A Little Taste of Moscow in Prague

So, my good friend Danny recently came to visit us in Prague with his girlfriend, Paget, and two of their friends, Dmitri and MacReadie. Danny is a lawyer in DC, Paget is thinking about getting into marketing for pomegranate juice in Birmingham, MacReadie is a statistician for Homeland Security in DC, and Dmitri is getting an MBA in Paris. Reading over that last sentence, it really sums up what a bizarre, interesting, amazing group this was! We had a blast doing the touristy things in Prague, showing them the sights and sounds of the city, and staying out late ('til 3am! we're never out that late...). I just wanted to write up the defining episode of their visit, though: a trip to Petrovich, the best Russian restaurant in Prague.

Dmitri is from Moscow, and is a total foodie. Whenever he visits a new city, he always looks up Russian restaurants; he swears there is no good Russian food in Paris, so he was excited to see what Prague had to offer. When he told us the name of a restaurant he had found (Petrovich), we looked it up on all our Prague websites. Our diligent search yielded...nothing. Did this scare us? A little. But Danny, Paget, and MacReadie swore we could trust Dmitri, and so we did. And let me say: I am really, really glad we did.

The restaurant turned out to be really close to our house - just a five minute walk away. When we arrived and sat down, the waitress came out with Czech/English menus. Besides chicken kiev, steak tartare, and borscht, it looked pretty standard. I was mildly disappointed, until the waitress (after a brief conversation in Russian with Dmitri) brought out a giant tome of a menu in Cyrillic characters. I guess they save the good stuff for insiders, which Dmitri proved himself to be. Dmitri asked: "Is it alright if I order for everyone?" Um, yes. Please do. What emerged from the kitchens was amazing: pierogies (meat and veggie), sausages, Russian dumplings with sour cream, dark rye bread, cured meats and cheese, borscht, cheese and mushroom dip, and pickled herring smothered with beets and sour cream. We had never had anything like it, and it was all delicious. There was also wine, and beer, and...

Vodka. About ten minutes into our meal, a mysterious, small pitcher of cloudy liquid appeared on our table. Shot glasses followed. We were being served horseradish-infused vodka with our meal, and we were skeptical. It also turned out to be delicious! If you're ever congested, I suggest a shot of this elixir. I do not, however, recommend having more than one. The horseradish kick covers up the alcohol burn, but the two flavors combine pretty well. We both felt, however, like we had truly eaten like the czars.

The rest of the visit was amazing, and we capped it with a visit to Sparta Praha's soccer stadium for a match. Danny, Danielle, and I avoided hooligans, ate sausages and drank beer, and watched Sparta cruise to victory. It was Danielle's and my first visit to a Czech pro-soccer game, and it was awesome.

I am sure we'll get back to a match, and we'll be updating soon on our trips to Berlin and Vienna, and on my mom's (current) trip to Prague. Until then, na zdorovje!