Classic Czech cuisine

The Fat Duck restaurant in Berkshire, England, is world-famous for British chef Heston Blumenthal's innovative, science-based cooking. Its tasting menu is filled with seemingly bizarre but chemically complementary concoctions such as salmon poached in licorice gel, mango and Douglas fir puree, and nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream.

Style-wise, Prague's own Tlustá kachna (literally, "Fat Duck") couldn't be more different. While Berkshire's Fat Duck pushes culinary boundaries, Tlustá kachna sticks to traditional home cooking. Menu highlights include Czech classics like beef goulash, "grandmother's svíčková" and, of course, baked duck.

Furnished with wooden tables and rustic chairs, Tlustá kachna is a comfortable, modern bistro, decorated with paintings of fowl and model ducks. The music, however, is a mixed bag; on one occasion, it melded in benignly with the ambient noise, while on another, bass-heavy dance music blasted through the speakers.

Get past the iffy music selection, though, and the food here exemplifies the best of traditional Czech cuisine.

A smoked beef tongue starter was simply exquisite. It takes nerve to serve tongue, due to its unpopularity, particularly with North American visitors. Yet it is unfortunate this delicacy is so overlooked, since tongue is extremely tender when properly cooked. Here, the thin slices of tongue were served on a wooden cutting board with sweet, pickled peppers and a mild horseradish. The smoky flavor was subtle, so as not to overwhelm the taste of the meat, and the texture of the meat itself was so soft and delicate, it nearly melted in the mouth.

The creamy garlic soup was also delicious. It came straight from the oven in a crock bowl, covered with a perfectly golden pastry crust. Once a spoon was poked through the flaky crust, the fragrance of garlic rose with the steam. This smooth, mellow soup, filled with velvety chunks of potato and ham, was hearty enough to be a light lunch on its own.

Tlustá kachna's baked duck did not disappoint. The skin was nice and crispy, and the moist meat fell right off the bone. It seemed rather redundant, however, to serve several slabs of both potato and bread dumplings with this dish, especially since the portion was plenty large to begin with. Also, it would have been nicer, and less awkward to eat, had the duck and dumplings been presented on a plate rather than a high-sided casserole dish. Crammed against the side of the dish, the dumplings didn't have a chance to soak up the juices at the bottom.

The pork ribs were similarly nicely cooked, and came with a freshly grated pot of horseradish.

Perhaps typical of Czech restaurants, vegetarian options here are slim, but there are a few solid meatless items on the menu. The vegetarian omelet with fresh vegetables turned out to be a plain though very nicely cooked and well-seasoned egg omelet with mushrooms.

A 89 Kč lunch special of plnéne ovocne knedliky (traditionally a sweet flour dumpling stuffed with fruit) was also a very good dish. The dumplings were light and pleasantly doughy, and the blueberry filling was not cloyingly sweet. The three round dumplings were served on melted butter, with a dusting of powdered sugar and a sprinkling of cottage cheese.

For dessert, a homemade apple strudel, studded with rum-soaked raisins, was a lovely way to end a meal, though the pastry could have been just slightly crispier.

The service at Tlustá kachna is not quite up to speed. On one occasion, our waitress was quick and attentive, but, on a second visit, a "quick lunch" took close to two hours - hardly ideal for a mid-workday meal.

Still, measured against other Czech restaurants in touristy Old Town, Tlustá kachna rises well above the crowd, proving that traditional cuisine done properly is anything but boring.

Wency Leung can be reached at
wleung@praguepost.com