Dégustation Bohême Bourgeoise

On our trip to Prague, you might be surprised to find out that the highlight of our eating wasn't the giant pig knuckle. It was the meal we had at a restaurant called La Degustation. This place offers three tasting menus: a high-end meal that uses luxury items like truffles and foie gras, a menu featuring relatively lighter fare, and finally, a menu based on a Czech cookbook that is a couple of centuries old.

The wife had the lighter menu and I had last option, the Dégustation Bohême Bourgeoise (we share every course anyway!) And both were amazing. Every course (there were 7 on each menu) was preceeded with one or two small tastes of something: the amuse-bouche. We also super-sized the meal by getting the 7-course wine pairing to go with it.

We got a copy of the menu to take home so I could actually remember what I was eating. Here is the detail on my menu:

• entrée: poached Prague ham, mailner foam, apple sorbet, egg bread
• soupe: wild poultry soup, poached quail egg, poultry loaf
• poché: organic beef ouster blade, creamy sauce with fresh dill, barley dumpling
• fumé maison: freshly smoked beef tongue, chickpea purée, pickled shallot, roasted onion with marjoram
• braisé: rabbit livers, onion sauce, carrot purée, red beet, home made lard
• grillé: coated veal entrecôte, cucumber granité, braised potato
• sucré: apple gingerbread, vanilla foam with rum

The wife's menu, Dégustation Terre et Eau:

• entrée: organic parsnip ravioli, saffron velouté, aceto balsamico extra aged
• soupe: soup of jerusalem artichoke, orange jelly, bell pepper preserve, olive oil la crianza
• poché: fiji egg, cauliflower velouté, caviar ossetra
• fumé maison: lightly smoked turbot, orange glacé, beluga lentils
• braisé: salsify, alba velouté, lamb lettuce
• homard: butter poached canadian lobster, creamy leek, cashew nuts, red beet essence
• sucré: macaroon of pistachios and black currant, caramel ganache, lime ice cream
  

If you feel overwhelmed, imagine this with basically another course between each course. One of the servers -- bless her soul -- made a mistake and delivered the best amuse-bouche (the best taste all night?) to our table an unintentional second time. It's the first picture below: sweetbreads with foie gras sauce. If you are a foodie, this should mean something special to you. In my world, sweetbreads are rich man's bacon!

Top to bottom, we really enjoyed this meal. There were a few courses where unless you tried every flavor on your plate together all at once, it was good but not great -- but once you combined the flavors as they were intended: taste bud fireworks. My favorite main dish (not a bouche) was probably the smoked beef tongue. Now there's a meat that just doesn't get enough respect in the USA.

Service was great -- most everyone spoke English very well, especially both of the sommeliers and the environment was classy but you would have felt comfortable wearing jeans (of course, that's how I think most of Europe works.) They even allowed dogs -- the entertainment for the night was a table near us with a dog sitting at the table, on a chair. No, I'm not kidding.

Alright, I'm gonna go eat some homemade pizza.

Cheers!



“"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was.” - Winnie the Pooh