Czech, please

featuring the most interesting meat contraption we've ever seen

Hi, everyone!

Remember me? It’s your old friend, Dennis. Unfortunately, I’m still recovering from my last round of laser eye treatment that occurred in early April. Since my last post, I developed excruciating pain that was so intense I was nearly admitted to the hospital on at least one occasion.

The source isn’t obvious; my eye visibly appears to be healing from the procedure as it should be. But the doctors think the laser treatment pissed off a portion of my eye that hasn’t been detectable through traditional diagnostics.

It’s been a lot of medical experimentation on their part, but after a full month of screaming pain, no appetite, and sensitivity to light that’s been so painful I’ve resorted to wearing a temporary eye patch, I think it’s finally starting to calm down. Some days are better than others, but I’m committed to feeling human again.

Thank you again for being patient, you’re all saints.

Going out to eat has been a rarity, but we did manage to find a window where I felt well enough to leave the house for a meal some weeks back. Davida had just finished reading my old copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, which is a book I read so long ago that I don’t remember a single thing about it. Seriously, I might as well not have read it at all, it’s that far removed from my memory, probably replaced by decades of fart jokes.

Kundera was from the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia (which is no longer since it peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia), and after finishing the book, Davida was curious to see if Chicago had any Czech restaurants. After some brief searching, she found a place in Schorsch Village, which is where Frank’s Pizzeria is located (in fact, it’s just a few minutes down the same street, Belmont), and declared that we should try it.

That’s how we found ourselves at Cafe Prague on a sunny Sunday, and man, did it feel nice to be out.

I’d never even heard of Cafe Prague, so I was delighted Davida found it.

Are you familiar with this place?! I don’t know the first thing about Czech food, but you all know by now that the unknown has never stopped me from shoving stuff in my mouth hole. We showed up during the midafternoon, and the restaurant was nice and busy.

As soon as we sat down, our server dropped off some soft warm bread and pate, which is a complimentary starter.

This sure beats bread and butter. For those of you who aren’t particularly into offal, this pate is pretty mild, without a ton of the funky mineral flavors you probably associate with a meat spread, and a little bite of pickle perks it all up. Next time I might be courageous and ask for a little mustard too.

The pate’s a foreshadowing of what you can expect to eat here. Vegetarians, big heads up—this is a meat-heavy menu, which means your options are fairly limited.

Davida noticed that the restaurant serves Kofola ($3.99), which is a Czech soda that has the appearance of Coke, but has a much overall different flavor.

We noticed an herbaceous licorice-like taste to it, and it almost feels like a drink you linger over rather than absentmindedly slurp on while eating a burger and fries. It’s less fizzy and sweet than Coke, too, which are two aspects we appreciate about it.

We scanned over the menu, realized we had no idea what we were looking at, so we just picked starters we weren’t familiar with, like topinky ($9.99).

Topinky, as I’d later learn through a quick search, is simply fried bread with garlic rubbed on it, but Cafe Prague’s version is also covered in pork, chicken, onion, red pepper, and zucchini in a very sweet tomato sauce, which is then topped with melted Muenster cheese. It feels a lot like a bar snack or a piece of French bread pizza in the best of ways.

One of Davida’s absolute favorite food types is dumplings, so we had to get an order of the potato dumplings ($13.99).

These little guys are stuffed with shredded duck and are served with sauerkraut, green onion, and a sprinkling of bacon, and both of us were fascinated by them. The dumpling skin is thick and spongy, not unlike the texture of dumpling dough you’d get in Southern-style chicken and dumplings, and they’re dense, filling, and fun to eat. You need sauerkraut to cut through something as starchy and rich like this, so that generous mound in the middle is key.

The beef goulash ($18.99) is a featured item on Cafe Prague’s menu, so we made sure to get an order of it.

Honestly, I don’t recall whether or not I’ve ever had a proper goulash, but this is definitely a dish I should eat more often. This classic version is slow-cooked beef in a thick and rich paprika-based sauce. The paprika gives it a lightly bitter flavor, and there’s plenty of excess to drag your pan-fried potato pancakes (or bread dumplings as an alternative) through as you’re eating it.

