Penultimate food post: Memorable meals from the trip

122 days, 17 weeks, 4 months, a third of a year. Any way you slice it, that's a lot of eating. But what really stood out, what were the memorable meals? To answer that question, I'm going to use only my memory, and leave the blog archives for another time. After this chronological review, I'll sift it all down to a Top 8 of the trip. Here are the candidates:

Japan

Sushi near Tsukiji Fish Market: The freshest, fishiest, most flavorful sushi of my life (details)

Tasting menu at Chaya Mario: Unbelievably good tofu and surprise after surprise hidden away in Hiroshima (details)

Iron Chef Matsue nights: Round after round of local seafood and bizarre creations (details)

Indonesia

Roast pig at Babi Guling: Succulent, spicy, and celebratory, as all roast pigs should be (details)

Mangosteens on Gili Meno: The essence of simple, bursting with vibrancy (details)

Singapore

Intricate Chinese tasting menu: Taste after taste of new eats ending with a hands-on demonstration of a sensational omelette (details)

Long Beach seafood extravaganza: Fantastic black pepper crab and a steamed fish that was even better (details)

Ah boiling at a hawker centre institution: Amazing and amazingly unexpected peanut dumplings in broth (details)

China

Hunanese fish head: A very big fish head with very many chopped chillies, soon reduced to bones and nothing more (details)

Ha'erbin streetside dumplings: After many, many plates of dumplings, these reigned supreme (details)

Sichuan, Sichuan, Sichuan: A hotter-then-hot hot pot in Shanghai, a bowl of chili oil for poaching, and a dry pot so spicy it made me numb (details 1, details 2, and details 3)

Sour cuisine of Guizhou: A big bowl of pig stomach and sour seasonings and, as a side, smelly fish grass salad (details)

Turkey

Kofte with a view: Meatballs and uberfresh vegetables on one of the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara (details)

Feast at Ak Deniz: Where the food started and just kept coming, showcasing Turkish food done right (details)

Turkish breakfasts: From Kale at the beginning to Caffe Privato near the Galata Tower, a range of treats that makes any morning lavish (details 1 and details 2)

Israel

Home-cooked food from Ima: Delightful starter spreads and a tour through the best of Israeli cuisine (details)

Poland

Zapiekanki to celebrate: A pizza baguette after a fantastic set of World Cup semifinals (details)

Germany

Eating without seeing: Going dark at a dunkelrestaurant with ok food but an amazing eating experience (details)

Biergarten all afternoon: The biggest and best pretzels I've ever seen, raw radishes with lots of spice, sausage and whole fish to boot, rounded out by stein after stein of delicious weissbier (details)

Brunch at Gugelhof: Seriously the best blood sausage and seriously surrounded by three exceptional brunch-time dishes (details)

Doner kebab at Hasir: After one bite, I could feel the new addiction forming (details)

Czech Republic

Redemption at Lokal: Czech cuisine saves itself with fresh horseradish, fresh dumplings, and great beer (details)

Denmark

Arty cafe treats: At the Louisiana, easily one of the best museums I've ever been to, the most beautiful food that was fresh and tasty as well (details)

The Netherlands

Late-night Netherlands: Stuff-it-yourself falafel and vlaamse frites with special sauces end any day well (details)

A new, very good beer hall delivers on drinks and eats

Final night in Prague, and we are desperate for an all-around good Czech meal, having not quite met that bar the first couple of nights. We head for Lokal, which had an intriguing, all Czech menu when we passed it the day prior.

First up is a plate of Davle's spicy sausages with fresh horseradish and mustard. The sausages don't live up to their billing as spicy. However, they are fresh and good. Meanwhile, the freshly grated horseradish is divine, bringing some of that lovely horseradish-like tartness but also mellowing itself out. Mustard excellent as always, and we are off and running on a good meal.

Next is "Sopjes" salad, filled with cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers, green peppers, and topped with a delightful feta-like cheese. This was excellent, bursting with freshness and bringing back my longing for the high-quality shepherd's salads of Turkey.

