Restaurant Review: SaSaZu

If you don't understand what "fresh pomelo, spring onion, Chinese cabbage, ginger, lychee, Hanoi crab, krupuk chips and shiso leaf sauce" means, you're not welcome at SaSaZu.

That is the description of the Vietnamese summer salad as listed on SaSaZu's menu, which, in both print and online formats, exists only in English. Inevitably, this raises some questions: do the people running SaSaZu not realize that their restaurant is situated in the Czech Republic? Do they not want Czech people to come to their restaurant, or do they welcome only those Czech people who are cool enough to speak fluent English? Or could they just not find anyone to do the translation?

Even if your culinary English isn't up to form, you can rest assured that the menu doesn't make much sense even to native speakers. It's a complete mess, with 30 dishes categorized under five different general categories – Sambal, Otak-Otak, Flame, Roti, and Tai-Tai Grill – each of which has its own description ("Tai-tai is a famous Thai dish combining sticky rice, coconut, and pandan leaves") that only vaguely have anything to do with the dishes listed below them (Tai-tai is not available to be ordered).

To make matters more confusing still, it is impossible to tell either from the descriptions or prices which dishes are appetizers and which are main courses. From this you might infer that all of the dishes are fairly small and about equal in size, but that's not the case. And you'll be better off not asking your servers for advice; ours told us to order three dishes each, but since many of them were quite large, we ended up with more food than we could eat.

The bizarrely (dis-)organized SaSaZu restaurant is part of the recently-opened SaSaZu mega-club in Holešovice's Pražská Tržnice. It's a big, bustling, imposing place, reminiscent of Buddha-Bar and already overtaking that Asian-themed club/bar/restaurant in popularity. SaSaZu is really quite stunning, with delicate geometric lamps dangling from the soaring ceilings of an old industrial warehouse. The food is gorgeously presented and, for what it's worth, it's also full of beautiful people. Clearly, this place has ambitions to be on the grand scale of a large club-restaurant in London or New York. But there are just too many faulty elements here for SaSaZu to achieve that kind of status.

One person who obviously knows what he's doing is the chef, Shahaf Shabtay. His extensive international experience is evident in his eclectic mix of mostly Southeast Asian dishes. The Thai papaya salad (110 CZK), one of Shabtay's signatures, is a snappy combination of shredded green papaya, fresh herbs, roasted cashews, and green beans in a tangy lime dressing. I also loved the addictive Babi Ketjap (190 CZK), traditionally an Indonesian sweet soy pork dish, reinvented here with Japanese udon noodles and Chinese-style pickled vegetables.

The flavor profiles at SaSaZu are much more colorful than anything you'd find at Buddha-Bar, and the prices are a lot more palatable, too. The most expensive dish on the menu is the lobster vanilla mirin (485 CZK) – which, incidentally, was also one of the most disappointing. Although the lobster itself was generously portioned and perfectly cooked, its delicate flavor was overwhelmed by the fragrant vanilla and mirin (a Japanese rice wine) sauce, and it was served atop slices of brown, oily eggplant. And the SaSaZu fries (40 CZK) were limp and soggy. But there are still more than enough great dishes at SaSaZu to make a trip here worth your while.

If you can stand the terrible service, that is. During just one visit, my table witnessed more mix-ups and delays and problems than I've seen in my past few months of restaurant visits. My companion got two of his dishes at once, so by the time he finished one, the other was cold, and the rest of us didn't get our food until he was almost done eating. The waiters had no idea who was getting which dish, so each plate had to be described to us in detail before we could figure out where it was supposed to go. And because nobody cleared our table after the first course, the next dishes came when the dirty plates were still on the table.

We didn't have any luck with the beverages, either: SaSaZu has no drinks or cocktail menu, only a wine list. When a friend asked for some wine by the glass, the waitress offered her just one option, even though they had more available, then forgot to bring her second glass. And it was impossible to flag down a server to order more drinks when we ran out.

