Restaurant rave!

We had relatives coming to stay. Not a mean feat when there is only one bed and a living room but these two are the kind of people who make themselves at home anywhere and are easy to cater for.

So we planned a few outings and took them to sample some of the local cuisine - which they loved!

Now the thing about this area is that the restaurants pretty much run along the same theme. That is to say mostly the food is meat, meat, meat and dumplings! All fantastic I have to say but just sometimes you want something a little more - not sure what the word here should be - possibly challenging or perhaps a little more cosmopolitan.

Anyway, we took them to Prague for the weekend. It was fun! Cant blog about a lot of it but I do want to mention in fact give a big mention to one particular restaurant that we visited.

The restaurant is called Mlynec. It overlooks the Charles bridge.

I had visited this restaurant years ago when I traveled with a company that I worked for and remembered that the food had been very good even for one of those big corporate events. So we booked a table for the Saturday night.

Well, the website said that cocktails were free before 8pm if we were eating so we arrived at 7.30 (Just to make the most of the evening you understand!). The staff were wonderful. Very friendly and helpful. They suggested that we should join their club, the "Zatisi" group of restaurants as we would then get points towards further meals etc (and the free cocktails). We did this and then sat down for the most amazing meal...

We chose the "Chefs choice Asian fusion 7 course menu" with wines to complement. Our waiter, Peter (We have since met Philip who is equally as talented) chose the wines and provided a glass with each course as it was served. Our guests are "foodies" like us so each course was accompanied by full scale discussion about the amazing quality of the food and the degree to which the alcohol - which included cold saki with one course - went so brilliantly together. I cant remember the combinations. Lets face it 2 margaritas and 7 different other drinks before coffee and I would be pressed to remember my name but I can tell you that the courses included the following:

Beef Tataki with Bonito Jús , garlic chips and spring Onion
Sautéed Scallops St. Jacques, Yuzu fruit dressing, mango-papaya salsa and Nori Nishiki rice
Tuna rolls with asparagus and scallops Sashimi with yuzu-chillli mayonnaise
Chef´s deer goulash

I have always admired the art of the somelier. I had thought that in time I could learn some of this skill, perhaps to start with the pudding wines (There cant be so many of them can there?) but I am now in complete awe and know that this talent is in a league of its own. The saki was a complete but perfect curveball. A reisling with one course was something I would never have considered drinking at home. By the time we got to the "Cab-sav" - a usual mainstay at home- I actually found myself thinking that although it went perfectly with the food (I think that this might have been the venison) my pallet had become so suddenly sophisticated that I considered never drinking it at home again (What would my dear old dad say!)

In England we used to visit some nice pubs that had great menus and I guess that with wine it would be easy to spend £50 per head but this meal above meals cost us less than that and was the most enjoyable foodie night out I have had in years.

The story doesnt end here.

We received the membership card a couple of weeks after our visit and with it a voucher for 2 meals for the price of 1. If this wasnt enough, at Christmas we received a card and a years complementary Gold card membership which of course we took advantage of on our next visit to the city.

I should mention that at this next visit we chose the same "chefs choice" menu. The courses were different and the wines were different and everything was perfectly matched again thanks to Philip. Additionally, because of our new membership status we were able to chose a bottle of very nice wine to take away with us. And, imagine our surprise when we were offered a free limousine home!

There are some very nice restaurants in Prague and I have seen a few! Mlynec is I have to say, by far my favorite to date and if the staff ever read this I just want to say thank you for doing such a wonderful job. I cannot recommend this place enough so for those who want to know, this is the web address: www.mlynec.cz

Next time I should remember to take notes and some photos - or would that be too food obsessed?

Update

Tim is still slaving away at work so it has been left to me to post a few words.

Building is going slowly as it is entirely cash dependent but at least the roof is now insulated so the heating can turned on.

Our fantastic builder installed a large rusty wood burner into the living room of the part of the house that is habitable so at the moment all is toasty but we have already had a week of snow so I can tell you that I wasn't looking forward to the next few months without working radiators. With an electric fan, I am able to transfer some of the heat into the bedroom and the kitchen although the temperature differences remain high. At the moment it is about 30C in the living room and 8-9C in the bathroom.

As you probably know, when you use ground source heating, the temperature that eventually reaches the radiators is much lower than we Brits are used to from our gas/electric heating. Usually you have to install much larger radiators and/or underfloor heating. This will mean that whilst the heating - on this side of the house - in our standard sized radiators will be effective for most of the winter (especially as heat loss takes longer through metre thick walls) I will probably still need to use the wood burner when the temperature really drops.

