By jfbarszcz
Hey all! So my blog post is going to be a bit shorter this week because I'm actually in the middle of packing for Oktoberfest! Obviously I am very excited for this, but it means that I leave Prague at 7 tomorrow morning and won't be back until late Sunday night (and I know I'll want to sleep when I get back) so I'm writing this post at about 11 PM Thursday night). Anyway, this week's topic is... restaurants.
You can learn a lot about a local culture by visiting restaurants. Obviously, cuisine is a very large part of culture, but it can also be an educational experience in other ways. Dining in restaurants in Prague has also taught me about local etiquette, money and prices, and even a bit about the Czech outlook on life.
Probably the most readily apparent thing about your average Prague restaurant is how cheap it is. At dinner you can often get a full meal for under 200 CZK ($10ish), and lunch is even better; most places will have a lunch menu where you can get a meal (often including both a soup and an entrée) for as little as 100 CZK ($5ish). And these are generous portions; almost every meal I've eaten at a restaurant here has kept me full for hours. The only downside: Nothing is free. Not even water, not even the bread they bring to the table. This is part of the reason I've been drinking so much beer; weight for weight it's way way cheaper than the water (which is all bottled). Still a nice dinner out ends up being a good deal more affordable here than in most American cities (and other cities in Europe for sure... my wallet is cringing thinking about this weekend).
Czech food is tasty as well, if often a bit heavy. Popular dishes include gulaš (goulash, a beef stew familiar to many Americans and which I believe I've previously mentioned in this blog), smažený řízek (schnitzel, or fried cutlet of meat), and svíčková na smetaně (marinated beef sirloin topped with cream and cranberry sauce). However Prague is also a very cosmopolitan city, and as such you can find all sorts of cuisines around the city. There's no shortage of Italian food (or at least pasta and pizza), and there are plenty of places to get Chinese food, Mexican food and even good old American cheeseburgers. (I've seen a bunch of sushi places, too but I'm having a hard time trusting raw fish this far inland.) That being said, not much of it is stuff that Americans would consider exotic; what I've named is certainly standard fare even in your average small town in the US, and come to think of it, these "foreign" cuisines I've named have all seemingly been bastardized similarly to how they have been in the States. More material for the paper I want to write about American cultural hegemony in Prague, perhaps?
Finally, the service. I mentioned last week that Praguers aren't generally in as much of a hurry all the time as New Yorkers or Washingtonians. This translates to restaurants as well. While I wouldn't call most service "slow," waitstaff will often (but not always!) take their time, especially once you have been served. I've had to wait upwards of 20 minutes just to get the check after my party had all finished eating. That being said, waitstaff still tend to be accommodating (and most of them speak English, which is nice because my Czech is still... not so good). As for tipping, there's less of a culture of it in Europe, as wages for food-service workers are higher. In general, you tip by rounding up (if your meal was 191 CZK then you give 200, or something similar), so they end up being quite small (whereas 15% is the norm in the US, anything over 10% is more or less unheard of here).
So I really need to finish packing and get to bed (not looking forward to being awake again in 5.5 hours), so I'm going to wrap up for now. Back next week!