B 10 | FOOD&DRINK | March 21 – 27, 2012 www.praguepost.com

Please note:Restaurant listings

represent a selection of restaurants that may vary

weekly. Categories indicate the average cost per person

and include an appetizer, entrée and dessert.

Reviewer visits are anonymous, and expenses

are paid by The Prague Post. Restaurant reviews

appear online at www.praguepost.com.

Menus, prices and other information (opening hours, phone numbers, credit cards

accepted) are subject to change. To be listed or to

provide changes, please contact Fiona Gaze at

fgaze@praguepost.com.

Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–3 p.m., 6–11 p.m., Sun. 5:30–10:30 p.m. ● ●

Masala Indian. Real British-style Indian cooking in a cozy, well, downright small, space. Good and inexpensive. Now with a sec-ond location on Bělehradská.

Mánesova 13, Prague 2–Vinohrady. Tel. 222 251 601. Open Mon.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m., Sat.–Sun. 12:30–11 p.m. ● ●

Miyabi Japanese. Up to Prague standard (and above) sushi but

at a comparative discount. A favorite of many. Navrátilova 10, Prague 1–New Town. Tel. 296 233 102. Open Mon.–Sat. 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m. ● ●

Modrý zub Thai. Who knew fast food could be so respectable?

Central Thai faves smoothed out and served quickly in a disjoint-ed dining room. Jindřišská 5, Prague 1–New Town. Tel. 222

➤

ASIANAureole Asian fusion. Twenty-seven

stories in the air meets the culi-nary stratosphere. Excellent su-shi and degustation creations vie for attention with sweeping views across the city. Hvězdova 2b, Prague 4–Pankrác. Tel. 222 755 380. Open Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–2 a.m., Sun. 11 a.m.–mid-night. ● ● ●

China Fusion Chinese. Standout Cantonese and Szechwan classics are intertwined with global flavors for bold re-sults. Vodičkova 41 (in pasáž Světozor), Prague 1–New Town. Tel. 224 946 268. Open daily 11 a.m.–11 p.m. ● ● ●

Hanoi Vietnamese. For those un-able to make the trek out to the SAPA market or the one in Malešice, this spot offers the closest approximation. The pho can be lacking, but the rest of the menu has created a lot of buzz. Slezská 57, Prague 2–Vinohrady. Tel. 728 774 637. Open daily 10 a.m.–11 p.m. ●

Indian Jewel Indian. Arguably some of the best Indian food in town, and it should be, for these prices. Above-standard service and a cozy patio lit by lanterns right on Týn Square. Týn 6, Prague 1–Old Town. Tel. 222 310 156. Open daily 11 a.m.–11 p.m.

Lal Qila Indian. With an emphasis on South Indian dishes, this sub-terranean spot close to Riegrovy sady has memorable spices and a killer butter chicken. Italská 30, Prague 2-Vinohrady. Tel. 774 310 774. Open Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 12:30-11 p.m.

Man-na Korean. Not a pan-Asian hybrid, but truly authentic Korean — right down to the metal chopsticks. Great kimchi. U Milosrdných 10, Prague 1–Old Town. Tel. 222 320 101. Open

BY FIONA GAZESTAFF WRITER

Few countries know how to do a café quite like France. So it’s fitting that the café inside the French Institute should be a fine example. And while it was always a pleasant little place with a perfect courtyard for warmer days, it’s even bet-ter now since undergoing a re-construction, which also saw the nearby Bar Bresto restau-rant and wine bar take over the café’s kitchen.

On a recent visit, the wait-ress was happily surprised that we’d stopped by just for the café without the excuse of a film or class at the institute. But the addition of table ser-vice and a prettily revamped bar — as well as an expand-ed menu of Bresto-quali-ty meals in addition to the ca-fé’s already yummy cakes and quiches — make Café 35 a destination in and of itself.

The setup is simple: small, marble-topped round tables and classic wooden chairs; a wall of windows to the court-yard that floods in natural light; black-and-white prints on the wall of Brigitte Bardot and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Café 35 has a similarly sim-ple menu, but one that covers the ground of café dining. A succinct selection of breakfast items, like omelets and but-tered croissants, is a good way to start the day, as is the ca-fé’s expertly prepared Lavazza coffee, which had good crema in the espresso. Soup, quiche and toasted sandwiches are a great deal for the price, and are filling snacks for any time of the day. There are also sev-eral more than decent en-trée items like stuffed pasta or steak.