They were probably all busy serving the more important guests. Some tables seemed to be getting special treatment; we didn't get hot towels to wipe our hands before the meal, but other patrons did (we were offered the towels on my second visit to SaSaZu, when the service was generally better, but still problematic). Instead, we got treated to one of the managers yelling at a waitress just next to our table, and passive-aggressive behavior from another waitress who was apparently furious that we didn't agree to eat a dish we hadn't ordered.

Like so many pseudo-world class business ventures in this town, SaSaZu only manages to make it halfway. In any civilized city, a big club would offer free entry to the guests who've dropped several thousands of crowns on food and drinks at their restaurant. But at SaSaZu, the restaurant patrons have to pay the club's entry fee if they want to dance after dinner – not the smartest move, perhaps, for a club with a capacity of 2500 people that feels more or less empty even if it manages to lure in a thousand. Instead of sticking around and buying drinks at the club, we left.
Had we stayed, we could have come back to the restaurant up until 3 a.m., its daily closing time. But I wasn't going to risk another obnoxious service disaster, even for another serving of SaSaZu's famous papaya salad.

SaSaZu Kitchen & Bar
Bubenské nábřeží 306/13
Praha 7 – Holešovice
map
Tel.: 284 097 444

Open Mon-Sun 11:00-3:00

photographs 1, 2, 4, 5 Tomáš Krist for Lidové noviny; all others sasazu.com

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 01/08/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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Restaurant Review: Café de Paris

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 13/06/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

There's only one reason to go to Café de Paris: the beef entrecôte.

The menu doesn't leave its patrons with too many other options. The choices are as follows: French onion soup, a foie gras terrine, the beef entrecôte, a vegetarian version of the beef entrecôte, and a goat cheese salad. Two appetizers, two entrees, and a salad. That's it. Pretty ballsy, if you ask me.

Well, there are the daily specials, which seem to be more of a fixed menu than they first appear. Those give you a little more breathing room, although they hardly seem necessary, given the quality of Café de Paris's star entrée.

The entrecôte (279 CZK) comes with a green salad, drenched in a deliciously mustard-y French vinaigrette. The salad is brought out first, and they recommend that you eat half of it immediately and the other half with your meat. Your table is then presented with two miniature grills, lit from below with candles to keep the food warm. On one goes a platter of French fries; the other is reserved for the entrecôte. Some slices of fresh baguette come with all this, too, in case the fries don't fill you up.

The beef is cooked medium rare (unless you specify otherwise) and is sliced into thin strips. You can choose whether you want it with Béarnaise sauce, red wine Parisienne sauce, or the special Café de Paris sauce, which is made according to a "secret family recipe" that has been around for seventy-five years.

My best guess is that the secret sauce contains butter, tarragon, and Dijon mustard – not entirely dissimilar to the Béarnaise, which is usually made with butter, tarragon, egg yolks, and vinegar. It is herb-laden and wonderful, a perfect accompaniment to the juicy grilled meat. On occasion, the beef can be a little chewy, but that is pretty typical of an entrecôte, which is a fattier cut of meat than some others. I would challenge anyone to show me a better example of steak frites in Prague.

Now lest you think that this whole delicious setup is a homegrown invention, I'm going to regale you with a little history (of which I myself was not aware until my faithful friend Wikipedia spelled it out for me while doing my research). The original Café de Paris is located in Geneva, where in the 1930s a certain Mr. Boubier developed a buttery sauce to accompany his restaurant's entrecôte. The sauce came to be known as "Café de Paris sauce" and the dish became the only dish on the restaurant's menu. Today, the name and the secret sauce recipe have been licensed to various restaurants around the world, one of which is the Café de Paris in Prague.

A similar concept – with a similar sauce – has been espoused by the unaffiliated L'Entrecôte chain of restaurants in France, the first of which opened in 1959 and was modeled after the original Café de Paris. Two years ago, a reporter from the magazine Le Monde claimed to have chemically analyzed L'Entrecôte's secret sauce and discovered its ingredients: a combination, he says, of fresh thyme, thyme flowers, full cream, white Dijon mustard, butter, and strained chicken livers. L'Entrecôte insists that this analysis is incorrect.

