Some Unimpressive Czech Food

Since we’ve spent two days in Prague without trying any “Czech specialty dishes,” we set out today to explore more of Old Town and find a Czech restaurant to eat at.  Unfortunately, our decision to randomly trya place called Restaurace U Golema turned out to be a bad one, and our first experience of Czech food was deeply disappointing.  Hopefully it can only go up from here…

We started today at the Prague Metronome, a giant metronome in Letná Park on the spot where a giant statue of Stalin stood in the 50s.  I’m not sure what the point of the metronome is, but the climb up a steep set of stairs to get to it was worthwhile because you get a pretty good view of Prague from where the metronome stands.  The metronome itself was neat, but without the view, it would not have been worth the climb!

From there we crossed the Chechuv bridge to go back to Old Town and ended up in the Jewish Ghetto, which is a beautiful area full of really pretty buildings.  Although the synagogues here had the prettiest exteriors I’ve seen so far in Europe, we didn’t stop to go inside because we were focused on finding somewhere to eat.  As we wandered around checking out restaurants, we ended up on a street full of designer shops, and window shopping momentarily distracted me from the need to eat.  But, after a quick peek at LV to compare prices to buying in Canada (you save about 15% by buying here), we decided to try the next restaurant we saw which had “Bohemian specialty” dishes on their menu.

Although the Restaurace U Golema has an interesting theme (it’s decor/name is related to the story of Golem, a Jewish folklore about a rabbi who created a monster named Golem) and a large menu to choose from, the food left much to be desired.  I chose a dish of wild boar from their “fresh game menu” and it didn’t taste fresh at all – the boar was completely overcooked, the sauce was wacky (like a combination of gravy and chinese pineapple sweet and sour sauce that usually goes on chicken balls), and the potato croquettes it came with tasted like tater tots.  Paul ordered the lunch special which came with a tastless beef broth soup, a plate of beef goulash with potato dumplings that tasted ok but not great, and a wacky dessert which tasted like those sweetheart candies you used to get for halloween crushed into a cake.  Even the Czech beers (Pilsner and Budweiser) we got for drinks left much to be desired – I asked for a sweet beer and the guy brought me a Pilsner, which actually has a very bitter aftertaste – to the point where halfway through, I couldn’t drink anymore. 

After lunch we continued walking and shopping, but the bad food/beer made me start to feel nauseus and we ended up heading back to our hotel early.  Worsening our lunch experience, when we got the bill we found out they don’t take credit card (even though this isn’t exactly a cheap restaurant), so we rounded up the total to the nearest 100 and left cash.  But, when we got back to our hotel, I looked at the receipt and noticed that they had included a 15% service charge, but that amount was shown in smaller print under the total so I didn’t notice it when I first looked at the bill and we left an extra 10% tip for bad food and bad service!  From now on I’ll have to examine our bills more carefully before paying…