's local Disneyland – has to be La Casa Argentina. It's a large steak restaurant done up to be as stereotypically Argentinean as possible, with tango dancers, native fauna, and Maradona jerseys galore.
The mini-tour of Argentina starts in the Salon Caminito, a big room painted with murals meant to mimic the famous Buenos Aires neighborhood of La Boca. That's followed by the winter garden, where water trickles down a rocky wall and iguanas live in a hollowed-out fake tree trunk. The back room features a wooden bar modeled after a ship and is nicknamed "the port." Finally, there's a hallway decorated with flat screen TVs and football memorabilia and, in the basement, the Bodega Mendoza, a sort of private salon / wine cellar.
For all the investment put into La Casa Argentina's interior, the food is pretty abysmal. Most of the dishes I tried were heinously over seasoned. The cream of corn soup with shrimp (110 CZK) accomplished the impressive feat of being both bland and sickeningly salty at the same time. Ditto the goulash soup (113 CZK), which the menu claimed would be served with Argentinean beef sirloin and homemade bread, but ended up including only a smidgen of the former and none of the latter. The ground beef and chicken-chorizo empanadas (178 CZK) were inoffensive, if a bit on the chewy side, but the salad served that came with it had been salted mercilessly, too.
At least Casa Argentina manages to get the important part right: the steaks. In both quality and preparation, they are unquestionably awesome, and must be some of the best in town. Ranging in price from 335 to 1305 CZK depending on the cut of meat and its size, all of the beef is imported directly from Argentina and is cooked on an open-fire grill (or parrilla) according to your desired temperature.
My tenderloin (468 CZK for 200g) was charred on the outside and succulently red and juicy on the inside; the beef on its own is so flavorful that it really doesn't need that spoonful of herbed butter slapped on top (the waiters also push customers to order additional dipping sauces, even though all of the steaks already come with chimichurri, a traditional spicy condiment).
A restaurant that takes its beef as seriously as this one does ought to make a pretty good burger. But the one my companion tried (the "Black Ranch burger," 355 CZK) was downright bad – the meat patty wouldn't stick together and kept falling apart in big chunks, and it was completely over salted besides. Even more baffling is the fact that the kitchen doesn't cook the burger to order; when my friend asked for it done medium, the waitress responded that the patties were pre-cooked and they didn't make them on the grill. Why on earth not, especially when they have that fancy parrilla going over there in the kitchen?
The service in general was pretty lousy, with surly waiters constantly jumping into our table to grab plates and empty Mattoni bottles but disappearing when it was time to pay the bill. And prepare yourself for a long wait between courses, too.
If this whole Latin craze gets you excited, I suppose you could give La Casa Argentina a shot. For the most part, though, it's a watered-down version of the real thing, a shoddily-made fairy tale castle that relies on its exotic appeal to lure customers.
And just like in the real Disneyland, the food is bad and overpriced. Except for the steaks, of course. Those are in a category of their own – although when they're surrounded by all that phoniness, they're almost forgettable.
But not quite.
La Casa Argentina
Dlouhá 35
Praha 1
Tel: 222 311 512
Open Mon – Sun 10:00 – 02:00
images: lacasaargentina.cz
Monday, September 15, 2008
Restaurant Review: Kabul
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 06/09/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
When a dish shows up in your dreams, you know it must really be something special.
That's what happened after one of my recent trips to restaurant Kabul: just as I was drifting off to sleep, my belly still full to bursting from an enormous dinner, the memory of the Afghan-style kebab I'd devoured only a few hours before wafted into my mind. I recalled the ground beef patty's mildly charred, almost crispy exterior; its juicy deep pink center; the aromatic dollops of chutney – one tangy and sweet, the other bold and spicy – that so perfectly complemented the smoky grilled meat.
A little pool of saliva began to collect in my mouth. My stomach growled. Against all odds, I was hungry.
