It’s been a fair few years in the Czech Republic for me now, and in that time I think I’ve pretty much successfully acclimatized to Czech cuisine, even if I don’t tend to eat it on a regular basis. I love a good svíčková or guláš for dinner (not lunch – eating big in the day is one Czech habit I just can’t get used to). My all-time favourite Czech dish is stuffed dumplings savoury or sweet, and I’m eternally grateful that I reside in a country where it is considered acceptable to consume the latter as a main course. I even light-heartedly named both myself and this blog after the humble knedlík, though admittedly have yet to feature this culinary namesake in any actual entries - it’s just too hot at the moment for traditional heavy Czech stodge. Winter will be a different story though!

But the one culinary aspect of life here I will probably never fully understand is the ongoing Czech love affair with the humble rohlik.

When I first started here, I marveled at my one Czech colleague’s ability to turn up to work in the morning with a bag of half a dozen rohliky and slowly but surely munch his way through the lot over the course of the day – a large lunch in the local hospoda notwithstanding. I now, of course, realize this is common practice here. A Czech Facebook page set up in honour of the rohlik has attracted 7,515 fans and counting, while the the so-called "Angličký Rohlik" topped with melted cheese and ham has garnered an even greater fanbase, with an impressive 9,005 signed up at the time of writing. PragueGinge and GirlinCzechland both report regular altercations with Czech other halves in the Albert bakery section should they have the temerity to wish to spend an extra crown or two on a nice multigrain bap or other such hedonistic dough-based goods instead.

Personally I have always considered rohliky a borderline “foodstuff” consisting of nothing more than glorified sawdust and air – in short, a chewy, rubbery pretender to the baked goods crown. And no – I don’t mean rohliky fresh out of the oven lovingly hand-crafted by Babička; I am referring here to your bog-standard Albert / Tesco / Billa shop-bought rohlik at 1kč a pop. When fresh baked Czech rye bread is so nice and almost equally inexpensive by comparison, I’ve always just thought – why bother? (Unless you are trying to keep baby occupied while you do you grocery shopping of course, going on to retrieve the drool-covered stump at check-out in order to pay...)

Arslan at Anděl (Bozděchova 3) has for a long time been my favourite of all Prague kebab places.

I’m not and have never been a fan of the mediocre at best range of Crocodille sandwiches, so ubiquitous to the Czech Republic, and only ever purchase these on the most emergency of occasions (the last, I recall, being one of those Gurman baguettes prior to a long Student Agency coach trip down to Český Krumlov a couple of years ago).

However, even the most Crocodille averse of us cannot have failed to have noticed that the company has jazzed up its range recently, ditching its only decent sandwich in the now obsolete Turkey Club and introducing a new variety of “trendy” options such as Brie & Fig, Roast Beef & Mustard, and Chorizo & Egg.

One of the new range of products includes the Špíz baguette, which may have come to your attention (as it did to mine) by its strange choice of logo on Crocodille delivery vans across the Czech Republic.


Is it only me who finds the sight of a cartoon chicken, perky pig, cycloptic pepper and gurning onion all seemingly in the throes of ecstasy at having a dirty great skewer gouged through their mid-riffs just ever so slightly odd...?? After all, what greater joy could there possibly be for our cartoony protagonists then to meet a collective death by impaling solely in order to serve as ingredients for a lacklustre baguette...??

And it gets weirder.

If you go on the Crocodille website, there is actually an entire online game dedicated to the Špíz that you can play, whereby you select your murderous persona from a range of largely culinary-based avatars (though, oddly, also including the choice of Cat Woman and apparent orthodox priest) and proceed to harpoon as many of our merry cartoon characters as possible in a given timeframe. Careful though not to inadvertently spear any non-Špíz ingredients such as the sausage, sheep, rabbit or (I think) pineapple characters in the process though, as this will lower your score.



I’m not a vegetarian, so know full well that it is somewhat hypocritical on my part to question the active association of happy little cartoon characters with the actual slaughtered ingredients of my sandwich. That said, it does strike me as a vaguely odd concept for an advertising campaign, even in such a happily meat-guzzling country as the Czech Republic (or then again, maybe not).

Either way, this – as shown on the Crocodille website – is the finished Špíz product.


This is the infinitely less appealing reality, which - purely for the sake of review - I purchased from Albert at the grand price of 47kč:


It was pretty much as you’d expect from your bog-standard Crocodille sandwich – chewy bread, uninspiring filling, artificial twang, and reliant more on quantity than quality to sell. Not really much more to say than that really – am sure you’re all as familiar with this inexplicably popular chain as I am by now...