Next time we visit, I think we’ll spring for the deer-mushroom goulash that’s also on the menu. That sounds cool as shit.

Davida was fascinated at the prospect of eating rabbit, since she’d never tried it, so we placed an order for the roasted rabbit plate ($24.99).

It comes with a rabbit leg, ground rabbit roulade (which was just sausage, as far as I could tell), mashed potatoes, and roasted vegetables in a creamy gravy. I’ve had rabbit a few times and it’s just as I remember. The meat is sort of like chicken, but also a touch like lean pork without pork’s mildly gamy flavor.

That means rabbit tends to be dry since it doesn’t have any insulation of fat working in its favor, but that’s what the gravy is for. The sausage was unique in that it featured a coarse lean grind of meat, yet somehow reminded me of a German weisswurst at the same time, in that it was very mildly seasoned.

I’m going to be honest and say rabbit’s not my favorite thing in the world, so I think that’s a one-and-done thing for us, unless any of you lovely folks know of some secret place in Chicago that specializes in bunny.

The unexpected star of the show that day was the roast pork shank ($21.99), which comes served with rye bread, mustard, and horseradish cream with a sweet potato in it.

That’s because the meat came served in the most hilariously dramatic meat contraption I’ve ever seen. It’s a vertical vice clamp that holds up the large bone-in cut, and the presentation was both awe-inspiring, visceral, and mildly menacing. I don’t think I’ve ever described a restaurant dish as menacing, but here we are today, and I’m giddy to have experienced this.

Though the pork shank comes with a serrated knife for slicing the meat, it’s tender enough that you barely need it. The pork itself is generously fatty, with collagen-rich sticky skin, and Davida is a particularly big fan of that mustard, which is slightly sharp and sweet. I’ve never seen roasted sweet potato served in horseradish like that either.

You’ll notice that there isn’t a pickled accompaniment with the shank, so I’d recommend you order some sauerkraut, a cucumber sour cream salad, or beets, which are all available as separate side dishes so you don’t suffer from meat overload.

Our server keenly noticed that we were new to the restaurant (we definitely stuck out), so after we were done eating, she brought over two free servings of a digestif called Becherovka to cap off our meal.

She explained that Becherovka is good to settle your stomach after eating, and that it’ll warm up your insides. It totally did—the 38% alcohol content probably had a great deal to do with this. But it’s also nice and bitter, with around 20 herbs and spices in it, a combination of which I’m sure could probably cure any gastric situation you’re in. Maybe I should try pouring it on my bad eye.

Davida cheerfully followed hers up with a shot of slivovitz, or plum brandy, just for the hell of it. After all, it’d been a while since we were out, and that was reason enough to toss one back.

Cafe Prague seems to be one of few, if not the only, Czech-identifying restaurant in our city. And if you’re already familiar with Central European food, I’m guessing there’s likely nothing here that’ll surprise you. But that doesn’t mean the place isn’t worth visiting, because there’s Kofola, stuffed dumplings, and a meat clamp awaiting your arrival. Speaking of, I wonder if I can get one of those things for our home kitchen.

Cafe Prague
6710 W Belmont Ave
Chicago, IL 60634
(773) 427-7587

Hours:
Monday: Closed
Tuesday - Thursday: 4 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Friday: 4 p.m. - 12 a.m.
Saturday: 12 p.m. - 1 a.m.
Sunday: 12 p.m. - 9 p.m.

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Man, this felt nice. I’ve been quietly working on this edition of The Party Cut for weeks now, putting it together sentence by sentence when the pain paused long enough to allow me. Don’t forget to share it where you can:

And in the meantime, there’s some additional stuff coming, including more content from pizza specialist Brian Erst, and the usual goods from yours truly.

Posting will depend on how my progress will be in the next few weeks, so I can’t make any concrete promises on returning to my previous rhythm just yet, but I’ll try to be optimistic.

And if you’d like to support the newsletter here’s the button. No sales pitch today, you guys have waited too long for this one as it is.

I love you all so very much. And don’t forget to tell that to each other too. Everyone around you needs to hear it more often than you think.