Since it opene
d on Karolíny Světlé a few years ago, Kabul and its fantastic kebabs have been a well-kept secret known only to a handful of devoted regulars. Afghan cuisine isn't exactly Italian or Chinese food, after all, and it can be a tough sell. When I informed a group of out-of-town visitors that we were going to be having dinner at a place called Kabul, they didn't look especially thrilled.
But by the time our table was loaded with fat kebabs, homemade bread, and colorful vegetable side dishes, they'd become believers – as has everyone else I've brought to the restaurant. It's a pleasant little family joint with unique and delicious food at reasonable prices. What's not to like about that?
Kabul is nice to visit both in the wintertime, when the tiny dining room lined with Afghan carpets becomes a cozy cold-weather hideaway, and in the summer, when the restaurant expands to include an outdoor courtyard. With its picturesque wrought-iron well and walls lined head to foot with wisteria, the garden has some enviable features.
Still, the atmosphere outside could use some improvement. The restaurant/ club/ drag queen cabaret next door likes to blast cheesy pop music over their neighbors' demure Afghan soundtrack. They also have menu-wielding employees standing at the shared garden entrance, doing their best to snatch away Kabul's potential customers. There's not too much owner Hasib Saleh can do about those things, but he might consider upgrading the plastic tables and chairs to something a little less crappy – they cheapen the image of his restaurant more than it deserves.
Of course, a certain crustiness is part of what makes restaurants like Kabul so endearing. The puffy, pleather-bound menus, quirky restrooms, and occasional chipped plate show a lack of pretentiousness that I find refreshing. As long as it doesn't go too far (cockroaches, dirty toilets, cockroaches on the dirty toilets), a little bit of the lived-in feeling is fine with me.
It's not all about the kebabs, either (though I do feel compelled to add that aside from the beef version, Kabul also has chicken and mutton kebabs that are very good as well, all for around 200 CZK). Ashak (150 CZK) is a tasty dish made up of pierogi-like dumplings filled with leek and topped by white yoghurt, dried mint, and ground beef with lentils. The al dente stickler in me would have preferred the dumplings to be a little less cooked, but for all I know, that could be the authentic way to serve them.
Vegetarians can fill up at Kabul, too, as can those who are dead against trying Afghan food; the menu also lists spaghetti, goulash, and pizza, although the Western-style additions hardly seem necessary. Vegetarian sides include bamya (140 CZK), or okra with onions and tomatoes; a garlicky steamed spinach dish called sabzih (70 CZK); and dal (60 CZK), a mildly spicy yellow lentil puree that's perfect for scooping up with Kabul's homemade flat bread (40 CZK). I'd also recommend the excellent kadu (140 CZK), a fried pumpkin dish topped with white yoghurt.
Celebratory Afghan dinners are typically served in the form of a spread, or dastarkhan, where the dining table is laden with various meats, vegetable dishes, breads, rices, nuts, and fruit. It's a good idea to mimic this tradition on a trip to Kabul with a small group so you get to try lots of different dishes. Or you might like to take your food to go and have a little dastarkhan of your own at home (or at your office – they apparently cater parties of up to 500 people).
I do find Kabul's food to be a little on the greasy side for my liking; it's not something I'd be able to eat every day. But if you try it and become a fan, you might want to take advantage of their new 85-CZK lunch special. It may not be the environment for a high-power business lunch, but your meal is certain to be cheap, filling, and tasty.
You'll probably be happy with the service, too. Mr. Saleh is usually on hand to oversee the restaurant and often serves customers himself with a big, friendly smile. No wonder so many people have adopted Kabul as one of their favorites. Just make sure that when you stop by, you don't get tricked into going to the Tingl Tangl drag queen show next door. Your dinner still might enter your dreams, but it'll probably be in a whole different kind of way.
Kabul
Karolíny Světlé 14
Praha 1
Tel: 224 235 452
map
Open Mon – Sun 10.00 - 23.00
