NoJennyNo: Birthday Part 2: Welcome to Prague!

Came back to Europe, where I immediately checked into Four Seasons Prague for a 10-day stay. It's a lovely 5 star hotel in the center of the city, overlooking the river. Though it is central, it's not bustling with crowds of people. Upon entrance you are greeted immediately by staff with welcoming smiles and dozens of fragrant flower vases with holiday decor.

With the long travel I'd been awake for nearly 40 hours at this point, and my actual birthday was spent either at the airport or on the plane itself. Prague birthday dinner was reserved for the night after - lest I faceplant asleep onto my plate during dinner. I was relieved to finally hop into bed for a long night of sleep. Though I honestly could've easily fallen asleep on the floor, enticingly fluffy blankets and pillows made me never want to leave the bed.

My immediate reaction to the bed.

The next day, my boyfriend's mom and her boyfriend joined us for my birthday dinner. It's been a couple months since we had seen them so it was great to celebrate and catch up with them. He chose Alcron Restaurant for the dinner, one of two michelin starred restaurants in Prague.

The menu is very flexible. Unlike most restaurants which make you choose from a select menu with the same number of courses for the entire table - causing arguments if you want the 5 course, but he likes 6 course better - this place lets everyone create their own mix and match menu of 4 to 7 courses from 25 dishes.

Amuse bouche, marinated radish and bacon cream in tiny green cups.

Second amuse bouche, a beef broth with crisps and beef jelly.

You can choose your breads from a selection of 6-7 different types.

Here were some of my favorites:

Quail breast and rillettes, with rosehip and blackberries. Foie gras sauce and truffle shavings were not mentioned on the menu, but a welcome surprise.

Seared langoustine, with celeriac and licorice. Super fresh and delicious!

Lobster bisque, with sweet corn cream and popcorns. It's got an extreme flavor and not everyone might like it, though I personally did. Leaves your mouth almost numb with lobster aftertaste.

Slow cooked octopus, with spicy-sour chorizo sauce. Super tender and packed with flavor.

US prime beef fillet and shoulder. With description like miso glaze and jasmine tea smoked potato puree, we had to try it. Fillet was great and shoulder is actually more like pulled BBQ. Potato tastes like jasmine smoke and they give you a separate drink of jasmine tea with it.

Pigeon breast and leg with sour cherries and cocoa beans. Basically crushed chocolate, which enhanced the texture with roasted hazelnuts and balanced with the sweet-sour cherries. For me, this was the highlight of my meal.

Halibut in olive oil with artichokes and veggies. Foie gras shavings added to enhance the otherwise mild flavor.

Pre-dessert, beetroot ice cream with caramelized pinenuts.

We had the Dessert Painting, which is a ~10 minute process by the dessert chef who creates a dessert for you at the table. She used both hot and cold techniques using a blowtorch and liquid nitrogen.

The entire process is condensed into a 90 second video here:

Other desserts were cold/hot chocolate creation and a coffee creme brulee with onion vanilla toppings. Weird, but good.

Bonus: Four Seasons Hotel and its restaurant, Cotto Crudo. It's an Italian restaurant offering various cheeses/hams and fresh seafood. In fact, we only took the seafood here which was prepared both raw and cooked to perfection.