Kampa Park
We (five people from my company and two clients) had dinner at Kampa Park, a swank restaurant just off the Charles Bridge. It had photos of the famous people who had dined there, including Hilary Rodham Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The décor was nouveau, with rich, earth-tone paint, funky lighting, and many archways. Intriguingly, the arched ceilings turned it into a whispering gallery at certain moments, so that I would suddenly catch a few words of a conversation across the room, right out of the blue, as if they were sitting next to me. Then the sound oscillations would change, and I would just hear the background din again.
We had a feast. The menu was international and had a modern flair to it, and the wine list was equally cosmopolitan. Although we ordered Italian, French, Japanese, and California fare, I pushed to get a wine from the Czech Republic. We chose a white that was a blend of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and two other grapes, and it was decent. I doubt Czech wine will be winning the competitions anytime soon, but it was very drinkable and went nicely with the fish dishes that the majority of us ordered.
By the way, I really enjoy doing the wine ritual, where I get to see the bottle, then taste the first taste and approve it. It was fun to do that at a table full of businessmen.
I started a pear salad with rocket, balsamic vinaigrette, brie, and nuts. Then I got the grilled sea bass with caramelized onions, risotto, “vegetable foam,” and walnut glaze. The foam seemed to be a reduced sauce of some type. We shared a few desserts, of which the menu descriptions were hard to understand. They said things like “cloudberry foam with caramel sorbet and almond softcake,” which meant it had a marzipan-like cake, a very light mousse of what I think we would call gooseberries, topped with sorbet. The “strawberry cappuccino” had no coffee in it, but was a layered strawberry puree with cream and cinnamon and other rich spices. The poached apricot was advertised as coming with basil ice cream, and indeed, it was strongly basil-flavored! Imagine pesto without the garlic, and with sugar so it was sweet. OK, it was better than makes it sound…
Anyway, the bill was impressive too—about $85/person. We paused about paying the tip. It seems that you are supposed to tip in the Czech Republic, but the consensus was that it should be in cash, not added to the credit card bill. Apparently it is far from clear that the server would ever see the tip if you put it in with the bill, so better to get it right into his pocket. We gave 10%, which nearly cleaned one of us out of cash.
Then we got to the subway to go back to the hotel, but found that the machines only take coins, and we didn’t have enough for all of us to pay 12 kronas. So we bought 8-krona tickets, which weren’t really legal for the route we were taking, but we hoped not to get caught. Indeed we didn’t! Thankfully, Prague doesn’t have those ticket machines where you have to turn it in at the end, and if it doesn’t match what you were supposed to pay, alarms go off. Two stops on the street tram, and we were safely home in bed.
We had a feast. The menu was international and had a modern flair to it, and the wine list was equally cosmopolitan. Although we ordered Italian, French, Japanese, and California fare, I pushed to get a wine from the Czech Republic. We chose a white that was a blend of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and two other grapes, and it was decent. I doubt Czech wine will be winning the competitions anytime soon, but it was very drinkable and went nicely with the fish dishes that the majority of us ordered.
By the way, I really enjoy doing the wine ritual, where I get to see the bottle, then taste the first taste and approve it. It was fun to do that at a table full of businessmen.
I started a pear salad with rocket, balsamic vinaigrette, brie, and nuts. Then I got the grilled sea bass with caramelized onions, risotto, “vegetable foam,” and walnut glaze. The foam seemed to be a reduced sauce of some type. We shared a few desserts, of which the menu descriptions were hard to understand. They said things like “cloudberry foam with caramel sorbet and almond softcake,” which meant it had a marzipan-like cake, a very light mousse of what I think we would call gooseberries, topped with sorbet. The “strawberry cappuccino” had no coffee in it, but was a layered strawberry puree with cream and cinnamon and other rich spices. The poached apricot was advertised as coming with basil ice cream, and indeed, it was strongly basil-flavored! Imagine pesto without the garlic, and with sugar so it was sweet. OK, it was better than makes it sound…
Anyway, the bill was impressive too—about $85/person. We paused about paying the tip. It seems that you are supposed to tip in the Czech Republic, but the consensus was that it should be in cash, not added to the credit card bill. Apparently it is far from clear that the server would ever see the tip if you put it in with the bill, so better to get it right into his pocket. We gave 10%, which nearly cleaned one of us out of cash.
Then we got to the subway to go back to the hotel, but found that the machines only take coins, and we didn’t have enough for all of us to pay 12 kronas. So we bought 8-krona tickets, which weren’t really legal for the route we were taking, but we hoped not to get caught. Indeed we didn’t! Thankfully, Prague doesn’t have those ticket machines where you have to turn it in at the end, and if it doesn’t match what you were supposed to pay, alarms go off. Two stops on the street tram, and we were safely home in bed.
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