Prague's Café de Paris is understandably tight-lipped about their sauce's makeup. And even if their other dishes are less mysterious, they are often just as good. The French onion soup (45 CZK) was made from a delicate white wine broth and not broiled in a ramekin, but decorated with a single slice of crispy baguette and a modest amount of melted cheese. This made the soup much lighter and more appropriate for the summer season than the cheese-encrusted versions we are more used to seeing.

The foie gras terrine (159 CZK), too, was small but satisfying – a buttery slice of foie topped with toasted sesame seeds and surrounded by a potent sour cherry and plum coulis. Unfortunately, the special soup they had on offer, a lukewarm chicken broth "strengthened with gin" (65 CZK) and served in a martini glass with a wedge of lime, was as salty as seawater. I was also a little underwhelmed by the vegetarian version of the entrecôte platter (259 CZK), with its slightly overcooked eggplant and zucchini drenched in a goopy Béarnaise sauce. But the smoky tofu fritters that came with it were surprisingly tasty, if not quite as good as the beef my companion was tucking into.

A good part of Café de Paris's charm comes from its atmosphere – its quiet location on Maltézské náměstí, the small tables out front and in the courtyard, and the two tiny rooms decorated with red leather seats and postcards from happy customers. It's also nice to have your food served at the table by the waiters, who come around to fill up your plates with meat and French fries once you've polished off your first helping. The general feeling is of a homey little family-run place, where they don't pretend to be anything they're not.

And because this is a French restaurant, they have a thoughtful selection of wines from the home country – reasonably-priced – as well as some delicious sparkling cranberry, ginger, and elderflower lemonades (a little less reasonably-priced at 69 CZK for a small bottle).

I've written before that crème brulée is a bit of a cheap trick, but the one at Café de Paris (95 CZK) is worth ordering anyway. It was crusty on top, super-creamy below, and served with a scoop of mango ice cream and a dusting of salted cayenne pepper. It's a perfect finish to a meal at this soulful little restaurant.

Café de Paris
Maltézské náměstí 4
Praha 1 – Malá Strana
map
Tel: 603 160 718

Open Mon-Sun 12:00-24:00

photographs: 1, 4, 5, 7 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others cafedeparis.cz

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Restaurant Review: Vikárka

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 18/07/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

Vikárka is one of those restaurants that's been around since the beginning of time. Not literally, of course – but almost.

The establishment is well-known to local residents for its location within the walls of the Prague Castle, as well as for its rich history. Originally the site of church institutions, Charles IV's ascension to the Bohemian throne in 1347 gave the vicars there the right to brew beer. It ended up being a fairly lucrative business for the pious castle-dwellers, who under the late 16th and early 17th-century rule of Rudolph II served copious amounts of their homegrown brew to the patron king's various resident artists, alchemists, and foreign dignitaries.

Nowadays, the restaurant's chosen beer, Krušovice, is tapped for a less intriguing brand of foreigner and at what is surely a more unpalatable price, 60 CZK per 0.4l glass. On a recent Sunday afternoon visit, a group of older Japanese visitors who had a private dining room persuaded the waitress and then the waiter to pose with them in various configurations in front of their cameras (the staff here wear traditional-style costumes, so that might explain the fascination).

Catering to tourist groups seems to have been Vikárka's major source of income since the restaurant reopened in 2005 after extensive renovations and a seven-year closure. They certainly have more than enough room for them all: in addition to the 100-seat, multi-room restaurant space, the Vikárka complex includes a 60-person cellar (named after a famed literary character who used to drink here, Matěj Brouček, and home to the castle's oldest Romanesque wall), an upstairs series of private dining rooms with a 300-person capacity, a fast food eatery next door, and the 240-seat Rudolph's Foundry, which is designed to replicate an alchemist's workshop as it would have appeared during Rudolph II's time.

