Day 3: Prague Jewish Museum and dinner at Field
Prague Jewish Museum isn't a single museum in the traditional sense, but instead a series of buildings throughout the old Jewish quarter, most of which have been synagogues at some point in their lives, and some of which still are. We had booked onto a guided tour, and it turned out that we were the only people on it, which was nice in that we got a lot of opportunity to ask questions, but did leave us feeling a bit bad for the tour guide (as they're self-employed, so only get paid based on the size of the group). There was a real variety of material. An orthodox synagogue that was still in occasional use, one of the bigger old synagogues that had been turned into museum of Jewish History; another was a memorial, with the walls covered in names of all the Czech Jews who had been murdered in the Shoah - you can see a fraction of it below, but imagine the impact of it going on for room after room.
We saw the old graveyard, and an exhibition about Jewish burial customs (much of which was new to me), and another one about ceremonies, rites of passage and festivals (less of which was new), and another very sobering exhibition of art drawn by children in one of the deportation camps. It was a day with a lot of content, both in terms of information and in terms of emotional impact. We said goodbye to our guide, and tipped rather more than the tour actually cost so that we could at least be sure she was being paid a living wage for her time - she seemed quite surprised, and took a bit of convincing that we knew how much we were giving her, but also quite relieved.
That evening we had our first tasting menu of the trip, a very generous gift from Ramesh's best man, Jez. The restaurant felt more low-key than a lot of fine dining places we've been to, but the staff were very attentive, and were on the ball about expecting Ramesh to be vegetarian. The amuse bouche were all tasty, but none of them were mind-blowing, which can give me pause, as in many ways it's easier to make a single bite astonishing, when you don't need to worry about it being balanced enough to work over repeated and extended tasting. My concerns were very quickly assuaged when the proper courses began to arrive though. Frog, fennel, sorrel & bacon was warming and comforting but not heavy, with a big hit of umami.
Chantarelles, curd, brown butter, yolk was masterful. The yolk was perfect, the curd texture so light, the brown butter hard to believe it was vegetarian.
Trout, apple, celery, raspberry vinegar was a dish with lots going on. Again plenty of umami, but this time taking a back seat to the raspberry and apple vinegars. I was worried momentarily that the trout would be overpowered, but it actually had enough heft to stand up to it.
Lamb, wine leaf, gouda, black garlic was a dish that![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
themidnightgirl would have loved. As you can see, there's some culinary theatre with this one. The smoke was pine scented, although I'm not sure it actually added much to the flavours. It didn't need to though, because the lamb was delicious and the black garlic packed just the right amount of punch.
Goose liver, peanut, berries, tonka bean was a dish designed to appeal to me. Ridiculous and clever and not quite sure whether it's sweet or savoury. Fois gras ice cream, peanut butter and jelly but British jelly. None of this should work, all of it does.
Aged beef, veal brains, celeriac, morels for the main course. The Braaaaaiiiiinnnnnnssss were amazing! The rest of the dish suffered a little bit in the way that tasting menu main courses often do by having a bit less scope to experiment than other courses, but was still pretty tasty.
The cheese course came in two parts; the first being what cheese on toast wants to be when it grows up. The cheese was ravelin, and was lovely and crisp, but with softness in the middle, and sweet and sharp interest from the berries on top. The second part had more elements of theatre, arriving in a chest of drawers with a little pot of lovely smooth cheese with plenty of pungent undernotes, and a bowl of redcurrant "caviar" which gave a delicious tangy contrast, a twist of brown paper containing a stick of herb butter that was almost cheese itself, and a hip flask of gloriously intense plum juice infused with various spices, most notably szechuan pepper.
The pre-desert was Defrutum (grape must), chamomile, madeline, rosehip. Excellent and quite substantial, with lots of sweetness in the chamomile icecream and defrutum granita and reduction, nicely contrasted by the bittersharp rosehip tea.
The final course was Sea buckthorn, juniper, bergamot, beze - a very unusual dessert. Very very sharp in parts. The sweetness in the icecream was intended to balance that out, but it dissolved in your mouth whilst you were still eating the other bits, so the sourness did get a bit much. I like weird food though, so it gets enough extra points for that to be a success overall.
All in all, this was a wonderful meal. Compared to some tasting menus I've had it was a bit lacking in subtlety - most of the courses were dominated by one or two of the big five flavours, but there was still a decent amount of complexity going on, and some really innovative and exciting ideas. And as Zoë and I have often remarked to one another, I'd far rather have lots of exciting experimental food, even if some of it doesn't quite land, than always something safe, no matter how perfectly executed.