Suffice to say that I for one will pass on the Špíz (and all it's Crocodille companions) next time, and let Cheery Chicken, Spicy Pepper, Teary Onion and Porky Pig run free and blissfully unskewered from this day forth...

As otherwise strong, independent, professional women, at age 26 and 27 Prague Ginge and I are both very well-aware that we ought surely to have outgrown teenage crushes a long time ago (my last one was on a now shamed Mark Owen from TakeThat in the mid-nineties, as I recall). And yet, even at this stage in adult life, we still both find ourselves utterly, irrevocably, irreversibly in love with the gorgeous, divine, Adonis-like specimen of manhood that is the exquisite Edward Cullen / Robert Pattinson of ‘Twilight’ vampire fame, and – despite all current professions of female friendship and solidarity – would cheerfully fight each other to the death for the chance to marry him and have his beautiful, beautiful babies. And I don’t even like bloody babies.

And so needless to say, in typical obsessive teenage girly girl style, yesterday evening saw us two over-aged and over-excited Twihard groupies waiting outside the cinema with specially pre-ordered tickets in hand to see the Prague first night opening of ‘Eclipse’, the latest film in the ongoing ‘Twilight’ saga. In fairness, at least we didn’t have “I Heart Robert” / “Team Edward” / “Bite Me” or any other tweenie inanities daubed in facepaint across our cheeks or start jumping up and down squealing / crying hysterically or anything - thankfully we are not quite that far gone yet...

However, back to the review at hand. Lest we swoon from hunger rather than sheer unadulterated ardour and thereby inadvertently miss out on precious seconds of all the on-screen R-Patz action, we sensibly decided to line our stomachs first at nearby Middle Eastern joint Handedan, a little Turkish fast food place on Jindřišská.


There is a huge Turkish menu featured here, including traditional dishes such as stuffed peppers or aubergines, lahmacun, moussaka and baklava (plus a whole range of other things I couldn’t decipher at a glance in Turkish / Czech translation), as well as your standard pide / kebabs etc. In fact the only things they didn’t seem to have on the menu were my two personal favourites of falafel and halloumi, which I thought was a bit of a shame for all the Prague veggie kebab lovers out there.




Staff were really friendly, joining in on the joke and insisting on a photo when they picked up on my veiled attempts to take a few sneaky shots of the place without their noticing (well, it’s really hard to be discrete in a tiny hole-in-the-wall fast food joint...).


Naturally I went for the kebab option, with choices of meat beef or chicken. Having gone for chicken in my last two previous kebab reviews, this time I went for the beef dürüm at a fairly pricy 90kč.



It was pretty sizeable, but the meat was unfortunately really dry and not particularly tasty (probably down to the fact that the old dead man’s leg had been grazed nearly down to the bone at the time of ordering) and there wasn’t near enough sauce for my liking. On the upside, the salad was fresh and the bread pleasantly soft and warm - I’d probably give this one just a 6/10 in comparison to those I’ve reviewed before at Pasha and Saranda.

Prague Ginge, on the other hand, rather daintily eschewed the kebab options altogether (I am seriously beginning to doubt her supposed hardnut Northern credentials...), instead going for one of the chicken casseroles on offer behind the counter, which came served with rice and salad at 100kč for everything – I’ve no idea what the actual Turkish term for the dish would have been.


Her verdict was that the chicken was really generously portioned and tender, the rice nicely cooked and not at all cloddy or claggy like it can be in some fast food joints, and the salad welcomingly fresh. On the other hand, she did think the sauce could have used a lot more zing.

Which pretty much wraps it up this week for pre-cinematic Hanedan bites – in short a friendly little place with decent eats, which I’d like to re-visit again just for the sake of working my way through more of their extensive Turkish menu and maybe having a second go with one of their chicken kebabs.

As for a now happily replete Prague Ginge and I, needless to say we both went on to spend the next 124 minutes gazing adoringly up at the screen in the company of a hundred-odd teenage girls all secretly fantasizing about a vampire-human-werewolf threeway. On the upside, I have at least picked up a new niche set of mythological Czech vocabulary from the sub-titles as a result...

On a final note, I well know that I fully deserve your scorn, derision and contempt for publicly airing my juvenile, lovesick yearnings on here, and can only hope I haven’t lost your much appreciated readership as well as respect as a result. Please bear with me and I solemnly promise to stick to the food next time and keep all obsessive adolescent infatuations to myself in future... ;-))

I’m not sure where Czech menfolk stand on this particular issue, but most English blokes I know are very much of the opinion that “real men don’t eat quiche” (though when forced to will begrudgingly admit to actually rather liking it). I’ve occasionally tried convincing some of the men in my life otherwise, but as yet to no avail…

For those more open-minded flan-fans in Prague, however, here is - in reverse order - my quickie rundown of best places to find quiche in the city.

