Tag Archives: Ostrava

Central European Eats

WordPress statistics show that my posts regarding food are by far the most popular and most frequently visited, consequently, they also require the least bit of writing on my part since they mainly consist of pictures. So, back by popular demand (and because it’s easy), I give you more food porn.
My journey through Europe began with Kiev and ended with Helsinki, in between were 2 months of some of the most incredible food I’ve ever tasted. Central Europe may be best known for its hearty meat dishes and fresh pilsner beer, but I can vouch that there is much more to offer. Since I covered the full longitude of this part of the world I got to sample the changes in flavors that climate can provide as well as differences in land locked versus seafaring countries. Below is a showcase of some of the many different dishes, drinks and delicacies I got to gorge myself on throughout my travels in Central Europe.

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The roasted pork knee, a Czech specialty. A reasonable meal for 2 people, the knee joint is slow roasted and traditionally served on a spit over pickled vegetables with fresh horseradish and mustard on the side. This particular knee was consumed in a restaurant below my Prague Hostel (Hostel Orange) off Wenceslaus Square.

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Dalmatian Ham, a signature dish of southern Croatia. Despite the name, this ham is indeed made from pig, not from the dog of Disney fame. The ham is simply named for the area of Croatia referred to as Dalmatia. Usually served as an appetizer, the ham is very thinly sliced and has a smooth oily texture. Very similar to Italian Prosciutto, but with a more noticeably smokey flavor. Accompanied by pickled vegetables and washed down with the local pilsner, Karlovacko. This plate was ordered while staying on Vela Luka, an island off the southern coast of Croatia. Not pictured, but also worth trying is the Croatian Pag Island Cheese, as it goes well with the ham.

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A classic Croatian dish called Cevapcici, imported from the medieval Ottoman empire. Widely popular in the south of Croatia these finger length sausages are made of seasoned minced meat and served with onions and a red pepper paste. Since this is a fairly representative of Croatian “fast food”, this dish is often accompanied by French fries.

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This was an epic Croatian meal that I received at a local kitchen in Vela Luka. On recommendation from my dive master I ordered the “mixed grill”, which, at a modest price of less than $10, provided me with way too much food. There were at least 4 steaks, some beef, some mystery meat. Chicken kebabs and more Cevapcici sausages. The grilled meats were served alongside some grilled veggies and more of that bitter tasting red pepper spread.

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What you see above is simply a british style IPA, but what makes it unique is that it was served in a Prague monastery. It is neigh impossible to find a classic IPA in the sea of delicious lagers you find in central Europe, so this hoppy malt beverage was a welcome refreshment. The monastery is the Strahovy Monastery in Prague, situated in between Petrin Park and Prague Hrad. Its quite a hike up a steep hill to get there, but totally worth the effort since I hadn’t had an IPA in over 2 months.

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Typical Central European street food, a brat with coarse ground mustard. This little guy was my lunch on a cold rainy day in Old Town Prague. Over 6 inches long and less than $3, it can’t be beat for any other fast food.

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This is considered the most typical Czech dish, Roast Pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, or as its called locally: pecene veprove s knedliky se zelim or colloquially vepro-knedlo-zelo. I had this dish most often in Czech Republic, but I found variations of it all over Central Europe. It is essentially a slow roasted meat (beef or pork), smothered in a brown gravy and served alongside sauerkraut with rye seeds and Knedliky which are steamed and sliced bread like dumplings. The Knedliky are everywhere and certainly didn’t fit my idea of a traditional dumpling, these dumplings are more like undercooked bread and can be made from potato or wheat.

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This is a chicken and cheese dish traditionally served in Czech Republic. The cheese is a gravy-like concoction and is used quite liberally over the chicken and French fries. Czechs love their cheese. Alongside the esophagus clogging portion of protein and starch were some fresh veggies and raw cabbage. This was served to me in a hole in the wall cafe in Ostrava and I garnered some dirty looks from the waitress/cook/owner when I couldn’t finish the gigantic portion I was served.

