May 16, 2008 8

Demel (Vienna: Hofburg Imperial Palace)

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The sausages revived our energy, but we were thinking of cakes. After hitting several tourist sights (including following the Royal Band marching into the Castle, saved our trouble finding directions), we dashed to one of Vienna’s most famous cake shop before its closing time.

So there was a bitter rivalry story about Vienna’s signature chocolate cake: Sachertorte. The Sacher family invented it in 1832, but the recipe got into the hands of the Damel family when a Sacher offspring married a Demel. Demel started to sell Sachertorte and ugly disputes ensued. Nowadays both claimed their Sachertorte is THE original recipe. So we hit both spot to compare.

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Damel locates right at the entrance of the Hofburg Imperial Palace, so they’re the old school Royal confectionary for Royalties and Upper classes. Queen Sisi could get her favorite Demel Candied Violet Petal with a shorter fiaker ride. 😉

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The interior was very Parisian. Yet somehow the feeling is a bit different. The candies, chocolate and cakes are not as fine and delicate.

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Sachertorte. Verdict: the chocolate was tastefully rich but I felt it’s a bit one note. More unforgivable: the cake was a bit dry… (did we get a bad piece? 🙁 )

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The Esterhazytorte redeems it all. It’s baked meringue layered with rich hazelnut cream. It’s so delicious! The hazelnut flavor is very rich. There’re hazelnut bits in the fine silky cream layers that added an addictive, complex, crunchy texture (I’ve tried another place’s later where they didn’t have the crunch, oh my the difference is heaven and earth). I guess that makes up how they don’t have as much ‘layers’ as others (this one has 8 compare to the usual 16). I almost had a tear falling down when I was about to eat my last bite.

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Apfelstrudel (?): apple, pine nuts and poppy seed. Very fun to eat with multi-textures and flavors (sour sweet apple, crunchy pine nuts and chewy, heavy poppy seed paste). It’s very heavy though. We got coffee and spicy chocolate (it’s really spicy T__T, maybe that’s why I felt teary eye ^^;;)

I think the taste of Vienna pastry is generally sweeter and creamier than Paris, but it’s a very very lovely level of sweetness – very controlled, perfect kind of sophisticated sweetness that they’ve mastered.

Damel
Kohlmarkt 14, 1010 Wien

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May 15, 2008 4

Sausage Stand (Vienna: Stephansdom)

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After an early morning 4 hours train ride we arrived at Vienna. Imagine our dismay at leaving behind a charming quaint little fairytale town to a huge “familiar” metro city with an insanely overcrowded city central. The Stephansdom was surrounded by Spring break festivals, radio station stage, sausage stands and massive tourist + shopping crowds.

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After being harassed by nonstop crappy costumed “Mozarts” selling us seats to the touristy Classical music concert (‘the Vienna experience”~), we’re hungry and tired. We picked the least crowded stand at the plaza’s cooler corner.

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Hot and Juicy! But I think I like the Prague one more.

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Melty thick liquid inside the sausage, fat? cheese? ^^;;

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May 14, 2008 4

Restaurant Stoleti (Prague: Old Town)

//// By in Prague

Our final night at Prague. We got stalled by going into an art show opening we came upon (which turns out to be crappy student/youtube quality video art works) and arrived too late at Restaurant Stoleti which was fulled already. It was raining and we were too tired to look for another place so we waited. Even though you see the same old travel guidebook on lots of people’s table (^^;;) but many belonged to locals patrons as well. The noteworthy thing about this place is that it’s got a vegetarian menu (a rarity in Prague).

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Consistent with all the places we’ve been to, the interior also function as gallery space for local artists.

Restaurant Stoleti

We finished the drink while waiting for a table (about 40 minutes or so). The menu is very affordable and the ingredients are more interesting than they appear on photos. Each dish is also named after a famous creative person. Oskar Kokoschka – Turkey skewer with prague ham and apple horseradish. The turkey was dry and bland, but the apple horseradish sauce was yummy.

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A Duck Special of the night. The duck was fat but it’s tender and smoky. The sauce is similar to a thinner version of the ‘ice plum sauce’ from Cantonese BBQ Duck, so it’s familiar but delicious. The gogi berry added a very nice sweet kick. The Spinach Pudding side was very yummy too.

