Meat me in Prague

Aside from having amazing coffee and cakes, Prague is also a great city for meat. Sausages and stews are part of the Czech national cuisine, and I certainly filled up my year's (meager) quota of pork during the three days I was there. 

We kept seeing these vendors grilling huge hocks of ham. There was one a few meters from our hotel, one on the Old Town Square, and another at Wenceslas Square near the National Museum. I swear, the meat drew Marlon like a moth to a flame. "Go for it," I kept telling him, and he kept saying no (go figure). 

On our last day, he finally gave in and ordered a big plate of ham for himself, along with a bowl of fried potatoes. I can't take meat in such... meaty form, so I opted for a spicy sausage with mustard instead. This was our cheapest lunch by far (about €6, or Php 240), and we ate it on the street. 

For our last meal, we decided to splurge on Cestr, a restaurant located in the new National Museum building (across the road from the old one).

It's a modern Czech restaurant that specializes in beef—every single part of a cow, in fact. Ever tried the hanging tender or oyster blade? By referring to the handy diagram folded into the single-sheet menu, now you can.

This was heaven for my meat-loving birthday boy. He declared his roast brisket the best he'd ever had, and excitedly scampered back from the men's room to tell me he'd seen an entire cow hanging in a meat locker out back. I could have sworn his eyes shone when the waiter who served our meal told us that the meat had been aged for 60 days.

As for me, well... okay. I'm not a big meat person but I did enjoy my meal, which was beef shoulder braised in a pepper sauce. I was more impressed by the bowl of fries that came with the meat. They were absolutely perfect. Best. Fries. Ever. 

What really won me over, though, was dessert. The Czech Republic is known for its beer, so I made sure to get not just a beer, but a beer in dessert form: dark beer ice cream, with plums stewed in rum, caramel whipped cream and crunchy caramel bits on top. It was every bit as good as it sounds (and possibly more).