Fair warning

It was an awkward morning after. Biostrov had been recommended by a colleague, who noticed the restaurant while sitting at a café across the street. Said colleague now has the unique distinction of guiding this reviewer toward both the best (Ichnusa) and worst (Biostrov) dining experiences I've had in Prague. He'll have to think carefully before he offers up his next suggestion.

Still, it's hard to fault someone for assuming that Biostrov would, in fact, offer an interesting and even enjoyable dining experience. The restaurant bills itself as "bio," using organic and local ingredients, which would seem to suggest management knowledgeable and considerate about green cuisine.

Certainly the décor supports that assumption, with attractive, white-leather seating in a small front room that has big windows looking out onto a quiet street. There are small photos of bucolic rural scenes, perhaps meant to evoke the farm-to-table approach that's been a big hit in restaurants lately. But once the food was served, it was hard to think that the "green" boast was anything more than a gimmick being used to make some cash.

There was one exception: the onion soup. Nothing complicated, it was topped with the usual thin slices of white onion, two toasts and shredded cheese that warmed and melted in the broth. However, the broth was commendably rich - homemade chicken stock that hadn't been near a bouillon cube.

The soup course, alas, was where our taste buds stopped responding favorably.

The Valerian salad is served with chicken livers and bacon, a combination that's normally quite good. But these livers were dried-out nuggets that tasted as if they'd been cooked quite some time ago. The cubed pork meat was a far cry from bacon, and the fresh-enough lettuce had been liberally sprinkled with that boxed Parmesan charlatan that tastes and looks like sawdust. What was most offensive was the "dressing." Had the kitchen been more careful mixing the mayonnaise and ketchup, it might have passed for a particularly bad version of Russian dressing. But as it was, the distinct swirls revealed the culinary subterfuge.

The salad arrived at the same time as two entrees, leaving two diners with three distinctly bad dishes to choose from.

Oil and grease - and lots of it - oozed from the soggy skin on a chicken leg dish that tasted of chicken fat and nothing else. The kitchen hadn't even been bothered to add one distinct seasoning to the meat. The same could be said for the half-mashed potatoes, soaked in vegetable oil but without any sort of carmelization or crispness that would have resulted from frying.

My companion did no better with the venison steak - a small, shriveled affair that must have been cooked well in advance. It was terribly dry and boasted none of the juice, fat or seasonings that would indicate a recent stint in a pan. The sour cherry sauce was so weak, thin and sweet that it suggested the juice from jarred cherries, perfunctorily warmed over.

The same sauce topped a pancake dessert, topped with the obligatory canned cherries, canned whipped cream, powdered sugar and chocolate syrup. The pancake was thick and rubbery, and very likely made somewhere else.

The service was no different than any other bad Prague restaurant's. The waiter didn't look particularly happy to see us come in, as it meant he had to get up from a table topped with Activia yogurt drinks and cigarettes he was sharing with another employee - presumably the cook, as she descended downstairs to the kitchen.

While we waited for dessert, we considered warning off a curious British tourist sitting at a table, waiting for her mother. But the waiter was never out of hearing range. She finally got up and left in search of her wayward relative, and we don't know if she returned. But if we weren't able to save her, at least this review might do that for some other unsuspecting souls.

Claire Compton can be reached at
ccompton@praguepost.com