Taste of Prague

Day one of Nana and Grampa's visit to Prague.  They had just finished flying across 7 time zones and spent countless hours eating bad airplane food.  We thought we would give them some time to adjust to the new time zone, and give them some good Prague food.  Off to Taste of Prague we go...

Waiting for the tram...that will take us to the Metro...

That will take us to Wenceslas square.

We made it to our meeting place and almost instantly saw Jan, our guide for the day.

The great thing about the "tour" that Taste of Prague puts on is that there is really no guide.  There is just a guy (and his girlfriend behind the scenes.  Oh, and a friend of theirs too.  But you don't meet either of them).  And the guy, named Jan, is nothing like the guides you have experienced on your other tours.  He does not have a stick/umbrella/flag that he waves in the air while telling you about this monument and that statue while you trail moments behind.  All Jan has is his small group of 6, his iPad, and his personal stories of what the Czech Republic was like to live in when he was a boy and what it's like to live in now.

Jan breaks the ice in the best way possible.  He takes you to the top (or bottom - I am horrible at directions) of Wenceslas Square and hands you a plastic cup.  He then fills it with Slivovice (a clear, plum brandy made by his soon to be father-in-law in Moravia) and says Na Zdravi, while you do your first shot of the day.

 Na zdravi indeed.  With that out of the way, we proceed to take a short walk across the street to the former Communist Federal Parliament Building.  Which now houses one of the best restaurants in Prague.  

 The girls sat down and immediately gave me this... 

And two seconds later, after they brought coloring pages, forgot that they were on a food tour...

Before bringing us a single dish, they brought us this...

Beer shots, followed by...

More beer.  This time they handed the girls .5L glasses with a head that took up 3/4 of the glass.  They call this pour the Mliko (milk pour).  Drinking your beer (which is poured out of a room temperature vat- not a keg) through this much foam makes the drought a bit sweeter, or milkier.  But you have to drink it quick.  Once the head settles, it just becomes any other beer.  What about the boys you ask?  They got the regular pour...

And now that we had the most Czech of drinks on hand, it was time to have some of their traditional food.  Done in a modern, yet old style fashion.  We were served slow grilled chicken with nettle stuffing...

Olomucke tvaruzky - Aged cheese, deep fried in bacon and breadcrumbs, served with a home-made mayo...

Schnitzel - nothing else needs be said (actually, Stinkerbell has eaten so much schnitzel since we have been in Prague, we are thinking of changing her nickname)...

And Czech escargot boiled in root vegetables...(nope, not a one passed my lips but I heard from various sources that they were the best they had ever had)

And the best part, according to the girls was the ice cream.  Theirs was chocolate.  Ours was beer.  Only the Czech could pull off beer ice cream and leave me wanting more.

Having had some (lots) of great slow cooked Czech food, we were off to find some traditional Czech fast food.  The girls literally skipped off...

While Jan was talking about our next tasting, the Chlebicek (open faced sandwiches - bread spread with potato salad, topped with ham, hard boiled egg and pickle), we passed by this...

This is an elevator, or rather, a paternoster.  It has no doors.  No floor buttons.  No safety measures of any sort.  You simply hop on when the platform is level with the ground, hope you have timed it right and ride it up (or down) to your desired floor.  It never stops, running on a continuous loop, and is not very common any more (lack of safety and all).  We did not get to ride this one as it was behind a locked security door but I promise you, I will find one before we leave Prague and will ride it all the way to the top.

And we walked under this.  It is Wenceslas, the same man on the memorial right outside the doors, but this time he is riding a dead, upside down horse.  The twisted, and some say brilliant, mind of David Cerny at work...(You will see some more of him later in this post, and on the blog).

Sandwiches consumed and thougoughly enjoyed, we were off to the sweet part of the tour.  We hit up Savoy (famous) and tried some Becherovka (equally famous).  This herbal liquor smells and tastes like Christmas in a glass...and it is as Czech as Czech can be.  After all of the food we had eaten up to this point we needed a drop or two of this digestive.  And then we followed it up with some great sweets!

We were almost done.  Just one more stop.  But on our way to the wine bar, we encountered this...

Again, the work of David Cerny and there isn't just one...

We stopped in and had our first taste of Czech wine.  Not something you will probably be able to taste unless you are in the Czech Republic.  It is a limited harvest and not much of what is bottled ever crosses the border.  We were not thirsty, nor hungry, at this point but we couldn't resist trying a few different varietals. 

After the wine, we were sated.  Maybe a bit past sated actually.

Such a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  Highly recommend booking Taste of Prague for one of their tours if you are in the area (but do it fast, they are fully booked about a month in advance).