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Comfort zone

Home-style favorites will satisfy, when somebody's home
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By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 12th, 2007 issue

Modrý Kocour

Londýnská 35
Prague 2–Vinohrady
Open Mon.–Fri. 11 a.m.–midnight, Sat. 3 p.m.–midnight, Sun. 3 p.m.–11 p.m.
Tel. 723 135 361

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FROM THE MENU

Grilled peppers 95 Kč
Cream of spinach soup 40 Kč
Meat and cheese platter 130 Kč
Mushroom casserole 120 Kč
Chicken casserole 130 Kč
Gourmet pljeskavice 150 Kč
Gambrinus 25 Kč

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
What's behind the blue door? Casseroles and other simple fare - or a dark room.
Should you perchance drop by Modrý Kocour on a Saturday evening and find no signs of movement inside — lights out, doors bolted and chairs stacked — don’t worry about it. There’s a French restaurant nearby and pizza across the way.
“Technical problems” sometimes shut this place down on inconvenient weekends, you see. Longtime expats may recall when signs proclaiming “z technických důvodů zavřeno” were fairly common during summer months, due to the same sort of glitches that prevented the completion of a difficult high-school assignment or explained away the late-night cell phone malfunction.
But, by skipping out, the folks at this curious little joint deprive locals of, well, the comforts of home-style casseroles.
The menu lists several versions, such as a familiar chicken and broccoli casserole engulfed in cream sauce. A layer of corn perks up the dish with bites of natural sweetness, while melted cheese chimes in, striking slightly pungent notes, and toasted slivers of almond provide a complex nutty, charred and mellow coating. But the mushroom-picker’s casserole somehow breaks down the will of pork and chicken chunks to resist. They end up as indistinguishable lumps of white protein surrounded by flat, often slimy fungi — again in a hearty cream base.
Modrý Kocour’s kitchen also throws in some Balkan flavorings. The grilled peppers with chicken, for instance, sits under a lattice of melted, Balkan-style feta. The chicken, though seared far too aggressively, was supported on this occasion by robust yet balanced seasoning. Unfortunately, red bell peppers picked up an off-putting acrid taste along the way, obliterating their natural snap.
The more intriguing of the kitchen’s two pljeskavice options is one tagged “gourmet”— bacon and Parmesan mixed in with the usual combination of ground beef, ground pork and whatever spices grandmother’s recipe dictates.
Taking meat patties upscale has long been the purview of American beef palaces, where they routinely turn out Kobe-foie gras monstrosities between sesame-seed rolls. Pljeskavice seems particularly well-suited for gourmet treatment. Since pork tends to hollow out the earthy taste of decent beef, even when intensely charred, the Balkan burger cries out for resounding background notes.
In this case, the results are subdued. The patties are calm, haunted by smoke and sweetness, only hinting at memories of sharpness from cheese. They barely hold their own under a dousing of mushroom cream sauce (the kitchen apparently loves its cream sauces).
Still, there’s no sense bemoaning what is essentially a hearty and filling, if one-dimensional, burger.
Modrý Kocour occupies the spot once held by Marinaro, one of Vinohrady’s rotating neighborhood outposts. It’s an unpretentious setting, with no indication of the restaurant’s existence out front other than a menu board. The interior is dressed as you would expect, in soft blue tones. In many ways, Modrý Kocour resembles a corporate cafeteria — purposeful without being cold.
Food service backs up this attitude: slow-cooked crock dishes, basic meats, that sort of thing, never rising too far, but smacking enough of home to satisfy an appetite. Cream of spinach soup is warming and rich, thanks to a nice dollop of sour cream. The rest sits placidly: dull greens supported only by a few tiny clips of root vegetable. An appetizer platter featuring several meat and cheese options seems like a straight-from-Albert assortment pulled together for a family gathering.
The impression left by an hour or so at Modrý Kocour — when it’s open — doesn’t last long. Like the hurried weeknight dinners gobbled down at so many homes across the United States, it feels a bit routine.
Neighborhood-style service provides the only real atmosphere. Make that family-style, rather: endearing in its casual inefficiency, pleasant and honest.
Still, on occasion, even family restaurants suffer “unforeseen” technical breakdowns.

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (12/09/2007):

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