The best item sampled was the toast campagnard. The waitress nodded sage-ly when taking the order, and said it was a good choice. She was right: A big, gooey slab that managed to hold together without dissolving into a heart attack. A thick slice of white toast was the base, crispy but also chewy, and easy to cut into bites. On top tow-ered layers of béchamel sauce, gruyere cheese, diced ham, mushrooms and tomato. Each mouthful was delicious, and there was enough tart greens and balsamico in the accom-panying side salad to convince oneself it’s not such an un-healthy plate. And, at 69 Kč, it

was a great light meal; the ex-actly same small salad, by the way, is listed un-der starters for 59 Kč. Ten crowns for a fill-ing open sandwich? Same again, please.

The above paired with the soup of the day — which, on that particular visit was French onion — was a great combo. The soup was well-made: the onions not too slip-pery, the broth a rich, sweet brown, and two bobbing rafts of baguette, topped with melt-ed gruyere, soaked up the broth and tore apart easily with the spoon.

A simple salami sandwich reveled in the quality of its few ingredients. A fresh ba-guette, slices of gherkin, sprigs of lettuce and thinly sliced sa-lami that was good enough to eat by itself. The bread was buttered, but the butter was so good it became its own com-ponent of the sandwich as op-posed to a misused condiment.

Several of the items list-ed as starters could also work as quick bites (and, as a note, the service is so prompt that there’s no worry of missing the start of a film or a class, if that’s what you’re there for). A cheese plate was one of the pricier options, but came with a lovely selection refreshing-ly free of brie or blue, instead consisting of semi-soft chees-es like Reblochon, with a dol-lop of fig marmalade in the center, and crusty slices of ba-guette.

Snails were a bit disap-pointing in comparison to some others around town, and

were slightly too rub-bery for some tastes, but a butter and herb sauce poured over the de-shelled snails, served in a special escar-

got dish with a tiny pronged fork, im-

proved it a lot. Most of the menu is

French, but the several pas-tas listed are a nod to Bresto’s Mediterranean side. What was listed simply as “stuffed pas-ta,” on the menu, arrived as homemade ravioli, stuffed on that day with mortadella and ricotta, a rich filling whose only fault was too much salt. A butter sauce dotted with plump, fresh cherry tomatoes (clearly from a sunnier clime) was a good match, but overall the salt level was distracting, and led to a few refills of the (albeit lovely) Chardonnay of-fered by the glass for 49 Kč.

The salt level was also per-

ceptibly high on the steak ba-vette, although a dining com-panion said it was just to his taste. The cut of meat was quite fatty but easy to cut through, and came a true rare, as requested. A rich butter and cream peppercorn sauce mixed together with the oozed juices, and a side of grenailles potatoes, or little roasted wedges, were good for mop-ping up the excess.

There are many rea-sons people go to the French Institute, and now that the café has reopened, there’s one very good reason more.

Fiona Gaze can be reached at fgaze@praguepost.com

The French connection Bresto skill meets French Institute culture at Café 35

WALTER NOVAK/The Prague Post

The newly revamped café is an ideal place to sip a coffee and read this newspaper.

RECOMMENDED

FROM THE MENU➤ Ham and cheese omelet 69 Kč➤ French cheese plate 155 Kč➤ Burgundy snails (6 pcs) 145 Kč➤ Soup of the day 45 Kč➤ Homemade stuffed pasta 155 Kč➤ Grilled beefsteak with pepper sauce and grenailles potatoes 280 Kč➤ Toast campagnard 69 Kč➤ Quiche 63 Kč➤ Salami sandwich 62 Kč➤ 0.125 L French Chardonnay 49 Kč➤ Espresso 38 Kč

★★★★ Outstanding

★★★ Excellent

★★ Good★

Fair❍

Subpar

● ● ● Expensive (more than 700 Kč)

● ● Moderate (300–700 Kč)

● Inexpensive (less than 300 Kč)

D Disabled access/partial access

NS Nonsmoking or nonsmoking room

K Children’s play areaP Good patioV View

Café 35In the French InstituteŠtěpánská 35, Prague 1–New TownTel. 221 401 070Open Mon.–Fri. 8:30 a.m.–8 p.m., Sat. 9:30 a.m.–2 p.m.NonsmokingIfp.cz/Café-35

Food ★★★ Service ★★★

Atmosphere ★★★ Overall ★★★

REVIEW R

EV

IEW REVIEW

R

EVIEW RE

VIE

W REVIEW

R

EVIEW

RE

VIEW

www.praguepost.com March 21 – 27, 2012 | CINEMA | B 15moments of romantic lunacy, staged in a way that makes it dif-ficult to know whether the direc-tor is serious or not, and the use of swords and gold-encrusted ar-tifacts is a little silly (the lead ac-tor’s surname is “Kitsch,” after all), but a great deal of the film’s success lies in its solid storyline. Not bad at all. ★★★

