Beet Carpaccio with Gratinated Goat Cheese and Toasted Walnuts

I especially like salads that are a little more exciting, including non traditional ingredients such as watermelon, apple, beet roots... My brother grew for the first time beet roots in his garden, so I wanted to try them out. I do like marinated and cooked beet roots, especially with goat or feta cheese. So, I got inspired for this salad by two things, the fruits of my brother's garden and my visit to Prague a few months ago where I had a very similar beet root salad.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 beet roots (uncooked)
• 1 l water
• 2 garlic cloves 
• 2 Tbsp vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp salt

• goat cheese
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp of each salt, pepper, herb de provence

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 tsp oil

• lettuce (e.g. baby spinach or arugula)

Dressing:

• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp apple vinegar
• 1 Tbsp mustard
• 1 tsp honey
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• salt, pepper, herb de provence to taste

Preparation:

1. Prepare the Beets: Bring water to a boil, add the garlic cloves, salt, vinegar and sugar and stir. Add the beet roots and cook for 40 min till soft. Use a fork to test. Take the beet roots out of the water and let cool for a few minutes. Now, put on some kitchen gloves, as the red juice of the beet root is very intense and can leave stains. Peel the beet roots and slice in very thin slices that are almost translucent. If you want to have perfect slices, use a mandoline slicer.
2. Gratinate the Goat Cheese: Preheat oven to 190 degree Celcius. Slice the goat cheese in 4-6 slices of about 1 inch thickness. Lay out on a baking tray and sprinkle with the olive oil and spices. Bake for about 10 minutes, till it starts to bubble a little bit and get a slight golden colar.
3. Toast the Walnuts: Preheat oven to 150 degree Celcius. Spread the walnuts out on a baking tray, sprinkle with the oil. Bake in the oven for 3-5 minutes, but check regularly as the can burn from one minute to the next.
4. Dressing and Salad: Use a small mixing bowl for the dressing. First, add the vinegars, mustard, honey and lemon juice and mix everything. Then, add the oil and spices and mix again till everything is combined. In a seperat bowl, place the lettuce (e.g. baby spinach or arugula as these lettuce are a little nuttier in taste) and sprinkle with the dressing. Toss the salad till everything is mixed.
5. Assemble the Carpaccio: Place the slices of beet root in a circular shape on a plate. The slices are so thin, that it should resemble a carpaccio. Top with the dressed lettuce. Add 2-3 sliced of gratinated goat cheese on top and sprinkle with walnuts.

Note:

• Toasting vs. Roasting:  To toast something means to only brown the outside slighlty under dry heat either in a toaster or the oven. When roasting something, you expose it to dry heat and cook the inside through.
• Carpaccio: Usually used when slicing raw beef very thinnly, almost translucent. As we use the same slicing technique for the beet roots, we call it a beet carpaccio. 

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The BeBob Lobby Bar - a smoky experience!

And this is my last entry to our little trip to Prague... again, a very unique place that deserves its own entry!

As it was my friend's birthday, a few drinks seemed just appropriate. His girlfriend actually found this place on Tripadvisor. The BeBob Lobby Bar is a Hotel Bar in New Town and easy to miss. We went there in the late afternoon and we had my friends' little girl with us, so we didn't know whether it actually would work out. However, this place was kid friendly, at that time it was almost empty, the big armchairs very comfortable and inviting after a day of walking through the town, the music nice and soft, the staff very courteous. It worked out perfectly.

We ordered four different drinks, how they tasted was actually irrelevant, because they were very special...

• We started with the "Be an Alchemist" which comes on a tray like some chemical labratory experiment with smoky dry ice, 
• The "Be prepared" comes with some special toothpaste and toothbrush
• The "Be or not to Be" is served in a skull mug 
• The "Be Healthy" comes with a bandage, a syringe with sweet liquor and a spittoon. 

There were so many more on the list... Highly recommendable!

 

Prague's Medieval Tavern

This is another restaurant in Prague. There were just a few nice places that deserve their own entry :)

This Medieval Tavern ("U krále Brabantského") is an experience in itself. It shall be one of the oldest Pubs in Prague. My friend's girlfriend found this place on Tripadvisor. The pictures of a skull ceiling were so inspiring, that we had to try it out. It is nestled in a side street, up the hill, right below the Castle District in Lesser Town. It's easy to miss if you don't know where to look for. They also offer evening dinner shows with belly dancers, music, swordsman, a fire show, but with the little girl in our company that was not possible. However, we did have a nice lunch there after exploring the Letná Park with the Metronom and a gorgious view over Prague and walking over to Lesser Town to explore the Wallstein Gardens with the free roaming peacocks. We checked out the rooms and the downstairs area where the skull ceiling is. Be carefull, there is barely light, just a few candles!

The food was also good, but the best was really the unique environment. Everything. The rooms decoration, the staff in their costumes and the way you receive the check - they jam a knife with the check in the table right in front of you... Nothing for easily scared people.

I ate the soup of the day, a Potato Soup in a Bread Bowl, my friends ate Honey Glazed Rips and a Duck Leg Confit. As mentioned, really decent good food :)

The Strahov Monastary Brewery - drinking beer with the monks :)

The Strahov Monastary Brewery is a nice little brewery up in the Petrin Hills right on the edge to the Castle district. The restaurant is not as easy to find, as there are quite a few restaurants around. Just keep going and it is a small place behind a big gate, it almost looks like an entry to a secret garden. They have a nice outdoor seating area and you can see the beer tanks of the brewery.