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Goulash originated in Hungary, but it’s an extremely popular dish all over Central and Eastern Europe. A strange bit of trivia is that the name Goulash means “herdsman” in Hungarian. This pic is goulash from Krakow, Poland, and it was decidedly more tomato based than the beef based goulash I often ate in Czech Republic.

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This is more typical street food, sausages and fries. I got this plate in Zakopane, Poland, on perhaps the coldest day of my entire journey through Europe. Zakopane is small skiing village in the southern mountains of Poland and even though it was mid-summer, it was cold and raining. The sausages were welcome nourishment along with the fries, carrot salad and grilled onions.

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This is another style of roasted pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, in the Austrian variety. The pork is similarly slathered in gravy and the sauerkraut has the distinct rye flavor and bitterness, but the difference lies in the dumplings. The Austrian style is typically more spiced and textured than the pure white potato dumplings of Czech Republic. I was in Vienna for this meal, at an outdoor cafe while I waited on my clothing to dry at the laundromat next door.

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This was perhaps the fanciest goulash I was served, I was at the Pilsner Urquell restaurant in Prague, immediately after my tour of the Staropramen brewery next door. As you can compare with the Polish goulash above, the Czech version is darker in color and served with the traditional Knedliky dumplings, garnished with raw onion. The spicy fresh red pepper bits were a nice touch to the dish and the dumplings blurred the lines between Czech and Austrian dumplings.

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The all too typical, liter of beer. This was a small brew-pub next door to my hotel/dorm in Vienna. Great brewing operation and fantastic beer in a city known for its white wines.

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This is one of the mainstays of Croatian coastal cuisine, the seafood risotto. This particular risotto was mainly shrimp and mussels in a tomato base. Despite the fact that they always leave the heads on their shrimp, I felt closer to my second home of Charleston than ever with the flavor of local seafood.

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Wrapping it up are a trio of lagers from the Staropramen brewery in Prague. Staropramen was by far my favorite beer in Czech Republic and it was awesome to tour the place where it was made, also the second largest brewery in Czech Republic. The tasting room offered fresh cold glasses of all type of lagers they brew. The three pictured are the Dark Lager, the Unfiltered Lager and Granat (special) Lager. Some of which you can only drink at the brewery itself.

Ostrava: Slavic faces, Beautiful places

In my travels I’ve been lucky enough to make new friends and connect with old friends along the way. I tried my best to set up a network of couch surfing in order to release some tension on my bank account and (selfishly) give me built in tour guides to various foreign cities. It’s a highly recommended strategy for any of you would-be vagabonds. Ostrava is one such location and Chris is one such friend. Chris and I worked together at our former Amazon subsidiary, but have both since moved on to greener pastures. Chris’s pasture is currently Ostrava, where he works as a consultant and lives a life of central European luxury in an interesting Czech town that most would not consider to be on the top ten sightseeing tours. Ostrava is within 2 hours of the Polish border and is Czech Republics 3rd largest city.

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A key contributor to energy production, you can see the remnants of the old communist coal mining town that once was. In present day the city has closed its black coal mines and now focuses on more modern methods of energy production and metallurgy, giving it the nickname of “the steel heart of the republic”.My time on Chris’s couch (usually sharing it with his Puggle, Lolly) was well spent as I got to explore a city outside the typical tourist circuit and indulge in more authentic Czech cuisine, scenery and nightlife.

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The highlights of my Ostrava stint include visiting Stramberk castle, a wakeboarding park and several nights spent on the raucous Stoldoni street. Since Chris was given a company car (a sweet Audi)

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he was kind enough to take me to see some sighs outside the city. As I was getting adjusted to the feeling of simply riding in a car again, we were speeding down the unpatrolled Czech highways at over 100mph. One of our first stops was a small lake, which contained a tow-rope wakeboarding park.