A meat-filled main has arrived and it is pork knee goulash with fresh horseradish and bread dumplings. This is far and away the best version of goulash we've had to date. The meat is tender, the sauce is flavorful, and the horseradish brightens up the dish and my palate. The bread dumplings, meanwhile, are light and fluffy, perfect for soaking up the sauce.

Our other main is fried cheese with homemade tartar sauce. It also came with a side of mashed potatoes with onions. The cheese didn't surpass the melty fried cheese from sunset a couple of days earlier. The potatoes, however, were divine. That perfect blend of mashed with small chunks of potato remaining, the onion only added to the symphony.

As a side to it all there was cucumber salad. This was a welcome variation and was nearly entirely cucumbers, with a bit of salt, maybe some sugar, and perhaps some fennel (or very light dill). Crisp and refreshing!

After a very good Czech meal (with good Czech beer, by the way), Kevika and I decided to finish with digestifs. She went for Vajcnia, a Czech egg liqueur that she liked so much a bottle is going home with her. I went for Orechovice, a walnut brandy that was also quite good, stiff and with balanced flavor.

Thanks, Lokal, for delivering a Czech meal when it was needed most!

Movie Review: Protektor

From exterior, old culture to interior, new culture. It's time to go to the movies!

The Kino MAT has just what we need, a Czech film with English subtitles, called Protektor.

It was a much more serious movie than we anticipated from the poster. Set in Prague during World War II, it chronicles the story of a married couple. The woman is an up-and-coming actress and a Jew. The man is a radioman and a Christian. He struggles to effectively protect her as anti-Semitic activities and German occupation ravage the city. The characters were well developed and a slew of secondary characters brought life to their world. A very well done film, though expect it to be as serious as the time in which it was set. Recommended.

Walking around Prague

In addition to the formal sights we visited, we also spent a bunch of time just walking around. Given how hot it was (very hot), it was more of a meander, with various interesting things to look at in this compact, old, and very beautiful city.

Right away, not more than a five minute walk from our hotel, was the impressive National Gallery, now home to cultural events. Right inside its courtyard was tucked a very odd building with the entire exterior covered in glass bubbles.

Somewhere on one of the street corners was this sculpture. It spelled a word, very close to "revolucja" but we weren't exactly sure. Oh, and it was made entirely of house keys.

Throughout the city, we would come across one or the other of these signs. Are they encouraging young ones to run into the street and play soccer? And what's that menacing car coming around the corner?

Down a side street lives John Lennon's Wall, which sprang up right after his death in 1980. Continuously kept alive as a graffiti and peace wall, we even saw some active art-making that day. The owners of the wall used to whitewash it but have given into the persistence of the artists. Lots of good Beatles sayings, too!

Then, of course, every once in awhile it felt like the right time to take a picture of the town. Down a city street, looking out over the whole city from above, or taking it in from river level.

While we didn't go inside, we did thoroughly walk the grounds of Prague Castle. My favorite bits were the impressively detailed gargoyles coming off of St. Vitus' cathedral.

The inevitable etching of Johannes Kepler's name on a wall.

How did we do all this walking, you might ask? Well, we were Haribo-fueled. The variety here and in Germany has been astounding and we've been getting through about a bag a day.

Is this Paris or Prague?

Sufficiently full of Czech food for the time being, we were delighted to lunch in the backyard garden of Chez Marcel, a little French bistro.

I started with the onion soup, presumed to be French. It still only went halfway towards my ideal, with a too small crouton covered in the wrong kind of cheese. However, the onion broth itself was very nice. I have learned on this trip both that I really like French onion soup and that it is really hard to find authentic versions of it.

To go with my soup I had a poached egg and chorizo salad. This was very nice, as the yolk from the egg complimented the dressing and made the chorizo positively delicious. The poached egg had been underappreciated in my culinary life, but no longer.