Prague Jewish Museum isn't a single museum in the traditional sense, but instead a series of buildings throughout the old Jewish quarter, most of which have been synagogues at some point in their lives, and some of which still are. We had booked onto a guided tour, and it turned out that we were the only people on it, which was nice in that we got a lot of opportunity to ask questions, but did leave us feeling a bit bad for the tour guide (as they're self-employed, so only get paid based on the size of the group). There was a real variety of material. An orthodox synagogue that was still in occasional use, one of the bigger old synagogues that had been turned into museum of Jewish History; another was a memorial, with the walls covered in names of all the Czech Jews who had been murdered in the Shoah - you can see a fraction of it below, but imagine the impact of it going on for room after room.
We saw the old graveyard, and an exhibition about Jewish burial customs (much of which was new to me), and another one about ceremonies, rites of passage and festivals (less of which was new), and another very sobering exhibition of art drawn by children in one of the deportation camps. It was a day with a lot of content, both in terms of information and in terms of emotional impact. We said goodbye to our guide, and tipped rather more than the tour actually cost so that we could at least be sure she was being paid a living wage for her time - she seemed quite surprised, and took a bit of convincing that we knew how much we were giving her, but also quite relieved.
That evening we had our first tasting menu of the trip, a very generous gift from Ramesh's best man, Jez. The restaurant felt more low-key than a lot of fine dining places we've been to, but the staff were very attentive, and were on the ball about expecting Ramesh to be vegetarian. The amuse bouche were all tasty, but none of them were mind-blowing, which can give me pause, as in many ways it's easier to make a single bite astonishing, when you don't need to worry about it being balanced enough to work over repeated and extended tasting. My concerns were very quickly assuaged when the proper courses began to arrive though. Frog, fennel, sorrel & bacon was warming and comforting but not heavy, with a big hit of umami.
Chantarelles, curd, brown butter, yolk was masterful. The yolk was perfect, the curd texture so light, the brown butter hard to believe it was vegetarian.
Trout, apple, celery, raspberry vinegar was a dish with lots going on. Again plenty of umami, but this time taking a back seat to the raspberry and apple vinegars. I was worried momentarily that the trout would be overpowered, but it actually had enough heft to stand up to it.
Lamb, wine leaf, gouda, black garlic was a dish that
themidnightgirl would have loved. As you can see, there's some culinary theatre with this one. The smoke was pine scented, although I'm not sure it actually added much to the flavours. It didn't need to though, because the lamb was delicious and the black garlic packed just the right amount of punch.Goose liver, peanut, berries, tonka bean was a dish designed to appeal to me. Ridiculous and clever and not quite sure whether it's sweet or savoury. Fois gras ice cream, peanut butter and jelly but British jelly. None of this should work, all of it does.
Aged beef, veal brains, celeriac, morels for the main course. The Braaaaaiiiiinnnnnnssss were amazing! The rest of the dish suffered a little bit in the way that tasting menu main courses often do by having a bit less scope to experiment than other courses, but was still pretty tasty.
The cheese course came in two parts; the first being what cheese on toast wants to be when it grows up. The cheese was ravelin, and was lovely and crisp, but with softness in the middle, and sweet and sharp interest from the berries on top. The second part had more elements of theatre, arriving in a chest of drawers with a little pot of lovely smooth cheese with plenty of pungent undernotes, and a bowl of redcurrant "caviar" which gave a delicious tangy contrast, a twist of brown paper containing a stick of herb butter that was almost cheese itself, and a hip flask of gloriously intense plum juice infused with various spices, most notably szechuan pepper.
The pre-desert was Defrutum (grape must), chamomile, madeline, rosehip. Excellent and quite substantial, with lots of sweetness in the chamomile icecream and defrutum granita and reduction, nicely contrasted by the bittersharp rosehip tea.
The final course was Sea buckthorn, juniper, bergamot, beze - a very unusual dessert. Very very sharp in parts. The sweetness in the icecream was intended to balance that out, but it dissolved in your mouth whilst you were still eating the other bits, so the sourness did get a bit much. I like weird food though, so it gets enough extra points for that to be a success overall.
All in all, this was a wonderful meal. Compared to some tasting menus I've had it was a bit lacking in subtlety - most of the courses were dominated by one or two of the big five flavours, but there was still a decent amount of complexity going on, and some really innovative and exciting ideas. And as Zoë and I have often remarked to one another, I'd far rather have lots of exciting experimental food, even if some of it doesn't quite land, than always something safe, no matter how perfectly executed.