PAUL Patisserie

It is no secret that I am currently embroiled in an ongoing passionate love affair with Paul (both Flora and Anděl incarnations), tempered only for my equally as ardent dedication to fitness and physique.

Still, on occasion I might be persuaded to live a little and order one of their mini quiches for lunch, which come in various flavours (bacon and Emmental, salmon and spinach, cheese and tomato etc), each priced at around the 80 - 90kč mark.


My only gripe here is that it would be nice to have a salad garnish alongside, rather than having the quiche simply placed plain and unadorned on the plate as they do here – otherwise a tasty little lunchtime number, especially the quiche Lorraine variety.

Au Gourmand

One of my favourite quiche spots in Prague is Au Gourmand (various locations), yet another French-style café franchise which offers mini tarts and full-size quiches in a whole range of flavours, from tuna to tomato and mozzarella.




Prices are similar to those of Paul, as is the lack of salad accompaniment – back in my Dlouhá days I used to pop down the street and buy a slice to takeaway, which I’d then jazz up with a bit of healthy salad at home, clearly figuring that the vegetable addition helped make up for all the calories in the pastry at least...

Praha Bakeshop

The other main contender to my affections on the café front, to which I have also previously dedicated a blog-based ode, is of course my beloved Praha Bakeshop just off Old Town Square. However, when it comes to quiche (and come to that, croissants), I have to say that Praha Bakeshop has the edge on Paul for quality – if you’re willing to pay the price that is.




Praha Bakeshop quiches come in a tempting range of varieties (zucchini and Swiss, walnut and blue cheese, goat’s cheese and sun-blush tomato etc), but start off at a wallet-busting 225kč for a single slice, rising to up to about 1,000kč for an entire large quiche. Which, on reflection, is probably why I’ve only ever actually had quiche here twice – on both occasions splitting a mini goat’s cheese and tomato quiche at a hefty 250kč with a friend. It says a lot for the quality that I still place it on top of the list though, even despite the expense – and at the very least you finally get the hitherto elusive salad garnish for your money here...

And so ladies (and all you gentlemen already out of the quiche closet) there you have it – enjoy and a non-discriminatory happy quiche eating to all!

In all my many years living in Prague, for no particular reason until starting this blog I had never yet sampled a sausage from one of the ubiquitous stands lining Wenceslas Square.

Maybe I’d heard too many off-putting stories of dodgy after-effects. Maybe I have just never fallen prey to the post-booze munchies in that particular part of town. Or maybe I am simply more of a good old gyros girl at heart.

Either way, it was without doubt at long last time to right this wrong.

And so on my next visit to Wenceslas Square, I headed to the stand on the corner of Vodičkova, for the sole reason that it’s the one I always pass on the number 9 tram and therefore stuck in my mind.


It’s another good six months till Christmas, but in my world t’is always the season for svařak.


In the event, my virgin bite of Wenceslas sausage was into a Vaklavská klobása (like all the sausages on the square, priced at around the 50kč mark).


Yes, that is a lot of mustard - when it comes to condiments, I go hard baby.

Despite blogging appearances, I’m actually a pretty dedicated healthy eater / exerciser, and this amount of concentrated fat at one time was quite a lot for my system to take – I swear I could feel the grease start to ooze out of my pores as I ate… For this amount of calories, I quite frankly didn’t think the Vaklavská was worth it – it wasn’t all that tasty really, and I kind of got bored eating it halfway through.

On the next visit, I tried the Bavorská klobása from a neighbouring stand. I asked to have it with brown bread rather than the rohlik the server initially reached for (is it me, or are rohliks, so beloved by the Czechs, simply a stale, chewy abomination to bready kind? – I don’t care if they do only cost 2kč, I still don’t see the appeal...). It came served with a large portion of fried onion, which I love, in this case in fact far more so than the sausage itself, which I found a bit tasteless with an unpleasantly squishy texture. I imagine that’s actually how it’s supposed to be, but still, not quite my bag really...


At this point, I was understandably starting to tire of my as yet less than successful, self-imposed sausage-seeking mission, and was beginning to doubt that klobása and I were even compatible at all – after all, I’d clearly gone this long in Prague without feeling the need to indulge, so why persist in my vain attempts at sausage appreciation now...?

And then, in one final last-ditch attempt, I tried the Pražská klobása.