There are other souvenirs from past days, too. Ancient maps of the city and the castle grounds hang on Vikárka's arched walls, and an old weight-driven clock ticks and buzzes and whirs against the quiet classical music that emanates from tiny speakers in the ceiling. Although the prices might lead you to believe otherwise, Vikárka is not quite a tourist trap. It has a little more soul, and puts forth a lot more effort, than many of those dreaded establishments.

For one thing, the service is surprisingly great – as if they actually cared whether or not their customers come back. During both of my visits, the staff was cheerful and unobtrusive. They were perfectly willing to make small adjustments to the dishes (a companion wanted his salad without bacon) and even checked in during the meal to see if everything was all right. I really, really liked these people. They were just so… pleasant.

So it's with a heavy heart that I start to write about Vikárka's food. I very much wanted to enjoy it, if only for the sake of those wonderful waiters. But it just wasn't up to the standard set by the service. Some dishes were quite good: the boneless ham appetizer (95 CZK) came with a tangy shallot relish and a spicy horseradish and mustard-seed sauce that perfectly complemented the tender slices of meat. And a simple green salad (120 CZK) had a nice balsamic dressing and was happily iceberg-free.

I even liked the beef and chicken broth (55 CZK), but only on my first visit when, as advertised in the menu, it came with thick homemade noodles. On my second trip, the tasty noodles had been replaced by something that resembled chopped-up spaghetti, and the broth was far too salty.

You'd think that a place like this would be able to manage the classic Czech dishes reasonably well. But the svíčková (195 CZK) had meat as tough as at any low-end pub, and its sauce was no better than one you'd get in powdered form at the supermarket. The meat of the roasted pork knee (245 CZK) didn't fall off the joint quite as easily as it should have. And while the veal schnitzel (245 CZK) came with some nice onion-laced mashed potatoes, the meat itself was thick and hard to chew.

For my second main course at Vikárka, I wanted to try something not Czech. The international dishes on their menu are a little suspect in general (the chicken nuggets with vegetables and spaghetti especially comes to mind), but I decided to go with something that seemed pretty safe: the grilled pork sirloin in a Parmesan crust with vegetable lasagna (285 CZK).

Pork and lasagna are not the most conventional combination, but it sounded like it might not be half bad. Unfortunately, thanks to the super-salty crust on the meat and a dried-out lasagna that required a steak knife to saw through its top layer, it was pretty bad indeed. The meal was somewhat redeemed by the švestkové knedlíky (plum dumplings, 85 CZK), which were sprinkled with poppy seeds and powdered sugar, and the "bomba Malakoff" (85 CZK), a small ladyfinger and chocolate mousse confection covered in a crisp layer of dark chocolate.

Vikárka has recently tried to boost its profile by holding foodie events on its premises, the most recent of which was the Hot Food Festival, a tasting of some of the spiciest dishes from countries around the world. The idea was to introduce the joys of spiciness to more Czech people, whose traditional cuisine, of course, has no relationship with the chili pepper. On hand to assist in case of emergencies were unlimited amounts of milk, sweet syrups, and a registered nurse.

It's a nice idea, and one with some merit. But before Vikárka starts branching off into cuisines – Mexican, Indian, Szechuan, Thai – that have nothing to do with the food they serve every day, shouldn't they try to fix what's wrong on the Czech side of their kitchen? For a restaurant with this much history, it's the least that they could do.

Restaurant Vikárka
Vikářská 39
Praha 1 - Hradčany
map
Tel.: 233 311 962

Open Mon-Sun 11:00-21:00

photographs: 3, 4 Viktor Chlad for Lidové Noviny; all others vikarka.cz

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Ben & Jerry's to open in Prague (UPDATED)

American ice cream company Ben & Jerry's will be opening its first Czech store at the end of next week. The brand is known for its super-rich, unusual flavors, including Cherry Garcia (cherry ice cream with cherries and fudge flakes), Chunky Monkey (banana ice cream with fudge chunks & walnuts), and Chubby Hubby (fudge-covered peanut butter-filled pretzels in vanilla malt ice cream rippled with fudge and peanut butter). Frozen yogurts and sorbets are also available.

Ben & Jerry's will be located in the Koruna building at Václavské náměstí 1.

