Journey to the east

Woo! Spring break Eastern Europe! Okay, technically it was fall break and I was in central Europe, but I did get to see a lot of glorious Hapsburg palaces and crumbling soviet architecture on my trip to Prague, Vienna and Bratislava.

Prague is a city of beer. Czech’s drink more beer than any other people in the world (so take that the pledge class of Xi Pi Mu at Southeastern University, you lose), and a pint if beer in that city is like one euro. Now for someone coming from Paris, where the price of a pint of appears to be the same as the price of a barrel of oil, the cheapness was shocking (and made me oddly furious at OPEC…). Prague is also home to some very hearty bohemian food: each meal has meat, meat, more meat and of course a delicious helping of cabbage. Even dessert. I know cabbage and chocolate cake may sound bad, but the acrid smoke of every restaurant in Prague tends to help overcome the nausea.

No actually the food was good in most places. We actually had a great meal one day where I had not one but FOUR types of meat in one dish: roasted pork shoulder, roasted duck, bohemian sausage and some other type of pork deliciousness. It was worth signing the contract before I ate it agreeing to never be an Orthodox rabbi (there go my school girl dreams…). Basically I have decided that cabbage is wonderful, and when I get back to the states I am excited to be that guy at the Vassar Vegan stir fry station frying up a bunch of cabbage and getting stared at by normal people.

Next we went to Vienna, which is actually famous for its food. The first night we went to a place with, of course, more dark wood and beer. I had this liver dumping in a salty broth that taste like the world’s most delicious matzo ball. I ordered it again at the same restaurant two days later at 2 am, and got some weird looks, but trust me it was more satisfying than any other late night liver dish I ever had at the Llanerch diner.

I guess you are picturing me in lederhosen running around eating weinerschnitzl and stuffing my face with viennoiserie like liberal arts New York Times reading Hansel, but I can’t say that was the case. We ate some very good sushi and stir-fry at this big market and had excellent street kebabs. Austrians are all right with having three Turkish kebab places on each street, but not letting the people working there become citizens, because, as it says in Austrian law, you can only become an Austrian citizen if you are related to an Austrian (i.e. if you are tall, blonde and weirdly polite). It’s depressing.

Speaking of depressing, who wants to hear about my sojourn to Bratislava! Actually Bratislava was nice. It’s only an hour and a half from Vienna, and was a cool trip because my grandfather was born in Slovakia. Well technically it was Hungary, but the history that area of Europe’s borders are about as loose as Dennis Hastert’s layers and layers of neck. We arrived in Bratislava to see this terrifying city the communists built of about 200 identically ugly high rises. At first I thought the town would be depressing and communist, but then we drove by a mall with what looked like the largest Zara is the former communist world and I felt better. We ate in this weirdly dilapidated section of town, which was strange because we read that there was a beautiful Baroque section, we just couldn’t find it. Eventually we did and it was very pretty and charming. We went to a café called Café Meyer and ordered 6 different types of cake. I don’t know why we thought we could eat that much but despite our better instincts we ate all of them and they were all very tasty. The best by far though was a chestnut cake with cream and chocolate mousse that was, as the Slovaks say “z agshii xoroskijjl majsh!”. In case you don’t speak Slovak that translates in German to “supercakendeliciousnessflaffenguttenneuntyneunluftballons”. It’s all here in this pamphlet.

We finished the trip to Bratislava with a lovely bottle of Polish champagne. What does Polish champagne taste like? Well, I haven’t been to jail, but I imagine somewhat like Dimetapp fermented in the tank of prison toilet plus some sprite tastes like.

The trip was a success. I head some lovely meals and a very fun time. Of course when I got back to Paris I immediately went to the supermarket and bought and prepared something I hadn’t eaten in a week: vegetables.

Also, the next night I had my second interview with “A Chef’s Table”, which I will post a link to when it goes on the radio. Ooh how people listening the Guam public radio are going to freak out when they hear me talking about how much a cup of coffee costs!

Restaurant review: Cafe du Marche

Like an Italian sports car, Belgian chocolate or Swedish death metal played by people surgically altered to look like a 300 year old evil wood demon, some countries just do things better than other countries. The French have lunch. Follow me here for a second: What do people want for lunch? A salad? A sandwich? I mean, steak frites in my opinion is the best lunch money can buy and they are all frencher than an accordian made of baguettes. Americans may consider French food suitable for a special dinner, but without being fully conscience of it, we adore a good French lunch. There are thousands of restaurants across the United States that exist to give people the fantasy that they are having a leisurely hours long Parisian lunch.

So, being on a giant vacation, I was obliged on this beautiful sunny 82 degree afternoon to have a two hour long lunch at a lovely spot next to the École Militaire in the 7th arrondisement. We ate at a restaurant recommended by the TimeOut guide called Café du Marché (38, Rue Cler, Paris, 75007). The menu was a simple dozen dishes (5 salads, 7 entrées) and two specials written on a blackboard. The place was pretty crowded even at 2 pm, so I knew it was gonna be good.

The waitress was very busy, so we quickly ordered a salmon salad, a market salad and the roasted chicken. The salmon salad came with a Russian dressing that had a surprising and pleasant kick of horseradish. The market salad was a mix of French ham, silky terrine of foie gras, shredded carrots, yummy tomatoes, tabouleh, saurkraut and greens. The saurkraut was very lightly dressed in some French mayo and was perfect with the foie gras (further confirming my belief that cabbage is the cool new vegetable). The roasted chicken was pleasant but nothing special; however it came with fantastic mashed potatoes with a very herby hotel butter. The mashed potatoes were a beautiful almost saffron yellow and had a perfect balance of sweetness from the roasted potatoes, butter, and what tasted like some chicken broth. Finally, I was awakened from my food come by a café noisette (my new favorite drink- an espresso with a little milk).

Basically, I think the French look down on everybody or secretly consider them barbarians because, hey, if you lived and ate this well, wouldn’t you think everyone else was living wrong?