Kevika went for the lamb sausage baguette, a totally decent and not-spectacular version. The sausage was a bit mis-sized for the baguette and the garnishes didn't hold up their end of the bargain. But not a bad dish.

Carolyn opted for the Croque Madame, a ham and cheese sandwich covered with a fired egg. Though there was no sauce, an unexpected turn, this mixed pretty well and each of the ingredients did their part. It also somewhat reminded me of the (in)famous Kentucky hot brown sandwich from my days in Frankfort.

And, to round it out, some pomme frites with mayo. Nicely sized steak fries and a homemade version of mayo made this one of the go to dishes of the meal.

Viva La France!

An afternoon of two museums of a different bent

We decided to soak up some culture. The first stop was the Museum of Czech Cubism.

This museum had a very appropriate home. It was housed in a resplendent Cubist building called the House of the Black Madonna. In fact, the building itself was half of the fun of the museum.

The exhibits themselves were intriguing. I hadn't known that there was such a strong streak of Czech Cubism. Among my favorites were a sculptor called Otto Gutfreund and an architect whose name I cannot recall. the furniture was also a highlight of the small museum. No pictures allowed inside, though.

However, the inside of the building itself was photo worthy, and I took a couple to remember it by.

From this museum we switched gears, heading first to the Czech post office to deliver some postcards. There we discovered an irreverent sense of humor, as well as a delightfully designed main building and a delightful customer service experience of the take-a-number variety.

Continuing to gearshift, we found ourselves at the Museum of Communism. What sounded very kitschy in the blurbs we had seen was anything but. There were gobs of artifacts from the era. But the history itself took centerstage. Along with the well known parts of the Eastern European Communist experience, I was intrigued to learn of the re-invasion of Czechoslovakia in the 60s by the USSR. I was also intrigued to learn a little bit more about the Velvet Revolution, including the peaceful demonstrations that nearly got violently repressed until they didn't.

Microbrew land

Both Germany and the Czech Republic are very big on beer. This has made me temporarily think of the blog as "What's That? I want to Eat and Drink It!" In that vein, we made our way to a microbrew pub in Prague called U Medvidku. They had a tempting arrange of beers available.

Slowly, we made our way through the selection.

The first two were, left to right, X33 and the seasonal Blood Beer. The X33 was touted as the strongest beer in the world. I can't speak to the veracity of that but it did pack a punch at 12.4% alcohol. It was much like a barleywine, sweet and thick. Not my favorite style of beer, but this was a good rendition. The blood beer was a dark red color. It was much lighter in taste than it appeared in person. An easy drink to imbibe.

The second batch brought us Oldgott and Budweiser Budvar. The Oldgott was my favorite of the night, with more hops than is normal in these parts. The glass was a great shape to rest and cool my hand in - the Prague heat was relentless, even at night. The Budvar was not actually made by the microbrew. Instead, this is the original Budweiser, with no known relation to its newer American version. A light pilsner, I prefer Pilsner Urquell myself. However, it was light years better than Bud in the States.

Dinner in a cellar strikes some good notes but misses others

Dinner took us to Klub Architektu. It was a very cool space, down a set of stairs into a handful of rooms with curved brick walls. The walls had been painted white and the entire place decorated with minimalist style. In a neat touch, lights over each table could be easily raised or lowered via a pulley. The food was more innovative Czech food.

I tried a new beer, this one a dark beer called Zlaty Bazano. It was pretty tasty, much like a porter, with lingering notes of coffee.

The appetizer was a bowl of garlic soup. The concept for this dish was spot on. Roasted garlic in a creamy soup with a cheesy crouton, yum. The dish's execution backed away from full flavor though. It tasted a little watery, with not quite enough garlic, and the crouton was not up to the task of balancing the liquid with crunchy bread.

My main was beef medallions in an apple reduction. The meat was nice, cooked but not cooked too much. The sauce was a bit weak and the apples seemed a bit sapped of flavor.

