Hungary: Duck, Ham, Goulash, and Indian Food-What I Ate in Prague

Yes, it's February and I'm just now finishing up some posts of Prague that should have been finished in November. I've had some trouble uploading images to the blog tool, not to mention that the blur that was my trip back to the States for Christmas fell somewhere in that space of time too. :)

Of all the posts I create, for some reason, the food seems to be what attracts people the most. Even though I only have two loyal "followers" who have actually joined my blog, it seems that a lot of you follow it informally, and I also get a ton of emails from people I don't know commenting on this or that. And of all the comments, emails, etc. it seems that the ones about food seem to attract people the most. Why is that? Maybe because we all have to eat and it's easier for people who don't travel much to relate to what I'm eating than what I'm seeing? Who knows! And for those of you NC friends of mine who aren't checking my blog out, according to the google blog tools, I'm getting hits from Russia, Belaruse, even Estonia. So there!

But I can't let my loyal fan down, so I devote this page to my dining experiences in Prague.

First allow me to say that while Budapest does boast a few good restaurants, international cuisine here is sorely lacking. Budapest isn't like other big cities in that you don't find really good international restaurants. There are no good Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, or Spanish restaurants. There are a couple of places that do a decent job of replicating French cuisine, or French-style cuisine, and there are some good basic Hungarian restaurants, but if you have a hankering for Thai or Indian the best you're going to get is a vague approximation of that country's cuisine. So far I have yet to find too many truly authentic international restaurants in this city. Unless you count the "Torok Etterems", aka, Turkish Kitchens, to which I will have to devote an entire post sometime in the near future.

Prague, on the other hand, boasted a wide array of international restaurants and from the small sampling of them I tried I was impressed. I ate what was probably the best Indian food I have ever had on my last night there. But I digress. Let me begin at the beginning.

The First Night: Marinated Roast Beef with Cream and Bread Dumplings
The first night I was there I asked the manager of the Green Garland if she could recommend a place for me to get some reasonably priced traditional Czech food, and this very sweet and very helpful lady (in other words, I highly recommend the Green Garland) directed me to a little place around the corner from the pension. After snacking on the pretzels they had on the table, which I knew I would be charged for but which I could not resist----nobody can make pretzels like the Germans and the Czechs---I ordered what I understood to be a very traditional Czech dish. It's marinated roast beef in gravy with cream and bread dumplings.

This was preceded by garlic soup, which I also understood was traditional, and a famous Czech hangover cure. I don't know about that, I didn't have a hangover, but it was hot and tasty.

Czech Garlic Soup with Cheese Croutons

And yes, this is a stock photo because I was so tired and hungry from the delays on the train which put me in Prague around 8 PM I forgo to take a picture, tbut it looked just like this. It's a chicken-broth based soup with cheese croutons in it. The soup is flavored with---you guess it---garlic.

Czech Marinated Roast Beef with Cranberries and Cream and Bread Dumplings

The roast beef dish is interesting. It looks like it would be a rich dish because of the gravy, but the roast beef has been marinated in lemon and it has a sour taste. The cream is actually whipped cream that has not been sweetened, with a dab of cranberries. And for those of you who, like me, equate dumplings with the ultimate comfort food, well, these were nothing but big tasteless stodge bombs. The bread dumplings are actually made of bread dough that has been allowed to rise, then it's half baked and then boiled then sliced off into dumplings. They have no taste whatsoever, and even the gravy, which I normally find improves most anything, doesn't do much to liven them up. I can imagine that when people didn't have a lot to eat in the days before refrigerators and microwaves, and when it was very cold and you needed some fuel, this might have done the trick, tasteless though they might be.

Day 1: St. Martin's Day Fair and the Bohemian Platter

I discovered the next day, my first full day there, that there was a St. Martin's Day festival going on in Old Town Square. St. Martin's Day was a week away and apparently the festivities were going on all week. This was actually wonderful because there was a lot of really delicious traditional food being prepared there, and it was cheap. Also, for someone like me who enjoys lingering over a meal with a friend or loved one, it was a little less lonely to be snacking on delicious Prague specialities in a busy fair setting, people watching, than sitting alone in a restaurant wishing I had company.

