Hotel Monica

We left Warsaw under the cloud of ash drifting over Europe from Ijsland and arrived in Prague by train. Our favorite destination in what may be Europe’s most beautiful city (those who champion Paris, forgive me) is Hotel Monica—a short train ride along the Vltava River from the Old City.

It’s a relatively new hostelry with a delightful dining room. My first few times in the hotel the menu was small but bordering on the elegant—the venison, for instance, was superb in its French-accented red wine sauce. On a visit in late 2008, there was a French couple staying at the hotel; we had many glasses of wine on the hotel’s veranda. It turned out that the gentleman was a restaurateur from the Paris region, and he had been hired to expand and refine the menu.

Ezra and I found a menu twice the size of that he and I had experienced on a March 2009 visit, and one with a fanciful French flair.

After our day of travel, we decided to eat in—never a bad choice at the Monica.

One expanded section of the menu was that devoted to pork cutlets, good old schnitzels!

…couldn’t resist.

The version I chose was ala Francaise, described as a cutlet in a peppery batter.

The meal arrived with surroundings of fresh vegetables and a healthy cut of pork that, at first, seemed to be a traditional breading such as that surrounding a Wiener Schnitzel: It was anything but…. The coating was thin, with the fragrance and texture of a pancake batter. It was sweetish without being overstated and tasted like a pancake batter as well—for a few moments. Then the pepper became noticeable, and gradually built to a pleasant intensity.

Delicious.

I would have ordered it again, but there are so many fine restaurants in Prague that our only other meals at the Monica were its sublime breakfasts (probably the best Continental Breakfast I’ve ever encountered).

If you get to Prague, check out this hotel. It’s an eyelash shy of a luxury hotel (spacious lobby, pool, lovely bar as well as the restaurant and the breakfast room)—and, set in a residential neighborhood, it’s quiet with an interesting mix of travelers and local people.