Restaurant Stoleti

Rice pudding with whipped cream, peaches and apricot sauce. Very good!

Restaurant Stoleti
St. Mesto, ul. Karoliny Svetle 21

This concludes our Prague report. Since we had low expectations, we were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed the food – there’s an exciting sense of development in refining and experimenting at the higher end. While the low end offers unpretentious, tasty, hearty meals that makes you happy (and go so well with their wonderful beers).

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May 14, 2008 4

U Tri Cernych Ruzi (Prague: Mala Strana)

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A rainy day and we needed a quick lunch. So we went to this small local pub that offers cheap food – 100 Czk for salad + main + dessert.

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Don’t know what this beer is (very good~). The Czech Salad was diced onions and cabbages with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, quite nice.

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Beef Goulash. I know it’s pub food. It tasted trashy and salty but it’s very satisfying (and tastier than your regular English pub food).

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Smoked pork Pancake with Rotkraut (Fermented Red Cabbage). The pork was battered thin like Wiener Schnitzel (?) so the meat was very tender. The cutlet was soaked with sauce, soggy but flavorful. The thin pork folded like a taco shell with the sour cabbage in between. Delicious.

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The chalk board saids “Homemade Honey Cake” for dessert but they gave us a regular chocolate cake (dry, no good).

The owner was so drunk. We could smell his heavy liquor breath whenever he approached. I know it’s a pub, but it’s still quite early. 😉

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May 13, 2008 5

Cerny Kohout (Prague: New Town)

//// By in Prague

We hiked a bit to locate this place. I read about Cerny Kohout (the black rooster) from a New York Times‘s article on the rise of Prague’s fine dining scene. Our budget allowed us to have one fine dining meal at Prague and turned out this place wasn’t that expensive.

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The restaurant was downstairs in the cellar (again). The interior was homey and intimate. We made reservation but seems like it wasn’t a busy night that night. Their menu sounds very interesting, there’s clearly a strong French influence. They also offered an Old Czech tasting menu but it seemed too much food for us so we didn’t order.

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Good Czech wine. Amuse Bouche: Cream cheese with Czech’s ham.

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For the 1st course, Freda got the Old Prague Ham with rooster galantine serve with dry prune sauce and macerated orange.. A Czech-French dish. The prune sauce and the ham (taste like normal sandwich ham) made it more Czech. It’s good but the name did sound a lot more interesting than it taste.

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My friend got the Rooster consommé with Grandma’s dumplings of goose liver and mushroom sediment and I, craving for vegetables, got the Radicchio salad with pears, walnuts and honey.

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For the main course, Freda got the Filet of Deer with Chamomile Sauce, Light Grandma’s Bread pudding and Baked pear with Forest Fruits. 490 Czk. Very good! The deer meat was very tender and gamey (in a good way). The bread pudding was really good and it was a pleasant to find fruits stuffed inside the pear. There were so many items on the plate that Freda couldn’t finish everything. The Chamomile sauce added an interesting refreshing herbal aroma that balance with the “gamey” taste.

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My friend and I got the Baked Duck Breast with Ham Foam, served with Bacon and Parsley Dumplings, black prune sauce flavored with Slivovice Brandy. 420 Czk. Delicious! The duck was cook well (medium rare). The prune sauce gave a good balance of citrus and sweetness with the saltiness from the bacon and ham foam. The dish felt refine and homey at the same time. It was so much food that I couldn’t finish everything.

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My friend got Whole “Poussin” Chicken baked on Butter with mild herbs, served on mashed potatoes and peas, sauce of boletus forest mushrooms. 420 Csk. She loved it. The portion was also large so I was surprised she actually finished most of it.

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Even though we were too full already but still got dessert: Old Bohemia Prune Dumplings sprinkled with “polonnaise” and a drop of prune sauce. I like the Prune Dumplings. They also gave us complimentary dessert (which we took home). A very satisfying meal.

Cerny Kohout (+420) 251681191
Vojtěšská 9, Praha 1
Email: info@cernykohout.cz

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