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Stand and deliver

Sherwood squeezes a little extra - out of your pocket
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By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 28th, 2008 issue

Sherwood


Opletalova 19
Prague 1-New Town
Tel. 222 211 754
Open Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-12:30 a.m., Sun. noon-11 p.m.

Food *
Service **
Atmosphere **
Overall *

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Line cooks work hard to provide honest meals, but watch out for this New Town pub's larcenous wait staff.
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FROM THE MENU



Onion soup 65 Kč
Salmon rillette 189 Kč
Crabcakes 125 Kč
Lamb cutlets 210 Kč
Baked duck 279 Kč
Hoegaarden 48 Kč
Staropramen 35 Kč
 The legendary bandits of Sherwood Forest were a philanthropic lot. Their “rob from the rich, give to the poor” antics — and Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling charm — turned Robin Hood into a cinematic hero.
Some versions of the story say that the real Robin Hood stole from everyone and kept everything, much like the petty thieves rumored to lurk in the park outside Prague’s main train station, a place dubbed “Sherwood Forest” by locals.
And, much like the wait staff at Sherwood, a Czech pub located on one corner of the dastardly splotch of green.
Technically, the wait staff engages in acts of deception rather than outright robbery. But it amounts to the same thing: a sly attempt to pick crowns from your wallet. Toward the end of my second visit to the place, the waitress presented a handwritten receipt for 625 Kč ($39). Tucked under this piece of paper was an itemized bill totaling 544 Kč. Nothing like this had occurred during my first meal (when, incidentally, I stammered some Czech phrases), so I asked about it.
“This is the bill plus suggested tip,” she said of the higher receipt — “if you liked the service.”
Actually, I found the treatment of guests to be quite steady, worthy of a standard 10 percent tip. Sherwood’s dishes, on the other hand, are more akin to a culinary roller-coaster ride.
Let’s start with a short climb. Salmon rillette contrast the bright, almost sour taste of dill against the robust base of smoked fish. Typically, rillette is meat cooked in fat, then pounded until a pasty spread develops, instead of this kitchen’s flaked salmon in creamy sauce. Aside from the obvious misinterpretation of technique — and far too much salt in the sauce — the combination is pleasant and appropriate.
Then, a quick dip: Shards of poultry lend the French onion soup both a distinct meaty flavor and a coating of fat dense enough to double as a temporary lip balm. Weak onions at least provide support, kicking in with a faintly bitter edge. One would expect the croutons to smooth things out, but these merely sank into the broth, weighted down by a layer of shellac.
Well, that or hardened putty, since it’s difficult to imagine cheese baking until it acquires a near-porcelain shell. But that’s what happened on this occasion.
Tapping the croutons with a spoon even produced a glass-like sound.
Lamb cutlets serve as a pause between high and low points. Desperately in need of jus to balance the sharp taint of oven-browned herbs, the meat is nonetheless tender and rich.
Traditional Czech roast duck is one of the peaks, especially when you consider how many pub kitchens manage to wilt “crispy” skins into soft, soggy, disappointing masses. The meat itself winds up still tender, although a tad monotonous. Herbal, grassy flavors peek from the dumplings. White cabbage follows through with a surprisingly complex sweet, tart and savory character. And the skin positively crackles, unleashing the rich, vain, rustic, fulfilling pleasure of fat — burnt into the brittle crust and billowing underneath.
It’s just good.
Of course, the high point on any ride is generally followed by a sudden plunge — in this case, Sherwood’s “crabcakes.”
One chewy, doughnut-shaped pastry, the hole filled by chum, a puddle of white paste and what looks like amoebic pasta make up the dish. The “pasta,” as it turns out, forms when the red-dyed outer strip of artificial “krab” (otherwise known as chum) unravels. Whoever wrote the menu prefers “Champagne sauce” to white paste — although it resembles béchamel subjected to junior-high science experiments, assuming the class wanted to find out just how much salt a cream-based sauce could bear before breaking down completely.
Real crabcakes, revered by the people living along Maryland’s shore, are sweet, savory and ethereal, packed with fresh meat and pan-fried to seal in flavor and juices. Sherwood’s disturbing knockoff suggests that, despite a few above-board efforts, the kitchen is capable of larceny as well.

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (28/05/2008):

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