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As I normally spend my summers wakeboarding in SC, I eagerly jumped at the chance to try my hand here. Fun ensued, which calls for a video:

Chris also took me to nearby Stramberk, a small town in the Moravian-Silesian region. It lies on the slope of a forested lime hill, dominated by the Trúba castle tower. Because of the town’s location, its many historical buildings and a unique collection of timbered houses from the 18th and 19th centuries, the town has nicknamed the Moravian Betlehem. Nearby there is the Sipka Cave where Neanderthal child bone remnants were discovered.

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The Czech castles I visited were decidedly different than those of picturesque fame, these castles seemed more rustic and functional. Old and medieval, most lacked the flair of their western European counterparts but made up for it in history and authentic style. Just below the castle tower in Stramberk, I was able to enjoy some delicious Czech potato pancakes with strong sheeps cheese and a skewer of bacon wrapped chicken. Washed down with the darker variety of Czech pilsner, the delightfully roasty but clean finishing Kozel.

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To cap it all off, just outside of Stramberk Chris and I got to visit the teadional Czech home of his ladyfriends mother in Koprivnice. There we were showed incredible hospitality and given a variety of snacks, including fresh fruit and one of the best (and largest) pineapple (ananas) cakes I’ve ever tasted.

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One of the more enigmatic attractions I Ostrava is the infamous, Stoldoni street. Every Friday night, young and old flock to this one street lined with bars and clubs. Czech youth will travel from hours away by train, bus and car just to see and be seen on Stoldoni.

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Around 2am the street becomes completely packed, a mass or drunken humanity, I’ve seldom seen anything like it. Perhaps the closest comparison would be Halloween night on Franklin St in Chapel Hill, but the mayhem on Stoldoni occurs EVERY Friday night. Everyone is throwing back cocktails and the popular local pilsner, Ostravar, followed up by dancing, rabblerousing, tail-chasing and most likely a Doner Kebap for fourth-meal. The bars don’t close until sunrise as the out of towers stumble back onto trains and trams to head back home, wether its 5 minutes or 5 hours away. Even though English speakers are seldom found, you can still notice their love for western style and culture. I experienced this love in the form of many free drinks, which apparently led Chris and I to become victims of a date-rape drug one cloudy night. No need for concern, we don’t think anything happened to us as we both woke up in Chris’s hotel with our clothing and belongings in tact. The situation simply led to a, “The Hangover”, type aftermath where we spent the entire next day trying to figure out who, what, when, where, why and how we ended up in that condition. Earlier that night, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at a concert on Stoldoni, here is a quick clip from the Czech bands set, showing their western love with a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s, Superstitious (coincidentally the lead singer is indeed blind):

Train Troubles

I think everyone has that one city that only seems to deal them negative vibes, mine is Katowice. Close to the border with Czech Republic, Katowice is a Polish industrial town and the likely connection stop for any train transport headed through the western border. Being that it is such a hub, you would think they must have a pretty nice station right? Negative Ghostwriter. As I may have mentioned in my last post, Katowice train station is the pits. Confusing, dirty and full of unpleasant shady people, if you find yourself changing trains there, beware.

