Burgers for boobs

It was a mistake to visit Hooters. The idea was to make a lighthearted foray into American kitsch and maybe find a decent hamburger, a comforting thought for even the most happily expatriated American. But when bad taste and good tastes are distilled and shipped overseas, they often take on a forced, fake quality, like being on a movie set, where nothing is real.

T.G.I. Fridays, soulless as it is in the United States, becomes even emptier on Na Příkopě. Ben & Jerry's, pared down to 10 or so flavors on that same street, becomes muted and out of place, its endearing ice-cream names lost in translation for customers who have never heard of jam-band Phish or Jerry Garcia.

It quickly becomes apparent that the same, strained commercial cultural exchange is taking place at Hooters Prague, which opened June 4. Actually, "exchange" might be the wrong word. Delivery and assembly is the directive from the "black shirts," Hooters girls from the United States who lead and bark orders like tawdry drill sergeants to slightly bewildered-looking local Hooters recruits.

This produces some very strange scenes. On our visit, a waitress appeared with a plate held aloft and asked, "Calamari?" There were no takers in the small back room, which didn't seem to register with her. "Nobody ordered calamari?"

What happened next seemed almost scripted, as if management had given the girls cute scenarios to act out, so that smug patrons could swoop in and set them straight. The waitress was in fact holding a plate of onion rings. When that was pointed out to her, she hilariously stood her ground, insisting for a good 15 seconds that it was calamari.

In the end, an American eye for fried circular foodstuffs prevailed. The waitress blushed, giggled and set down a plate of doughy but passable fried onions, which were enjoyed with a side of tangy Thousand Island dressing.

Besides the eponymous busts, the stars of the show at Hooters are ostensibly the chicken wings. They come with six different sauce options, three varying spice levels of buffalo sauce, and three varied flavors like lemon pepper or barbecue. "Hot," billed as registering between mild and 911, is only slightly so. We ordered 10 wings, half "naked" and the other half battered. The battered wings seem a step too far - after all, the naked version is deep-fried, too, and chicken skin and fat crisp up nicely on their own in hot oil. The wings themselves are on the smaller side, but pleasantly juicy. Unfortunately, a hint of stale oil accompanies each bite.

Boneless chicken wings, actually nuggets of white breast meat, also come in both battered and naked versions, but are terrible in a way that can only be ascribed to a kitchen mistake. Neither came covered in any sort of sauce, despite being ordered that way, and the stale oil had free reign over the cubes of meat.

The Strip Cheese sandwich was ordered strictly for its name, the reviewer feeling obligated to participate in the strange wink-nudge brand of sex Hooters sells. And it appears the sandwich was created for a clever name, rather than vice versa, a creative process that never bodes well for the finished product (See: Moons over My Hammy). In this case, an enormous, bland hamburger bun had been lifted back, trench coat-like, to reveal three puny chicken strips lying weakly under two half-melted pieces of cheese. The taste was immediately forgettable, with only the crispy flecks of fried chicken making any sort of impression.

The overpriced Pilsner Urquell ordered with the sandwich took another 30 minutes to arrive, an offense that no amount of cleavage can assuage.

And the hamburger? An enormous disappointment, in every sense of the word: A huge disc of compacted beef arrived mushy and gray, with the taste disappearing into the soggy bun and American cheese. If ever there was a vehicle for as many condiments as possible, this is it.

A side of curly fries was extra, and their shape turned out to be the only thing going for them. It worked well as a metaphor, but, otherwise, the taste was reminiscent of frying oil, cardboard and something vaguely potato-y.

Spotty cuisine and bad service aside, the servers themselves were genuinely and earnestly sweet, smiling and profusely apologetic for the mistakes. When a male member of our group sat humbly by, obviously unsure where his eyes should rest, the waitress laughed and smiled at the female half of the table, invoking a sort of sisterly kinship. Here you go, boys, sit and behave and we'll give you an eyeful and a hamburger.

But this should come as no surprise in a place packed to the rafters with bug-eyed men, and adorned with signs like "Caution: Blondes Thinking."

It's a given that Hooters isn't for diners with mature ideas about sexuality. But now it's clear that it isn't for anyone looking for good American bar food, either.

Claire Compton can be reached at
ccompton@praguepost.com