UPDATE: Looks like they're already serving cones, but the shop in back isn't open yet. The store is on the Na Příkopě side of the building.

image: benjerry.com

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Restaurant Review: U Koně

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 04/07/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

In Central Bohemia, between Prague and the Sazava river, is a so-called "micro-region" called Ladův Kraj. It was given the name after Hrusice-born painter, illustrator, and author Josef Lada, who used the area's rolling hills and picturesque villages as inspiration for his well-known children's books.

Four years ago, a pair of tourist trails was developed to honor the famous Czech personality and his homeland. The first, called "Pohádkové Hrusice" (Fairytale Hrusice) tours through Lada's hometown. The "Cesta kocoura Mikeše" (Tomcat Mikeš's Trail) is a considerably longer route and follows the supposed footsteps of one of Lada's most famous characters as he sets off on his worldly adventures with his dear friend, Pašík. At each of the twelve stops is a signpost with illustrations and an excerpt from "Mikeš."

The road from Hrusice to Říčany is 20 kilometers long, so if you decide to undertake the journey, you're probably going to make a few rest stops. Which brings me to this week's restaurant: Hostinec U Koně, located in Klokočná, the ninth stop on the Cesta kocoura Mikeše (titled on the signpost as "Mikeš straší," or "Scary Mikeš") and a very worthy place to fill your stomach, regardless of whether you've just trekked 15 kilometers or pulled up directly in front of it with your car.

U Koně has been around considerably longer than the Lada trails, or even Lada himself – the hotel and restaurant have been in operation since the 17th century. Currently helming U Koně's kitchen is Jaroslav Sapík, a former cook at the Prague Castle and, for a time, Václav Havel's personal chef. Sapík comes from a centuries-old family line of gastronomers, and at U Koně he has upheld his predecessors' commitment to serving high-quality Czech food made with fresh ingredients.

It's not a fancy place, but it attracts many of the well-heeled local families with cottages in the area. On a recent Sunday afternoon, U Koně was brimming with people; my companions and I were lucky to score a seat, even if we had to share the table with another party. We were in the front room, which is small and bedecked with antique kitchenware, faded family photographs, and old-fashioned radios.

Despite the clutter, the place felt clean and well-cared-for. A bouquet of fresh wallflowers in five different colors sat on a side table, and the scent of newly-cut jasmine blossoms graced the entranceway. Nearby was a family with several children, a rambunctious dog, and a human-sized teddy bear that required his own seat. Waiters bustled in from the kitchen, balancing plates headed for the much larger back room. Karel Gott and Hana Zagorová crooned in the background.

Because the menu is divided into two sections – one called "Jídla ze selských dvorů dle rodinných receptů" ("Family recipes from the farmyard"), the other "Rodinné recepty ze zámecké kuchyně"("Family recipes from the castle kitchen") – both of which have appetizers, main courses, and desserts, picking what to order can be mildly confusing. But once you do, you probably won't go wrong.

On the fancier (castle recipe) side of the menu is the Czech crayfish cream soup (165 CZK), a thick, deep red bisque that brimmed with the flavor of crayfish and had lots of chunks of the freshwater lobster's flesh. This was better and less expensive than the crayfish bisque at Café Savoy, which is also very good, but a little heavy on the cream for my liking – U Koně's version of the soup seemed purer, more honest. They serve it with a piece of toast that is decorated with a slice each of lemon, tomato, and hard-boiled egg (its yolk removed and replaced with black caviar).

The most famous dish at U Koně is probably the roasted wild boar piglet (360 CZK), not least because it is also its oldest. As the menu explains, the dish is "a specialty first prepared, according to our ancestral grandmother's documentation, in 1784 during the hunt at the Rájec-Jestřabí castle." Good thing the recipe was handed down over so many years, because it's definitely a keeper. Served over a sauce of wild garlic, with spinach, sauteed mushrooms, and round potato dumplings, the tender young boar meat had been larded to keep it moist and flavorful.