I was starving when I got back from my Hop On Hop Off Tour, and the grilled sausages smelled so good I jumped right into line and ordered a grilled sausage on a baguette. Here I am holding it before I starting shoveling it in.

Sausage and Baguette at the St. Martin's Day Fair

The next thing I tried was the goulash. For those of you who think goulash is a Hungarian dish, the word goulash comes from the Hungarian, but goulash and goulash soup are prepared all over that part of Europe from Germany and Austria to Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. This was particularly tasty and very hot which was nice because it was a cloud and gloomy day.

Goulash at the Fair

And Melinda's hand makes another appearance, holding a bowl of goulash!

At this point I was full enough I couldn't have held another bite if I had wanted to, which was actually a shame because there were ham vendors, grilling whole Prague Hams. It's amazing to me how smoked pork strikes a chord with people from regions as vastly different as Eastern North Carolina to Hungary to Prague. Prague is actually famous for this ham, hence the name, but it's just a good smoked ham cooked on the grill. My Granddaddy would have loved it.

Here are some of the smoked ham stalls. You can see I'm not the only one who had the idea of taking some photographs. This one guy is filming it. They were serving it up either as a giant slab on a piece of bread, or a huge slab on a plate with some grilled potatoes and onions. And it had the skin and fat on it, just like Granddaddy likes it.

Wood-grilled Prague Ham in the Square

I'm Not the Only One Taking Pictures

Mmm Mmm Good

That evening I was wandering around, thinking I should eat somewhere that served duck, since the Czech people consume an inordinate amount of duck. I wandered around, and after digging around in a really cool vintage clothing store where I bought some cool shades and bought Jimmy some shirts and sweaters, I noticed a cute little Prague kitchen and decided I would eat supper there.

I was seated next to an Indian Man and a Japanese man, both of whom were communicating in the common language of them both, English. The Japanese man was rather taciturn while the Indian man, who I learned was married to a Czech woman, wouldn't shut up.

Among other things, he told the joke I'd heard before which is that if Australians are hungry they'll eat everything on the table and then eat the table itself. Americans will eat everything on the table and the table itself, provided it has ketchup on it.

I had to snicker to myself, because I've never seen so many people eating ketchup as I have in the 7 months I've been in Hungary. There is a take-out pizza window near my house and I see Hungarian people slathering ketchup all over pizza slices almost every day. You can actually smell the ketchup when you walk down that part of the street. And they have something here which is so disgusting I almost can't take about it, which is ketchup flavored potato chips and ketchup flavored Chee Toes. UGH. I have actually seen teenagers on the train, on at least three different occasions, eating ketchup flavored Chee Toes followed by milk. In one case I had to watch these two teens make out after eating ketchup flavored Chee Toes chased by milk. I still want to vomit!

I ordered the Bohemian plate just to get a smattering of Czech dishes. The food wasn't bad, but it reminds me of eating Southern food at a place like Dips in Chapel Hill. It's okay, but it ain't as good as what Grandma makes. I have a feeling all the Czech food in these restaurants is like that----okay, but it might be really good if a really good cook prepared it in their home.

The Bohemian plate contained a slab of Prague ham, roast pork, a roasted duck leg, cabbage, bread dumplings, and potato pancakes. The duck was so so---rather tough. The ham was delicious, as was the pork. The cabbage was okay. I skipped the bread dumplings but I did eat the potato pancake which was super. It was followed by strudel which was also super.

The Bohemian Plate

Day 2-The Moulerie

On my second full day there, which is the day I visited the John Lennon Wall and the Jewish Quarter, I snacked on a slice of pizza from a take-out window for lunch for the sake of both money and convenience, and so for supper I decided to treat myself and try a Belgian moulerie in Josefov which came highly recommend. For those of you who have never eaten in a moulerie you don't know what you are missing. Boy am I glad I'm not allergic to shell fish! There is a really good one in Lyon that I would beam myself over to now and again if I had the ability.

I ordered the moules marinieres, which is mussels prepared with fennel, onion, and cream, which is the traditional method of preparation. They always come with frites which are usually delicious. I was not disappointed. I also had a tomato salad and an olive baguette. Also traditional.