review
Vegging out in Prague
09/04/12 14:15
VEGGING OUT IN PRAGUE
Back from our fabulous holidays in the Czech Republic, a week in my home town and a weekend in Prague. Happy to report that veggie visitors to Prague can finally escape from the usual fried cheese and omelette and enjoy some fabulous veggie dishes. Here are my tips on eating out in Prague, veggie style. I only managed to take photos at Lehka Hlava, Maitrea’s dim lights meant photos came out terrible, and quite frankly I was overwhelmed by Essensia to even think about taking my camera out of the bag...
Maitrea, Tynska ulicka, Praha 1 (http://www.restaurace-maitrea.cz/)
We ended up having two dinners in this fabulous restaurant. Only a short walk from the Old Town Square which makes it a perfect haven for the vegetarian tourist. Beautiful setting, great atmosphere and attentive staff enhance the experience. The food was the star. The kids loved the sushi plate, my daughter’s preference was the tofu sushi and my son loved the stir-fried vegetable sushi. Both times me and my husband ordered the Czech traditional pickled sausage veggie style for our starters, this brought some childhood memories back. My husband tried two traditional Czech dishes, made with seitan in the place of meat, a dark rich Goulash and the absolutely beautiful Vegetable cream sauce, both served with bread dumplings. I opted for Thai style aubergine and tofu on my first night, and no-chicken veggie balls with mashed potato and tomato sauce on day two. Both of my dishes were advertised as spicy but I found them very mild. Nevertheless everything tasted great. How many times I crashed and burned when I ordered aubergine dish in a restaurant, glad to say Maitrea cooked it to melt in your mouth perfection! My only complaint, while dining in Maitrea, would be the lumps in the mash (better call it crushed potato). Beware, the portions are huge! If you want to save room for deserts skip the starters. We had no room.... unfortunately.....
Lehka Hlava (Clear Head), Borsov 2/280, Prague 1 (http://www.lehkahlava.cz/)
After a failed attempt to book this restaurant for an evening meal (hence two visits to Maitrea) we decided to just try our luck on Sunday. Luckily around at 3pm we managed to get a table. To my kids delight this was a table in a tiny private room.
Lehka Hlava is a sister restaurant to Maitrea, however only few dishes were are the same. My daughter had hummus with a crisped up tortilla, my son opted for courgette soup and kids portion of pasta (which was adult size in my opinion). Me and my husband managed to chose the same starters again, an aubergine tartar with rocket (arugula) and toast. As big fans of aubergines we were in heaven. My husband’s main was another aubergine dish, a very tasty quesadilla. I went for the bulgur risotto with tempeh and sun-dried tomato and peanut pesto. It tasted great, I especially loved the tempeh. The portion was huge as in Maitrea, but I decided to push myself and try the RAW cheesecake with strawberry sauce. It was fantastic! Got to try to recreate it at home. Kids had chocolate fondue with fruit, great fun dessert that kept them quiet for a while :) Judging from the stream of people coming into the restaurant you really have to book to get a table, and you must because it is well worth it.
Restaurant Essensia Hotel Mandarin Oriental Prague, Nebovidska 459/1, Praha 1 (http://www.mandarinoriental.cz/prague/)
This was a very special treat indeed, my friend who works in Mandarin Oriental, invited us to their restaurant for lunch. We are talking 5 stars, very posh restaurant with a fantastic reputation. I was a bit worried if my kids behaviour will hold up in a place like this, but to my relief this was a very child friendly restaurant with traditional Moravian Easter egg decorating corner, and ginger bread decorating table in on of the rooms of the restaurant. The food in the Essensia has two directions, there is an Asian menu and traditional Czech menu. There also is a great kids’ menu. My daughter went for no spice veggie tofu Pad Thai. My son tried a very traditional Czech mushroom, potato and dill soup which he followed with tomato pasta and finished with strawberry soup with ice-cream. My husband had a tomato curry with dal and raita, and I started with veggie Tom Yum soup and Veggie Pad Thai with Tofu (on request prepared without the traditional dried shrimp). The food was fabulous, the only complaint (nit picking here) I would have, was the lack of chilli in my Tom Yum but it tasted great without it. I would like to know what the chef did to the peanuts, they looked like a mixture of wet sand and coconut (in a good way) and tasted of peanut butter. YUMMY! Molecular gastronomy??? This is a venue for a very special meal, indeed the Czech president dined there just a week before us! I hear he enjoyed his curry and caused a bit of a panic in the kitchen when he asked for it to be spicy as nobody quite knew how spicy that should be! I don’t think he finished his meal by icing Easter cookies like my children did :)
Back from our fabulous holidays in the Czech Republic, a week in my home town and a weekend in Prague. Happy to report that veggie visitors to Prague can finally escape from the usual fried cheese and omelette and enjoy some fabulous veggie dishes. Here are my tips on eating out in Prague, veggie style. I only managed to take photos at Lehka Hlava, Maitrea’s dim lights meant photos came out terrible, and quite frankly I was overwhelmed by Essensia to even think about taking my camera out of the bag...