Although the boar was a hearty-sized portion, the roast duck with potato dumplings and red cabbage (285 CZK) was so large that we had it wrapped up with us for dinner at home later. This, apparently, is standard procedure at U Koně; we witnessed a parade of people (mostly women) wielding styrofoam boxes of leftovers on their way out the door. So even if the prices are somewhat higher than at other restaurants in those parts, you can be sure you're getting your money's worth.

Dessert was another pleasure: hot plum-filled dumplings (125 CZK), smothered in chopped walnuts, powdered sugar, and homemade whipped cream. And while the service was a little brusque (and a little quick to take away plates), I appreciated the waiters' promptness and no-nonsense attitude.

Mr. Sapík is known to be a a die-hard defender of Czech cuisine; he has said in the past that it can rival even the gastronomy of the French. And although I'm skeptical of that particular point, his restaurant has distinguished itself as a key propagator of good, wholesome local food – whether it comes from the castle or the farm.

We need more restaurants like U Koně. If I had my way, I'd place a couple of them in the city where I live, but the charms of Klokočná add a lot to the experience: just in front of the restaurant is a placid square, where there is a pond, an old scale, and a pretty World War I memorial.

You might even see Mikeš scampering across the grass.

Restaurace a penzion U koně
Klokočná č.p. 8
Praha - Východ
map
Tel: 323 641 186

Open Wed – Fri 16:00 – 23:00, Sat 11:30 – 23:00, Sun 11:30 – 21:00. Closed Mon-Tues.

photographs: 1, 4, 5 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; 2 laduvkraj.cz; all others ukone.cz

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Restaurant Review: Peking

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 27/06/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

Stop what you're doing, everybody. Put your pencils down. Turn off your mobile phones. I have a very important announcement to make.

I have discovered a good Chinese restaurant. Here. In Prague. Isn't today a wonderful day?

I actually can't take credit for finding it myself. There has been some debate among local foodies lately about where to get good, reasonably authentic Chinese food – something other than the slop served at the endless slew of sleazy bufety around town. Then a reader of my blog recommended Peking.

Thanks to a carefully-composed email laden with tempting quotes pulled from Peking's website ("you will find comfortable surroundings and enjoy unbelievable gourmet feasts"), I managed to recruit eight people to join me on a culinary expedition to Pankrác. Peking, as it happens, is in the middle of a Prague 4 sidliště, right next to a clump of paneláky and a discount grocery store. By way of sheer contrast, the setting made our destination seem all the more impressive.

Flanking Peking's entrance way are two stone lions and a massive Chinese gate that leads to a flight of steps with a marble railing. Up top is a large dining room, ornately decorated with red tassels, a big Buddha statue, and a pool of goldfish. Behind the live lobster tank is a children's play room.

But it's in the back of the restaurant that the real magic happens. There are ten numbered private salonky of varying sizes, all equipped with flat-screen TVs, WI-FI internet, individually controlled air-conditioning, buzzers for service and, naturally, karaoke machines. The largest room, simply labeled "VIP," seats twenty. A glimpse into a few of the salons revealed large groups of Chinese people. Apparently, Peking is where all the Chinese expats go when they want to have a nice meal that reminds them of home (several of my well-traveled friends confirmed, too, that the interior is very similar to that of a fancy restaurant in China).

So much so, in fact, that the restaurant even relegates non-Chinese customers to their own section. When I called to make a reservation, I was asked whether our group was Czech. On a second visit, my two friends and I were ushered past the main dining room, which was full of local Chinese, to an isolated, windowless room in the back. At first, we were alone, but the room slowly filled up with Czech, French, German people…

In Peking, segregation rules. But I was willing to accept it for the food. The menu, as at many Chinese restaurants, is extensive, and has helpful, true-to-life photographs. What is more unusual is that it includes dim sum, the variation of steamed and fried filled dumplings that is a staple of Cantonese cuisine.

In Guangdong, China's Cantonese province, dim sum (literally, "close to the heart") is typically served with tea for breakfast or lunch in special eateries. Up to several dozen different types are wheeled around the restaurants on trolleys for the patrons to pick and choose; most of the treats are savory, but there are sweet dessert versions, too. Peking serves both, although with an understandably more limited selection.