My Week with Marilyn (Můj týden s Marilyn) UK, 2011. Simon Curtis, director. Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne and Kenneth Branagh star. Marilyn Monroe was nothing if not pro-vocative, and she was notorious-ly hard to work with. My Week with Marilyn shows us one week in the life of a young man, Colin Clark (Redmayne), whose work as a runner on a film set in 1956 brought him, he says, into Monroe’s inner world. Except for the hair and the beauty spot, Michelle Williams doesn’t much look like Monroe, but we should be grateful she refrains from playing all the clichés general-ly associated with her. The film, like its subject, bubbles with energy and constantly attracts us even though we know there is not a whole lot going on up-stairs. ★★★

Shame (Stud) USA, 2011. Steve McQueen, director. Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan star. Brandon (Fassbender) is young and enjoys the one-night stands and the general remote-ness of his sex partners, some-times a world away in front of a webcam. He plays off his good looks and his charm. His bach-elor lifestyle is upended, howev-er, when his drama queen sis-ter Sissy (Mulligan) arrives to stay with him for a few nights. Not only does she invade his pri-vacy, but she represents a gen-uine attack on his licentious way of living. Technically, the film is beyond reproach, but unlike di-rector McQueen’s first film, Hunger, the technical aspects of Shame do not engender an ex-perience capable of making the film rise above its flaccid narra-tive. ★★★

This Means War (Tohle je vál-ka!) USA, 2012. McG, direc-tor. Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon star. All our concerns about a film made by a guy called McG prove to be to-tally valid. This is an exercise in vanity and with one or two excep-tions, in which the director man-ages to demonstrate a vague un-derstanding of his characters by making direct references to oth-er films, this film always illumi-nates the external rather than the internal. This Means War is badly written, stupidly execut-ed and utterly forgettable. But, at least for a little more than an hour and a half, it will give you something to look at. ★★

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Jeden musí z kola ven) UK, 2011. Tomas Alfredson, director. Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch and John Hurt star. In the early ’70s, the British Intelligence Service suspects it might have a double agent in its midst, and it is up to George Smiley (Oldman) to track down the impostor. A gloomy world filled with reflections that seem to shift shape under the gray skies, its powerful, thrilling imag-es are often complemented by meaningful words, though some-times these are merely uttered as whispers that need to be re-arranged for us to make sense of them. A worthy addition to the spy genre. ★★★

War Horse (Válečný kůň) USA, 2011. Steven Spielberg, direc-tor. Jeremy Irvine, Niels Arestrup and David Kross star. Spielberg has a very clear desire to pres-

ent his central character, the titular war horse named Joey, as he would a human being. Though Spielberg stops short of having the animal speak, one has the very firm impression throughout the horse can un-derstand the humans perfect-ly. For all the galloping and the detailed recreations of battle scenes and the ghastly trenches of the First World War, the film is about a promise the young Albert Narracott made to Joey — to bring him back home to safe-ty. The stench of sentimentali-ty could easily have been worse than the stench of the dugouts on the frontlines, but for the most part Spielberg’s creativity transcends his material. ★★★

BY ANDRÉ CROUSSTAFF WRITER

The election of a pope is nothing to be flippant about. Even for non-Catholics, the brief period of time that marks the end of one papacy and en-compasses the conclave — during which a successor is chosen — and the eventual appearance of the new pope on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square piques in-terest like few other events.

When the College of Cardinals has chosen a new pope, by secret ballot and with all the cardinals in the running, white smoke rises from the chimney on top of the Sistine Chapel. In Nanni Moretti’s We Have a Pope (from the Latin Habemus Papam, the phrase spoken by the protodeacon of the College of Cardinals to an-nounce the election of the new pope), the cardinal who is elected has a panic attack moments before he is to ap-pear on the balcony and flees to his chambers to shun the burden the office brings.

Such anxiety is to be ex-pected, of course, and in fact it is normal for the elect-ed pontiff to break down in tears upon realizing what he is about to take on, namely do-minion over a billion subjects, but in this film the cardi-nal, named Melville (Michel Piccoli), is out of his depth and has such insecurity his staff seeks out the help of a noted psychoanalyst (Moretti) to help the Holy Father through this difficult time and get him to the balcony.

The rest of the film is a long wait for the big moment. While we wait, we learn very little about the mystical fig-ure that is Cardinal Melville, though it becomes clear he would prefer to act rather than pontificate. The psychoana-lyst’s hands are also tied be-cause he cannot use the nor-mal psychoanalytical tools in this case: Questions about Melville’s relationship with

his mother, his fantasies and his sexual desires are, natural-ly, all strictly forbidden.

When Melville loses his way in Rome and ends up on a late-night bus, mumbling to himself, we see a very human (not only vulnerable, but frail) side to him, and though he seems to be a gentle soul, the idea of him writing an encyc-lical is quite absurd. This man cannot be pope.