Some of the plaster boarding is also completed. Our builders have curved the apex of the ceiling in the master bedroom and it is going to look beautiful when finished. Unfortunately, it took so long to complete this feature that we have had to make the decision that the other rooms will have to be boarded in a more straightforward fashion to save time/money.

Tim plans to share some of the photos of what was our garden at some point. I am glad that its winter as there isnt a blade of grass that survived the ground pump digging. We ended up with 6 x 90m bore holes (hit water 3 times!!) which were then connected via pipes buried 2m in huge trenches.

Oh well - we are in this for the long haul...

Deer Hunter

I am more than a bit behind with a few postings as you can see. The following happened a couple of months ago before "the snow came..."

As you are probably aware, Tim and I have a mad little “Min-Pin” called Spike. Up until Oz the “Mys hunter” came to live with us Spike ruled the roost and dictated the daily goings etc.

Since said relentless cat arrived we have made particular effort to take Spike for walks and give him some attention (He doesn’t get much with Oz demanding all of our full focus!). Funny thing is that whilst Spike seems to have become “all grown up” not he has a younger playmate he also become naughtier when we are out with him.

As you probably know, in Czecho you cant walk a few yards into the countryside without seeing a few deer loitering in a field or running across the path. Spike can smell the deer and it is clear that he feels the need to be with them! On the odd occasion that he has noticed deer (he isn’t all that observant!) he has chased them across fields like Pepe Le Pew, never quite catching up but very enthusiastically bouncing up and down through fields of corn/daisies (everything is taller than him) to get his bearings and further the chase. As “parents”, Tim and I find it all very disconcerting especially as Spikes excitement gets so much the better of him that no amount of calling and bribery will make him come back until he is well and truly ready. To this end – and also because it is now hunting season- he is now on “lead restrictions” except when he appears to be doing as he is told.

Our mistake…

Half and hour into a stroll in the forest and Spike just turns left off the path a few feet ahead of us and he was gone. Twenty minutes later and we were at panic stations. I was dispatched home to get mobile phone and car and Tim carried on calling for errant hound. At the hour point I think that we were losing hope but then this is Czech so what happened next shouldn’t really have been a surprise.

Tim turned back to retrace along the path that we had come only to hear a dog bark. (Ours doesn’t bark except at strangers at the house). Thinking – wisely – that where there is another dog, Spike might be drawn, he followed the sound… only to be met on the path by a woman with a large otter hound, Spike on a lead and…

a tame pet deer.

Yes, a deer. It seems that this lady has hand reared the fawn and now it follows her around like a –well behaved- dog. You can just about see the collar that it is wearing in the picture below.

So dog found and a new experience to add to the ever growing list.

Mysi

So we saw a mouse (mys)…

Tried to explain to Spike – please bear in mind that he is a Min-Pin and was therefore bread as a “ratter” – that he should catch and kill all small moving things. Most especially, we have tried to re-instill this killing instinct in relation to anything that runs across the living room floor or that jumps out of our kitchen cupboards. It hasn’t worked. In fact our not so bright hound is usually totally unaware when the little critters are eating out of his food bowl or running around behind his back. On the odd occasion that he spots one of the little monsters creeping about, he wags his tails and chases it in a sad effort to find a new friend!!!

By the time we saw the third mouse, we realized that there was a bit of a problem. OK, so we have lived in old houses before so I was prepared with the poison. The problem with poison is that it doesn’t kill the mys immediately. This leads to the unsettling problem of finding (or worse, Spike finding) small critter staggering around in the final throws. The worry that said dog might suddenly decide that dead poisoned mys might provide a tasty snack put an end to the poison stations.

Everyone said “get a cat”!

Our builder provided the second solution. He arrived one day with 5 of those spring loaded death traps and advice about potato. Apparently potato is the ideal bait….

No it isn’t, and neither is chocolate or anything else that I found in the fridge. In fact the little critters seemed to prefer Spikes food above all else and Spike didn’t seem to mind sharing at all. So dog food was the solution. The problem with dried dog food is that it doesn’t stick to the trap. In the first few cases the bait was taken and the traps remained set. So, I tied the bait to the hook – little buggers weren’t going to get it off without a struggle.

Of course, I hadn’t quite prepared for the first success. Spike saw it before I did! The trap had not worked exactly to plan and the mys was still writhing in it. Whilst I can usually cope with most things – I am after all a trained medical professional! – the sight of a spasming little mouse being harassed by an excited little dog was too much and I did the “girly” thing and ran out to find a man who dispatched the thing with a large boot.

Again, everyone said “get a cat”!