Among the dim sum varieties we tasted was cha siu baau (roast pork buns; 80 CZK for three pieces), a steamed bun, similar in appearance and texture to an ovocný knedlík (Czech fruit dumpling), filled with barbecued pork in a red sauce. Although their filling was moist and sweet, the buns themselves were disappointingly dry. But the guotie (potstickers; 70 CZK for five pieces) – a pan-fried dumpling stuffed with minced pork meat and chopped vegetables – had a perfect chewy exterior and a kick of ginger on the inside.

The har kau (shrimp dumpling; 90 CZK for four pieces) were a hit too, with their translucent rice wrapper and simple stuffing of a whole prawn and bamboo shoots. And I was happy to discover that the spring rolls (55 CZK for two pieces) were more like what is known in North America as egg rolls – larger, and with a fluffy, crunchy crust.

Peking's main courses are more typical of what you would find in a regular Chinese restaurant: stir-fried meats and vegetables in thick, sometimes gloopy sauces. But here, the quality of those meats and vegetables is higher, and the sauces aren't doused in toxic MSG. The prawns with mango (420 CZK) came with butterflied shrimp, fresh pieces of ripe mango, and lightly-cooked pieces of red bell pepper and cucumber. Beautiful to look at, and an unusual, sophisticated combination. I would have preferred the sweet and sour chicken (139 CZK) a little more crispy, but the fresh snow peas sauteed with garlic (159 CZK) were irresistibly green and crunchy.

Appropriately enough, Peking serves Peking duck, and does it very well. A single portion is a fairly pricey 599 CZK, but it comes with lots of fragrant duck meat lined with crisp, browned skin. Included in the price are paper-thin pancakes, hoi sin sauce, and raw spring onions and cucumbers, just as it is meant to be served. If you come in a big group, you can pre-order a whole duck, which they will carry out ceremoniously on a platter.

And come in a big group you should. That way, you get to try more dishes and spin them around on the Lazy Susans that sit on each of the large tables. You also get the added bonus of having your drinks brought to you on a special trolley (a fairly ingenious invention) and, if you have your own room, access to the many delights conferred by the karaoke machine.

Peking's original restaurant was closer to the city center, on Legerova in Prague 2, but they have made a grander home for themselves in Pankrác. Go and see it for yourself. I can't guarantee the best seat in the house, but you'll definitely have great food – and a lot of fun.

Čínská Restaurace Peking
Pujmanové 10
Praha 4 – Pankrác
map
Tel: 241 730 688

Open Mon-Sun 11:30-15:30, 17:30-23:00

photographs: Pavel Wellner for Lidové Noviny; all others pekingrestaurant.cz

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Restaurant Review: Grosseto

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 03/01/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

It had been a long time since I'd visited Pizzeria Grosseto.

I knew I had blacklisted the place a few years ago, but I couldn't remember why. A rude server, or overcooked pasta, perhaps – one of the usual Czech suspects. With so many bad restaurant experiences under my belt, it can get hard to keep track of what offense happened where.

On a recent Wednesday evening, I passed by Grosseto's original location near Vítězné náměstí. The pizzeria was overflowing with customers, as it has been since the day it opened back in 1996. At that time, the neighborhood had only a few restaurants; now, although Dejvice is still pitifully lacking in dining options compared to Vinohrady or Žižkov, there are plenty of other options. So why does everyone still flock to Grosseto?

For one thing, it's a pizzeria, and everyone likes pizza. And Grosseto really does make good pies; many credit the restaurant with being the first to bring Italian-style pizza to the Czech masses. As the story goes, two Czech would-be restaurant owners, on a visit to the town of Grosseto in Tuscany, approached a pizza chef named Gianfranco Turbanti and asked him to move to Prague. A few weeks later, Mr. Turbanti arrived in Dejvice, son in tow, and set about the laborious task of constructing a wood-burning pizza oven to his very exact specifications.