Jackpot!!! This tasty variety reminded me more of Hungarian klobása in its spicy flavour and distinctive redness of the meat, and after my previous failed attempts I was really pleased to have finally found something to genuinely hit my S-spot. It was, of course, no less fatty and greasy than my two previous versions, the difference being that this time I actually felt the sacrifice was worth it (though on my fifth and final consecutive day of 100 length compensatory swims afterwards, I was - understandably - no longer quite so sure...).

So all in all, I wouldn’t say I was quite a klobása convert yet, and when it comes to meaty post-drinking bites, my loyalties are still firmly in the kebab camp.

That said, I’ve now tried a new thing at least, and finally undergone a belated Prague rite of passage – now, having taken a good four years to actually get round to it, I think I can happily wait another four until my next Wenceslas round! ;-))

Funnily enough, my most viewed and commented upon blog entry so far has not been that on the gourmet delights of Prague Food Festival, nor the fine wines of Viniční Altán, not even the ever contentious subject of Indian food with my review on Curry House, but in fact the one on the Pasha döner kebab. In retrospect, perhaps I should have saved myself all the time and expense of food festivals, farmers' markets and fine dining and simply set up a blog devoted to the delights of the humble döner instead...

Well dear readers, you have spoken and I have duly listened. I will endeavour to up my ongoing quest for the perfect kebab and try to report back here more regularly than the originally intended once a month. Kebab of the fortnight from now on perhaps – after all, there is a lot of gyros ground to cover out there...

Unfortunately for all you fellow döner lovers, I do not bring good tidings on the kebab front this week.

Despite having a long list of promising kebab joints to visit, this week I instead took a spontaneous detour to Saranda (can’t for the life of me find a website), a newly opened Greek taverna just on the intersection of Dukelských hrdinů and Milady Horákové (am I the only one reminded of Parker in Thunderbirds by the latter street name??).

Saranda is primarily a small, cheap-and-cheerful taverna, with all the Greek classics such tzatziki, moussaka, stuffed peppers, souvlaki, dolmades, baklava etc on the menu, with mains typically priced in the 150 – 200kč range. Unfortunately there wasn’t much out on display when I poked my head round the door here, hence the relative paucity of photos in comparison to my last kebab review. They also have a little hole-in-the-wall on the side for takeaway gyros, which is where I was bound for this occasion.

If I had to choose just one food to live on for the rest of my life, it would without doubt be the humble kebab. Not only does it meet all of your nutritional needs (pita for carbs, meat or falafel for protein, yogurt sauce, feta and halloumi for dairy, salad for vegetables, and - of course - jalapeños for kick ;-)) ), but it is also cheap, filling, tasty, and – back when I was living in Germany – thoroughly addictive. Back in the day I used to be able to polish off a generous döner sandwich for lunch, followed by a giant dürüm for dinner and still want more, but of course that was back when I was a student and could get away with that kind of unrestrained gluttony without any lasting ill-effects...

These days a döner is now an occasional treat, though I’ve kept an eye on the options out there in Prague in the meantime, and over the last year or two have noticed a few new places open up whose kebab quality is vastly superior to the hitherto characteristically down-and-dirty gyros places in the Czech Republic, occasionally approaching or even matching that of the divine German-Turkish hybrid kebab. In the interest of research / public information therefore, I have decided to embark on a quest to find the best döner kebab in Prague, reporting back to you, dear readers (if, that is, there are any readers), on a monthly basis via this blog.

First up for review was a new place I stumbled upon called ‘Pasha’ that has just opened up on the corner of Jungmannová and Charvatová.

On the inside and out it was very nicely presented, with a trendy seating area and an enticing food counter at the front of the shop.

Apart from the obvious kebab sandwich, they also had gyros platters, kebab skewers, Middle Eastern stews and casseroles, stuffed paprika, baklava, filled bread pockets and a very tasty looking börek on offer.

Despite extreme temptation presented by the börek, however, I valiantly stuck to the task in hand and purchased a chicken gyros sandwich for 85kč.

I have to say, I was pretty impressed. The home-made bread was fresh out of the oven, the gyros well done and crispy (can’t bear soggy kebab meat), the salad crisp and fresh, and the yogurt sauce plentiful. I was a very happy person indeed.

All in all I give Pasha a strong 8/10 on the kebab scale, with points deducted only on the basis that they don’t do any dürüm wraps or (my own personal favourite) falafel, and also got a little bit arsy when I took a discrete photo or two – some people just don’t appreciate free publicity! :-)) But that aside, definitely recommended!!