This last piece of information is prob-lematic in light of the fact that the car-dinals have spent a great deal of time with him prior to his election, but have elected him nonetheless. Whatever the viewer’s per-sonal beliefs, it would seem patently obvious this situation is very unlikely to occur if the cardinals had some sense of their colleague.

Unfortunately, we are not afforded any such look at the man who would be pope, and cannot accurately judge whether the cardinals were mistaken or blind. Even if one believes the conclave works according to the will of God,

the film remains flawed be-cause the ultimate resolution will be deeply unsatisfactory.

The idea of being pope, of having such immense power, must leave one breathless, and thus there is ample room to empathize with dear Cardinal Melville. In a very powerful moment, during the conclave, the fear the other cardinals

have that any one of them will be elected is com-

municated to the viewer by means of a very effec-tive voiceover that mirrors Jesus’ prayer

in the Garden of Gethsemane when he

asks his father to let “the cup pass from [him].”

But never again do we see the future pope ask anything of God (he thanks God for even less), and though there may be speculation he has lost his faith, the film provides too little for the viewer to assume anything; on the contrary, We Have a Pope revels in its own timorousness and defies our expectations to get any closer to Melville than the cardinals or the psychoanalyst.

The humanization of the pope is a wonderful start-ing point, as was Nicos Kazantzakis’ treatment of Christ in his novel The Last Temptation of Christ, for ex-ample, but no one simply gets dropped inside the College of Cardinals, much less elect-ed pope, if he has not proved some leadership skills. Such leadership, alas, cannot be detected in the role played by Piccoli, and therefore the whole premise of the film is undermined.

As part of Febiofest 2012, We Have a Pope will be

screened with English and Czech subtitles at CineStar

Anděl March 23 at 6:30, March 27 at 4 and March 30

at 10:45.

André Crous can be reached at acrous@praguepost.com

A timid servantThe cup of the pope-elect runneth over … with serious doubts

COURTESY PHOTO

A captive audience. The cardinals as well as the viewers have to bide their time.

We Have a Pope★★★

Directed by Nanni MorettiWith Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr

REVIEW R

EV

IEW REVIEW

R

EVIEW RE

VIE

W REVIEW

R

EVIEW

RE

VIEW

AeroBiskupcova 31, Prague 3. Kinoaero.cz/en My Week with Marilyn March 21 at 10

a.m.; March 27 at 6Pecha Kucha Night Prague Vol. 28

(ČR) March 21 at 8:20Večer VOŠ Václava Hollara (ČR) March

22 at 6The Descendants March 23 at 6Čtyři slunce (ČR) March 23 at 8:30The Artist March 23 at 10:30; March 27

at 10 a.m.We Need to Talk About Kevin March

24 at 5Bel Ami March 24 at 7:30Melancholia March 24 at 9:30Aero for Kids (ČR) March 25 at 3

Hugo March 25 at 5:30Carnage March 25 at 8:15A Dangerous Method March 26 at 6Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (UK) March

26 at 8:30Aero naslepo (ČR) March 27 at 8:30

AndělCineStar Anděl. Plzeňská between

Radlická and Stroupežnického, Prague 5. Cinestar.cz/praha-andel

The Artist March 21 at 8:45Čtyři slunce (ČR) March 21 at 2:40, 5,

7:20, 8:15, 9:45The Grey March 21 at 2:50, 5:30, 8,

10:30Haywire March 21 at 1, 3:10, 5:15,

7:30The Iron Lady (UK) March 21 at 3, 8:50,

10:15John Carter March 21 at 3:40, 9:40John Carter 3D March 21 at 7:40Láska je láska (ČR) March 21 at 6:20The Lorax (dubbed) March 21 at 2:20,

4:30, 6:40The Lorax 3D (dubbed) March 21 at

1:10, 3:20, 5:30Modrý tygr (ČR) March 21 at 2:15, 4:20Poupata (ČR) March 21 at 8:40Probudím se včera (ČR) March 21 at

2:30, 5:10, 6:30, 7:40, 9, 10:10Signál (ČR) March 21 at 3:30, 6This Means War March 21 at 1:50, 4,

6:10, 8:20, 10:30The Woman in Black (UK) March 21 at

1:40, 3:50, 6:15, 8:30CineStar Anděl will host the Febiofest

film festival March 22–30. For a full schedule, visit Febiofest.cz.

AtlasSokolovská 1, Prague 8. Atlascinema.czČtyři slunce (ČR) March 21–23 at 5:30The Woman in Black March 21 at 6Romeo and Juliet Ballet. March 22

WHAT’S PLAYING WHERE

➤