Before Grosseto, "pizza" largely meant poor-quality dough covered in Eidam, párek, and a ketchup-based sauce. A few real Italian pizzerias, such as Rugantino, were around, but they were largely patronized by expats and tourists, not locals. There were a couple of American-style pizza joints, too: Pizza Hut and New York Pizza, both now defunct, as well as Chicago's Famous Pizza, formerly located in a prime spot on Malé Náměstí but now downgraded to a delivery-only service based out of Pankrác.

True Italian pizza is almost a different dish entirely, and it's the type of pie that has turned out to be most appealing to local tastes – although it, too, varies from region to region and from one pizzeria to the next. Grosseto's crusts are thin but not quite crispy, and have the inimitable smokiness that comes from a good wood-burning oven like Gianfranco's. The selection of toppings is, to my taste, a little heavy on meats, cheeses, and cream (the signature Grosseto pie comes with chicken breast, mozzarella, gorgonzola, and Parmesan) and low on vegetables (they do, however, put arugula on some of their pizzas, as do lots of Italian restaurants nowadays, and they use fresh mushrooms, which many do not). And although their pizza sauce is not very interesting – it tastes as if the tomatoes were taken straight from the can with no added seasoning – the overall quality of the ingredients is good and the pizza is well-made and tasty.

So why is so much of the other food so bad? The pastas were dismal, thanks not to their being overcooked (all of the pasta dishes I tasted were surprisingly al dente), but because they had been boiled in unsalted water. I have written about this particular problems many times before, including, I believe, in my last review of an Italian restaurant. But I will repeat these words again: you must salt the pasta water. Unless a person has cirrhosis of the liver and is following a strict no-sodium diet, there is no reason why any of us should suffer unsalted pasta.

Which I did, when I ate the pappardelle ai funghi porcini (195 CZK) at Grosseto. The tasteless noodles were homemade, at least, but they stuck together in messy clumps; luckily, the unexciting cream sauce contained plenty of porcini mushrooms that partially offset the dish's general blandness. It was a similar story with the spaghetti con aglio, olio e peperoncino (125 CZK), a dish so simple in flavor that it is almost unbearable to eat without salt.

According to the law of inept seasoning, of course, missing salt in one dish must be compensated by too much salt in another. And so it was with Grosseto's terrible tomato soup (48 CZK) and its otherwise good bruschette al pomodoro (69 CZK). The minestrone con verdure (45 CZK), meanwhile, was full of overcooked veggies and too-soft pasta shells; the tiramisu (79 CZK) might have been a winner if the ladyfingers had been soaked in espresso as they should be. Basically, everything other than the pizza was a just a little bit off.

And that included the service. When the waiter brought me the wrong pizza, he argued with me about what I had actually ordered. "You asked for number 27," he insisted. I told him that I had not ordered by number, but by name – I wanted the pizza Parma (185 CZK), which came with tomato sauce, Parma ham, fresh tomatoes and basil, not one with regular ham and a cream sauce. He had obviously guessed at the number and written it down incorrectly. Grudgingly, he took the pizza away, saying the replacement would come in ten or fifteen minutes. It came in 30 minutes, with no apology, long after the rest of my table had finished eating.

Mistakes happen, of course, but when they do, the waiter should be nice about it and try to accommodate the guest as soon as possible. That, however, would have involved him asking the pizza chef to rush the order and therefore acknowledging that he had done something wrong. But admitting to and apologizing for one's mistakes is not, I've noticed, the national forte.

Neither, apparently, is peripheral vision. As I tried to ask for the check, waiter after waiter walked by without a glance in our table's direction, like horses with blinders on. A few meters away, a bored-looking waitress stared off into space as she massaged lotion into her hands. Aha, I thought, so this was why I'd blacklisted Grosseto. Mystery solved.

Now if only they would let me leave.

Pizzeria Grosseto
Jugoslávských partyzánů 8
Prague 6 - Bubeneč
map
Open Mon-Sun 11:30 – 23:00
Tel.: 233 342 694

photographs: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others grosseto.cz

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