We of course tried out the nice freshly brewed beer but we also had some food. I tried the beer gulash which came with three different kinds of dumblings. It was outstanding! This was actually my first real dish in Prague and it was the best, unforgettable. Believe me, we tried several gulashes, but the three different kind of dumplings was spot on. I also like to imagine that they used the freshly brewed beer to slow cook the gulash which was an additional plus. My friends also ordered the gulash and the pork knuckle which looked very fancy as well. According to my friend, it also tasted good :)

This place was recommended by a friend who had heard on his last day in Prague that there shall be a monastary brewery where you can drink with the monks. He did not have a chance to try it out. Well, we did and it was a great experience, even though there were unfortunately no monks around to share a beer with :)

The Trdelnik Chimney - also known as the "Ice Cream Donut Cone"

This is just an amazingly cute and delicious dessert that we came across in Prague. It is a very new (since February 2016) and non-tradional take on the traditional Czech cinamon pastry rolls.
 
The Trdelnik Chimney - or the "Ice Cream Donut Cone" - is a Czech funnel-cake filled with soft ice-cream and is sold at Czech bakeries or café places. It has a cinamon sugar and hazelnut covered cone that can be lined with either nutella or berry compot and filled with ice cream, whipped cream and strawberries.

The Trdelnik Chimney is very trendy and pictures seemed to go viral in February on Instagram. I was surprised to discover that, but now I am really happy I was able to try it out :)

Prague - A Culinary Explosion

A while back we had a nice little trip to Prague. It was kind of an annual thing, we planned a trip around the time of my friend's birthday. We  had already been in Florida, Seattle and Paris for his birthday, and in Berlin and Poland for his girlfriend's birthday. This year it was supposed to be Prague. Easy to reach, not too expensive, with a nice history and lots of nice food options :)

We did explore all the tourist attractions which did not take much time as most of them are in walking distance and we lived very central at the old town square. However, the highlights were our food and beverage experiences!

Quick summary of the sights:

• We lived in Old Town near the Old Town Square with its Astronomical Clock and had nice dinners at the Town Square, Hard Rock Cafe and, of course, the Hooters ;)
• We walked through the Jewish Town up to the Letna Gardens with the big Pendulum (Metronom). 
• We walked across the Charles Bridge to the Lesser Town and up the funicular railway to the Petrin Hill with its mini Eiffel Tower and a Mirror Maze (not just fun for the little girl in our company).
• We went to the Prague Castle with the Strahov Monastery were we had some nice freshly brewed beer.
• I had read about the Wallenstein Gardens, a not so commen tourist place in the Lesser Town district, a little hidden, with free roaming peacocks and lots of statues. I thought that would be fun for my friends' little girl. One of the peacocks was completely white. And there was a manmade mystery cave wall at the back.
• We also explored New Town, having some nice fancy cocktails at a the BeBob Hotel Bar and typical Czech desserts (apple strudle and plum filled dampfnudeln).

Around in Prague

And here a list of a few special Czech dishes

... and we ate them all... almost... some actually more than once ;)

• Beef gulash with dumblings (my favorite!) - also available as a gulash soup
• Roasted Pork Knuckle ("Schweinshaxe")
• Duck Leg Confit
• (Smoked) Pork Rips
• Smoked sausages from food carts
• Pickled Cheese (even though we did not find the right one until we left... next time) 
• Supper Platter with pickled gherkins and ham 
• Apple Strudel
• Dampfnudel (filled with plum and topped with poppy seeds)
• The Trdelnik Chimney also known as the "Ice Cream Donut Cone" (be advised, this is so special that a separate entry will follow!)

Just a few samples of our appetizers/salads

My favorite - The beer gulash at the Strahov Monastary

Just two of the famous desserts (Dampfnudel and Apple Strudel). The Trdlnik Chimney was another one.

Street Food

And a quick look at our beverage selection... check out the BeBob Bar for more...

Restaurants to be recommended 

(my friend's fantastic memory was needed to put together this list):

• Strahov Monastary Brewery - This was one of my favorite places. The beer gulash was just amazing and freshly brewed beer in such a nice environment... I will follow up on this with another separate entry. It just deserves it! 

• Medieval Tavern - Well, the name says it all. Here, it wasn't so much the food but the environment that impressed. So much, that again, I will follow up with a separate entry :)

• BeBob Lobby Bar - Here, I am just lacking words... Pictures will speak for themselves, you know it, a separate entry will be following...

• Pivovar Narodni - A restaurant in New Town, right of the Legion Bridge (most legii), on the main street Narodni. It seemed a nondescript place, another brewery, we actually first kept walking by to see whether we can find something else. However, I am happy that we returned. They had a delicious beef gulash soup with a nice multigrain bread bowl. Also, the "Dampfnudel", which is a yeast dumbling filled with a plum filling and topped with poppy seeds was spot on as a dessert! My friend ordered an appetizer of pickled speck sausage that came in a jar and it was really nice as well. Unexpectedly delicious :) 

• Joy Burger - Here, I was totally blown away by - wait for it - a salad!!! After eating all the gulashes, I craved something lighter. But picky as I am, I was not satisfied with another soup or a simple salad. This place offered a nice Marinated Beet Root Salad with Gratinated Goat Cheese on Rucola. I tried it and I have to say, I did not expect that kind of fancy salad in such a burger place... By the way, the burgers that my friends ordered were not so bad either ;)