Taste Trumps Other Factors At Hospoda

[Pigging by Wilfrid: September 19, 2011]

So of course I have picky complaints and problems with Hospoda, the modern Czech café inside the Bohemian National Hall on the Upper East Side.  We'll get to them in a moment.

Thing is, this is one of those occasions when what's on the plate trumps everything else.  The food, when you get to it, is excellent.

I usually try to avoid playing follow-my-leader when it comes to reviews.  With Sifton and Cheshes, what could I possibly add - unless I radically disagreed with their assessments?  As it happens, I concurred: they both liked the food and so did I.  Sifton marked the place down to one star, based on well-founded reservations about the service and the concept; Cheshes went with his tastebuds and gave it four stars.  They each have a point.

By the way, outgoing Sam, in what world does this place resemble a "renovated apartment" - in Prague of anywhere else?  Know what it looks like?  It looks like a café in an arts complex.  Ugly tables, unscrupulously hard seats, a high ceiling, big windows on the street.  The two intriguing visual features are the backlit walls chiselled with cartoons by Czech street artist "Masker," and the short glass bar with a special inbuilt cooling system.

And no stools.  Bar diners please note.  In fact, given the prominence of the bar in Hospoda's conceptual scheme, it's a little curious that customers can't really linger there.  The taps are presided over by an authentic Czech master bartender (he won the title in competition last year), Lukas Svoboda.  Svoboda has only one beer to tend, Pilsner Urquell, but my goodness does he tend it.

In fact, the first of a series of awkward puzzles the newcomer to Hospoda must solve is how to order this one beer.  The menu is little help unless you find the descriptions "creme Urquell," "slice," "sweet" and "neat" intuitive in this context.  "Shot" is plain enough: a very small beer for four bucks.  A clue comes with the complimentary drink which greets new arrivals, a glass of the so-called "sweet."  This is the foam.  Just the foam, although it will clear to reveal some golden liquid if left alone.  Very cute, and perhaps a revelation to anyone who has never tasted Pilsner Urquell foam.  As I haven't been to Prague, I can't challenge its authenticity - unlike the iced red wine Salinas claims to be a Spanish custom - but it strikes me as an odd way to drink beer.

"Slice" turns out to be foam-heavy but recognizable beer; "neat" is beer with no foam" and "creme" - thank god - just a regular beer the way you wanted it in the first place.  Oh and they call come in different sizes.  Very good caraway bread with a herby - chives? - cheese spread helps fuel you for the rigors of the menu proper.

All the plates do at least come in one size only.  Sadly, the size is "small."  They are randomly divided into three sections, giving the impression they might vary in heft.  Not really.  What do they cost?  Who knows?  Your options are two plates for $32, three for $45 or seven for $88.  The gap between three small plates and seven is significant and that's where I wanted to land.  Could I order four or five plates?  Sure, said friendly waiter, whatever you want.  But I wonder what the price would be?  I can't tell you because they were out of the tempting Prague ham, so I gave it up and just ordered three.

Have some more bread and beer.  We're not done yet.  As a solo diner, it took some work to persuade my server to hand over a wine list.  He indicated that wines by the glass were on the back of the menu.  Well, kinda.  The list on the menu actually represents what the sommelier, Vanessa Pinter, has curated to accompany each dish.  Some of the beverages are wines (in different sizes of course)  but there's beer and cider too.  There are also some unfamiliar wines and whether they might be red or white you need the sommelier to tell you.  I just cross-checked against the full list and was able to make a plan.

Then I waited about half an hour for a salad.  Fortunately, it was terrific.

I thought I knew just about everything you could do with tripe, including a sweet ancient Roman dish with honey and sweet wine.  This was an eye-opened.  A very cool tripe salad, the beef gut sliced thin and impeccably tender.  Cheshes seemed to think there were applies in it; maybe - I found celery as well as raisins, and - sophisticated touch - just-frozen grapes.  The texture of the grapes is indescribable in a good way; with the tripe, this was a multi-textured as well as refreshing dish.

Have some more of that good rye bread, thickly encrusted with caraway seeds - and some odd little dry, white rolls - because it will be another wait for the next course.  Butter?  No, are you crazy?

Tempted by the fried egg, an attractive golden globe surrounded by chanterelles, I decided to put Hospoda to the morel test.  "Market" vegetables with morels and a hint of parmesan atop an eggplant purée.  Like most restaurants (an unexpected exception being Lyon in Greenwich Village) Hospoda indeed believes that one morel cut into pieces = "morels" (sic).  Never mind; they are expensive.  The vegetables - zucchini, peppers and so on -were as good as fresh vegetables should be, fresh from the grill.

Top of the bill, the smoked beef tongue.  It's hard to overstate just how lusciously velvety this meat is.  The smoking is not harsh but it's unmissable; as if, at the edges, the tongue was being miraculously transfigured into bacon.  If Hospoda sandwiched half a pound of this stuff between slices of that rye bread, it would cause a sensation.

I was happy with the pea purée and onions two ways, pickled and charred.  Never mind Prague, this was like a British dish of boiled beef and pease pudding re-imagined by angels.  Angels with a smoker.  I wonder if they'd allow you to just order it twice?

Three plates at $45 sounds reasonable.  Add, however, a small beer, a tasting size nip of white wine and a glass of red: with tax and tip, it was yet another $100 casual meal.  Such are the times.  The red wine, which I admit cost $20, was a spectacular 2009 Pinot Noir from Weingut Darting, with more Pinot character than the average ordinary Burgundy.  I should have had the sense to order the bottle ($54).

Take this as a positive or negative conclusion, but there's a first-rate restaurant struggling to make itself heard here.

Here's the website.

Comments

[Wilfrid]

The real problem is less the food cost, than the typical current price of individual beverages. Wines by the glass are rarely less than $10, often more. Add just two drinks to a $45 dinner check and, with tax and tip, $85. So easy.

[Michelle Cervone]

I am glad that you enjoyed the food, but a $100 for 3 small plates and beverages. Really? I would prefer to throw in a little more and have a respectable and pleasant meal elsewhere.