I sent a text to all English speaking friends to ask where it might be possible to find a “mys killing” fiend of a cat and was instantly besieged with messages and locations.

The next day my Czech friend and I visited a farmhouse. On entry the little girl of the owner presented me with a dangly little 8 week old ginger kitten who immediately became part of the family.

Oz is cuddly, cute and relentless. You should see him and Spike play together – no-one could have foreseen this strange bond occurring. When they are not rolling around on the floor play fighting, they are sharing Spikes food or curled up together in his bed licking each others faces.

And the mice…..

Well, we still see the occasional mys but now that Oz is the grand old age of 12 weeks the critter is usually very dead and soon becomes one with cat. Why is it that when we kill a mouse we feel inhumane and guilty but when our littlist boy does it we feel like proud parents!

Will post some photos when TOH brings back the camera cable!

Mushrooms

According to our lovely heating engineer “Mushroom picking is a competitive sport in the Czech Republic”.

He is right you know! As you drive along the back roads at ridiculous times of the early morning you can already see flashes of clothing through the trees as the foraging starts.

For us Brits Abroad, mushroom picking is not so much competitive as an “Extreme” sport. Bear in mind that on the whole Brits do not forage (although Hugh F-W is helping with the recent surge of interest in this area). A neighbor once turned down fresh carrots from my garden because she preferred to see what she was getting all wrapped up at Tesco. OK so we might pop down a local lane to pick blackberries but how many people actually pick the wild plums and cherries that grow locally.... not many I can tell you.... in fact whilst eating some during dog walking, I am often asked by fellow walkers whether it is safe to eat the fruit from the trees!!

Anyway I diverge. “Extreme”, yes because we Brits on the whole have absolutely no idea what we are doing when it comes to mushrooms. It is a bit like Russian Roulette for us. Our parents didn’t teach us what to look for and I guess that as children a giant puffball was there to be kicked not eaten. Over the last few months my lovely Czech friends have taken time out with me for foraging/teaching trips to various good mushroom hunting spots. So far I have managed to pick some of the most deadly specimens and also some pretty good eaters.

I have a fairly simple system to decide whether I will eat something that I have picked myself. Firstly I try to identify it in one of several mushroom books that I now own. Usually I am left with a choice of two pictures, one of a very poisonous mushroom and one of a particularly delicious mushroom – both of which appear to look the same. Then, I present the mushroom and the pictures of specimens in the book to my builder (yes, the builder – most Czech people have a pretty good understanding of mushrooms). If he says yes, I then take it to my friend Hannah who gives me a definitive answer before I cook/eat it. If he says no, I abandon the mushroom and try to remember what it looked like.

So far, I have Chanterelles in the freezer and I have dried some Boletes ready for winter stews. Of the mushrooms that need be eaten fresh the Parasol is probably the most interesting find. You fry it whole and it tastes a bit like scrambled egg but has the texture of fish (sort of!) The best thing about them is that they are kind of easy to spot because of their size. We measured the last find up against the dog (I didn’t have a tape measure with me) and just look at the size of it!!

Recent posts

Hi all,

As I started the posts a fair while ago they didn't exactly post in the right order so please take the time to go back through and re-read in case there's anything you find of interest ..., will post some more stuff soon .... its all happening, including our budget nearing crisis point so I'm off back to the North Sea for some overtime today having travelled back to the UK from CZ last night in 16hrs ...
See you soon with more updates on the build and I think 'S' has some other stuff to post on Mushrooms and Elder Flower Champagne.

cau...

Heating - a change of mind

After agreeing that we were going to go with solar heating we have changed our minds .... why??, because solar heating is proving to be expensive and not as green and energy efficient as you might think !!.

Basically, despite your solar system heating your water you will still require an electric heating system that heats your water in a storage tank during night time and low light hours. This will require an increase in your electric mains power from 12 to 34Kw. Using the building and room dimensions we calculated our energy, (electric) usage would come to nearly 20,000Kc, (over £660 per month) !!!. I am so glad I held the initial site meeting now as it was our appointed buildings engineer who ensures all works are carried out in accordance with the authorised plans that raised the issue. Without asking he went away and did some of his own calculations and advised us against it. Turns out he was looking to do the same to his own property until he found out about about geothermal heating and ground pumps and has had the system fitted to his property. We went to visit and its very impressive. Ive attached some pics of the system as you can see. We have since had a survey completed and are looking to go this way. Despite the outlay being a little more that the solar system we are looking at a considerable overall cost reduction with a limitless source of heating ....

We have now engaged an engineering company to do the geothermal, (ground source) installations and they recently arrived on site and started installing all the pipework ...