Kevika got a plate of jacket potatoes with onions and sour cream. This was a basic rendition, with little effort to take the dish higher. The potato chunks were also too large, with too much mushy flavorless potato inside. The sour cream did its job of breaking up the monotony of the potatoes a bit.

Carolyn went with a goat cheese salad. It was served in a style I've never seen before, with a large round of goat cheese that had been warmed until it was melting. This was a good bite, though I'm not sure how it lasted for a whole meal. The little jam on the side was an excellent touch.

To finish off our time in the cellar, we shared a slice of honey walnut cake. An excellent take, the cake was not too rich and actually meant to be enjoyed as an entire piece. The cream frosting serving as a glue between the layers of cake was delightful.

So, a great space but some up and down food. Hopefully they get it sorted out to take advantage of their surroundings.

Astronomical clock!

A highlight of Prague is the central town square. It is one of the old European varieties: lots of old stone buildings, a big church, and outdoor cafes as far as the eye can see. It had one feature that was very impressive to me: a very large, very intricate astronomical clock.

This clock can do amazing things and do so beautifully. It tells the time of both sunrise and sunset everyday. It also shares the lunar calendar. And that's just the top clock. The bottom has a 365 day calendar with the saints for each day prominently called out. And there are four figurines on the top, representing Vanity, Greed, Death, and Foreign Invasion. These are balanced by the four figurines on the bottom, the Chronicler, the Angel, the Astronomer, and the Philosopher. Finally, at the top of each hour, the twelve Apostles appear in the two small blue windows, each carrying a representative item. Meanwhile, Death, the skeleton, rings his bell and flips his hourglass.

Neatest of all is that this was built back in the 15th Century. Quite impressive technology to do all of the above!

Late afternoon pub snack of Czech standards

We continued to check Czech foods off of our check list. An afternoon snack at a pub in the middle of town provided the opportunity for a couple of more standards.

First came pickled sausages, a quite common snack with a pint of beer. These large sausages had been sliced and stuffed with pickles, while pickled onions were sprinkled liberally around the plate. A great concept that needs a slightly better sausage. These huge sausages just don't have that much flavor, which results in the bite tasting too much like bologna. But the pickle and onions were very nice.

Second was a plate of fruit dumplings with cheese, for some reason called "Sarajevo bullets" on the menu. These big balls of dough were slightly filled with a berry compote, served with crumbled cheese and a creamy yogurt-like substance. They were quite mediocre. I liked them more than my dining companions, who ruled them nearly inedible. The dough was way too much, the fruit filling not fresh and too little. The cheese and yogurt were nice additions, however, and brought some needed moisture to the plate. There is great potential here, but it is quite unrealized.

Cerny's wit throughout the town

There seems to be a current of humor running through the Czech art community. Throughout Prague, we kept running into the statues of David Cerny, a well-known sculptor and social satirist who does his job very well.

One story that I loved was from awhile ago. Apparently, when the Soviets "liberated" Prague from the Nazis, they placed a tank on a pedestal in a square (which became known as Soviet tank square). When the Velvet Revolution happened and Czechoslovakia peacefully transitioned out of communism, this statue seemed quite out of place. David Cerny went and painted the tank pink. For this he was arrested and the tank repainted green. However, a group of parliamentarians then went and re-repainted it pink. They had the protection of parliamentary immunity. Their action sparked Cerny's release from custody.

We came to one of his statues in the courtyard of the Franz Kafka Museum. These two gents are urinating in a small pond. The pond itself is the shape of the Czech Republic. Better still, their hips swivel and their hands move and, so doing, they spell out letters in the pond, which correspond to Czech slogans. Delightfully witty and with good aesthetics to boot.

Another set of statues were found in Kampa Park. These oversized crawling babies were funny. Well, at least until I saw their faces, which had been scrunched up into an odd looking barcode.

As others were doing, Kevika and Carolyn attempted to go for a short ride on the baby's back.

As the quote on a wall of a local museum said "If a nation's culture survives, then so too does the nation." Cerny's doing his best to keep this nation humming.