Prague’s 1st food festival wakes up the city / zacal prazsky festival svetove kuchyne

The first-ever Prague Food Festival is here! Hosted by a well-known gourmet cook, Pavel Mauer, the Czechs will have the opportunity to taste for a low price various cuisines coming from Brazil, Japan, France and other fancy places. Since the tickets to join the festival barely cover the cost of food Mr. Mauer calls this event a “gastronomic charity”. He also reminisces that after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 there were only 3 foreign restaurants in Prague: 1 Chinese, 1 Vietnamese, and 1 Russian restaurant. Today there are about 35 different types of exotic restaurants! The restaurant business has a little problem however: a recent survey shows that 87 % (!!) of Czechs still prefer the Czech cuisine the best over other cuisines. But Mauer stays optimistic: “I think it (the situation) is changing. A lot of Czechs now understand that they should really try other types of dishes apart from just having goulash with dumplings.”

When I was just a little girl, during the deep communist times, my dad and I would go to this Russian buffet located in the center of Prague and as a treat we would order a bowl of Borsc (Russian-type stew) and a side of fries (I am not sure how fries do fit in the Russian cuisine??!!) and I was in heaven…..

CZ: V patek se v Praze zahajil historicky prvni Festival Svetove Kuchyne poradany znamym kucharem Pavlem Mauerem. Cesi tak maji sanci okusit exoticka jidla a to za levnou cenu. Jelikoz vstupenky na tuto akci stoji pakatel oproti opravdove cene techto hodu, Mauer tento festival naziva “gastronomickou charitu”. Taky nam prozrazuje, ze po Sametove revoluci v roce 1989 mela Praha pouze tri cizi restaurace a to 1 Cinskou restauraci, 1 Vietnamskou a 1 Ruskou. Dnes ma toto mesto kolem 35 cizokrajnych restauraci! Je v tom ale hacek; nedavne statistiky ukazuji, ze celych 87% Cechu stale preferuje kuchyni ceskou. Ale Mauer zustava opimisticky: ” Myslim si, ze se situace zlepsuje. Mnoho Cechu dnes rozumi, ze by meli okusit take jine typy jidla, nez je typicky gulas s knedlikem.”

Kdyz jsem jeste byla mala holka, tak jsme si s tatou zasli do jednoho ruskeho bufetu restaurace v centru Prahy a objednali jsme si borsc a hranolky (opravdu nevim, co maji hranolky spolecneho s ruskou kuchyni..) a citila jsem se jako v sedmem nebi…

Source:http://www.radio.cz/en/article/95240