Maitrea, Tynska ulicka, Praha 1 (http://www.restaurace-maitrea.cz/)
We ended up having two dinners in this fabulous restaurant. Only a short walk from the Old Town Square which makes it a perfect haven for the vegetarian tourist. Beautiful setting, great atmosphere and attentive staff enhance the experience. The food was the star. The kids loved the sushi plate, my daughter’s preference was the tofu sushi and my son loved the stir-fried vegetable sushi. Both times me and my husband ordered the Czech traditional pickled sausage veggie style for our starters, this brought some childhood memories back. My husband tried two traditional Czech dishes, made with seitan in the place of meat, a dark rich Goulash and the absolutely beautiful Vegetable cream sauce, both served with bread dumplings. I opted for Thai style aubergine and tofu on my first night, and no-chicken veggie balls with mashed potato and tomato sauce on day two. Both of my dishes were advertised as spicy but I found them very mild. Nevertheless everything tasted great. How many times I crashed and burned when I ordered aubergine dish in a restaurant, glad to say Maitrea cooked it to melt in your mouth perfection! My only complaint, while dining in Maitrea, would be the lumps in the mash (better call it crushed potato). Beware, the portions are huge! If you want to save room for deserts skip the starters. We had no room.... unfortunately.....
Lehka Hlava (Clear Head), Borsov 2/280, Prague 1 (http://www.lehkahlava.cz/)
After a failed attempt to book this restaurant for an evening meal (hence two visits to Maitrea) we decided to just try our luck on Sunday. Luckily around at 3pm we managed to get a table. To my kids delight this was a table in a tiny private room.
Lehka Hlava is a sister restaurant to Maitrea, however only few dishes were are the same. My daughter had hummus with a crisped up tortilla, my son opted for courgette soup and kids portion of pasta (which was adult size in my opinion). Me and my husband managed to chose the same starters again, an aubergine tartar with rocket (arugula) and toast. As big fans of aubergines we were in heaven. My husband’s main was another aubergine dish, a very tasty quesadilla. I went for the bulgur risotto with tempeh and sun-dried tomato and peanut pesto. It tasted great, I especially loved the tempeh. The portion was huge as in Maitrea, but I decided to push myself and try the RAW cheesecake with strawberry sauce. It was fantastic! Got to try to recreate it at home. Kids had chocolate fondue with fruit, great fun dessert that kept them quiet for a while :) Judging from the stream of people coming into the restaurant you really have to book to get a table, and you must because it is well worth it.
Restaurant Essensia Hotel Mandarin Oriental Prague, Nebovidska 459/1, Praha 1 (http://www.mandarinoriental.cz/prague/)
This was a very special treat indeed, my friend who works in Mandarin Oriental, invited us to their restaurant for lunch. We are talking 5 stars, very posh restaurant with a fantastic reputation. I was a bit worried if my kids behaviour will hold up in a place like this, but to my relief this was a very child friendly restaurant with traditional Moravian Easter egg decorating corner, and ginger bread decorating table in on of the rooms of the restaurant. The food in the Essensia has two directions, there is an Asian menu and traditional Czech menu. There also is a great kids’ menu. My daughter went for no spice veggie tofu Pad Thai. My son tried a very traditional Czech mushroom, potato and dill soup which he followed with tomato pasta and finished with strawberry soup with ice-cream. My husband had a tomato curry with dal and raita, and I started with veggie Tom Yum soup and Veggie Pad Thai with Tofu (on request prepared without the traditional dried shrimp). The food was fabulous, the only complaint (nit picking here) I would have, was the lack of chilli in my Tom Yum but it tasted great without it. I would like to know what the chef did to the peanuts, they looked like a mixture of wet sand and coconut (in a good way) and tasted of peanut butter. YUMMY! Molecular gastronomy??? This is a venue for a very special meal, indeed the Czech president dined there just a week before us! I hear he enjoyed his curry and caused a bit of a panic in the kitchen when he asked for it to be spicy as nobody quite knew how spicy that should be! I don’t think he finished his meal by icing Easter cookies like my children did :)
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