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As I was making my way to Krakow, my nifty EuroCity train came to a halt in Katowice. From there I knew I had to purchase a connecting ticket for the 2 hour remainder of my journey. Sauntering up to the ticket counter I gave my best travelers smile and asked for a ticket to Krakow. In response to my request I received a cold blank stare. I slowly started to repeat myself but before I could finish the attendant was railing off some Polish, printing a ticket and requesting a sum of money. Of course she wouldn’t be bothered to tell me the train number, time of departure or platform, I was summarily shooed off so she could assist the next person in line. Using the sparse information printed on the ticket (most fields were left blank), I consulted the Arrivals/Departures chart and tried to make sense of the mess. Ultimately I went with my instincts and choose the platform I felt was correct in my gut, I’d been lucky so far. Boarding a much older train than the EuroCity (we’re talking 70s era) and taking an unassigned seat in a musty traditional 4 person train cabin, I settled in for what should be the final 2 hour leg. After about an hour, an attendant came by to punch my stub and the suprise in his face said it all, I had obviously gotten on the wrong train. He didn’t speak English, but his hand gestures indicating I was heading the opposite direction of Krakow told me all I needed to know. I gathered from his broken English that at the next stop I would be switching trains, obviously. What I didn’t realize was how quickly that next train would be departing the station. Slowing down for the next station and before the train had come to a complete stop, I was bring urged out the door by the attendant, frantically pointing and trying to express that I needed to get over to the train 2 platforms away. The quickest suggested method; literally jumping 4 feet down into the greasy train tracks and clambering over metal and concrete with my bag slung over my shoulder… 10 heart-pounding seconds later I made it into the other train just as the car was lurching forward. Relieved to have made it, but frustrated by my mistake, I found a seat and prepared for what would now be a 4 hour trip instead of 2 hours.
6 days later when it came time to leave Krakow, I was headed this time to see a friend in Ostrava, Czech Republic. A shorter journey than before, I approached the ticket counter brimming with confidence, but there it was again, an ominous connection in Katowice. Since there was no direct train with Ostrava, I had to book a ticket to Katowice and hope that I could get my ticket to Ostrava from there. A decent train and a fairly smooth ride to Katowice, so far so good. Once I reached Katowice I again approached the sour old crone in the ticket booth, this time she had pleasure of informing me that the only train departing for Ostrava would be at 11:57pm. At the time it was around 1:00pm. Since I was already there and had no other apparent option (Katowice is apparently technologically isolated as well, so no WiFi) I bought the ticket. Ostrava was literally only 2 hours away, but I wasn’t about to start hitchhiking. So now I had about 12 hours to waste in a small Polish town with no Internet and hardly any English, oh well, Ive had worse layovers in airports. I spent a few hours walking around the area to try a little sightseeing. Once my shoulders were sufficiently aching from the weight of my pack I stopped that nonsense and took a seat on a bench in a quaint little city park.

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There I ended up staying for a good portion of my day, reading and people watching. It’s always interesting to watch people in a foreign country just going about thier business. There were moments I felt as if I was back in the States, but then a passing gypsy or doner kebap vendor would remind me I was still far from home. Needless to say, I got pretty darn bored by the end of that day and as day faded into night I sought refuge in a nearby restaurant. The one positive of the purgatory that was Katowice was that restaurant. I was the only customer and they didn’t serve beer (which at this point I really wanted) but I had the most incredible Polish pancakes stuffed with ham, strong cheese and mushrooms. They looked like burritos but they were far from it.

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Finally, the witching hour had arrived and I boarded my midnight train to Ostrava. It was supposed to be only a 2 hour ride, putting me at my destination around 2am, just enough time to meet my friend Chris for some post-bar late night food. However, Katowice still wasn’t done messing with me. At around 1am I was waging war against the pull of sleep. I couldn’t afford to doze off and miss my stop in Ostrava. I tried music, reading and finally resorted to standing up in the train car. Coming down the home stretch I was starting to lose the battle with the sandman, then we came to an abrupt stop. I looked out the window to confirm that we were not yet in Ostrava and indeed, we were only in a dark train stop somewhere in the outskirts of town. We were stopped 10 minutes, then 20, then 40. When the delay mounted to 2 hours my curious confusion turned to outward rage, but I was too sleepy to do anything about it. Besides, there was literally no one around to ask, or punch. I surmise that this stop was in order to switch tracks and split the train, but an announcement confirming that would have been nice. 4am came around and finally I felt the forward movement of the train. From that moment it was only about 15 minutes to the final stop at Ostrava Hln. I could have walked…oh well, the sun was rising and I hadn’t slept in close to 24 hours. I was simply looking forward to laying down my pack and getting some rest. Hopefully I’ve seen the last of Katowice, but I get the feeling it’s going to be like a bad penny, considering I will be traveling back toward Poland in a few weeks…