Flying with an infant: how we do it

Flying with an infant: how we do it

So you have a baby and/or a toddler and are afraid to fly with them? Been there, done that. We were really nervous before our first flight with JJ, who was 2 months at the time. But 15 months and some 35 flights later, we think we can spread the gospel of flying with your little ones. While you can’t control everything, you can control something, and below are some of the things we do before, when and after we fly with JJ, our toddler who is about to turn 18 months as we write this.

Obviously, your mileage may vary. We’re not saying what we do is the best or the only way to fly with an infant, and you may find your own way that suits you better. But if you’re maybe concerned or nervous about your first flight (and again, we totally get that), you may find our tips below helpful, or at least inspiring to give it a go. Flying with an infant is honestly not that different from flying without one. You just have a small baby or toddler with you who depends on you with his or her life. So no pressure.


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The 2018 Prague Food Scene in Review

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The 2018 Prague Food Scene in Review

Confession: we have been bitching about Prague food scene’s development probably for a better portion of 2018. Not enough places are opening, some great places are closing, and where’s the innovation? While Prague lost a Michelin star and a Bib Gourmand award in the spring, the world lost Anthony Bourdain and Jonathan Gold, and generally, the mood here at Taste of Prague was fairly low. (Only to be lifted by the shenanigans of JJ and Lola, the two newest members of the team.)

But looking back at the year, things look a bit more rosy now in hindsight, thanks mostly to what can be described as a strong finish. (And the pills may have finally kicked in too.) 2018 was a year that has solidified some of the trends we have had seen before. People in Prague like to go out. A lot. Booking great restaurants for our Prague food tours has become a game of long-term strategy, and booking for last-minute enquiries nearly impossible. Don’t believe us? Look at Instagram videos from Dva kohouti, which opened in December. It’s been hopelessly full from opening up until Christmas. Whatever the concept, people seem to jump on it, at least for now.

Also, 2018 saw consolidation, as two new groups seem to have emerged to challenge the market-leading, and, in a way, defining behemoth that is the Ambiente group. Czech diners want common sense, quality and transparency if they are to spend top dollar, and seem less prone to jump on hype. So when an all-avocado restaurant opens, the logic of opening a restaurant based on produce that is in no way local and has to travel the world to get here is questioned online, and when a new rotisserie chicken place opens and serves chickens from a large, industrial chicken farm, they are called on that, too. That said, both of these places seem to be prospering at the moment, so we’ll see if this awareness manifests itself only online, and not in… ahem… real life.


Taste of Prague Czech Christmas Gift Tips and Guide

Taste of Prague Czech Christmas Gift Tips and Guide

Gotta love Christmas shopping. If Christmas is the holiday of calm and peace, Christmas gifts are the stuff calm and peace are made of. You can say that gifts don’t matter, but explain that to the eight-year-old when he unwraps the “really, really warm” knitted socks from grandma, when all he wanted was a Nintendo. And grandma ain’t winning the “Grandma of the Year” award this Christmas, either. Yes, a gift can make or break a Christmas celebration.

And that’s where we come in. We have set up a list of our recommended Czech Christmas gift that will satisfy kids and adults alike. Just like Haribo gummy bears. Think about this list as poor man’s Goop. And we’re not selling any weird jade eggs, either.

Here’s Taste of Prague’s Czech Christmas shopping tips and guide.


Prague Christmas Dining Guide 2018, aka Hey dude, where's my Xmas meal?

Prague Christmas Dining Guide 2018, aka Hey dude, where's my Xmas meal?

So you may have heard that everything shuts down on Christmas Eve in Prague and the Czech Republic. Totally true. Christmas Eve is the only day of the year we do not run our Prague Foodie Tour, and the biggest holiday on the Czech calendar: most people stay at home with their families, only for things to revert back to some degree of normality on December 25, and fully on December 27, which is a regular working day.

Which means if you want to eat out on Christmas Eve, options exist, but are limited. And if you don’t have a booking already, you should act now. Okay, don’t panic: restaurants, especially in the historical centre, will be open and cater to tourism, but if you want to be smarter about your Christmas dinner plans, here’s our Prague Christmas dining guide.


Marketa's Five Favorites in Prague

Marketa's Five Favorites in Prague

The story of how Marketa became a member of Taste of Prague is complicated, but ultimately with a happy ending. We eyed her for some time about two years ago, but as we agreed on everything, she gave us the happy news: she was pregnant... and nauseated around food. Great. That's about as bad as health conditions for a food tour guide get. But the best things come to those who wait, so we waited, and ultimately Marketa joined us as a mom of an adorable baby girl Violka.

Anyway, Marketa is awesome. A former HR executive, she is genuinely interested in people. A professional disease? Does she build a secret database of our guests that she will use to kick start her own global HR powerhouse some time in the future? Not sure about that one, but the fact is that she can keep happily chatting with the guests for hours after the tour is over, much to the delight of her husband who's babysitting at home. 

She's also super funny and eager to please, and if it were her way, she would pour everyone a glass of Champagne in every stop we visit. (If you're reading this, Marketa, you can't, okay? We don't have the budget for that. We went through this already.) Anyway, if you're in her group, consider yourself lucky. We know we do consider ourselves lucky having her around. Below are her favorite spots in Prague and her favorite social media accounts. 


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12 things you should know before visiting Prague

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12 things you should know before visiting Prague

If you ask us, vacations start once you book the flights, and the joys of research start right away. Problem: today, you can Google pretty much everything, and information seem to contradict each other. Case in point: have you tried to google child vaccination? Yeah, exactly. The link you click the first will set you on a path through a rabbit hole, and you’ll end up no smarter after two weeks of research. Solution: you’re joking, right? When it comes to Prague research, we’re the solution. The following should set you on your path through the right rabbit hole. Oh, we mean Prague trip research. 

Here’s the twelve things you should know before you travel to Prague. 


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Five Faves: Prague tips by locals - Marcela Vuong

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Five Faves: Prague tips by locals - Marcela Vuong

If you want to see the Sapa market, you want to see it with Marcela - project manager by day, Vietnamese food tour guide by… ehhhh… day, too (but mostly on weekends). Warm, friendly and passionate about food, she is the perfect companion to what at the beginning might seem like an impenetrable maze of warehouses and hole-in-a-wall pho places. (Did we mention she’s beautiful, too?) Heck, she gave us her own tips when we wrote about the market, and they have never failed us on our own visits.

Born in Vietnam yet raised in the Bohemian town of Chomutov (“No-one comes from there,” she claims incorrectly, not knowing that Zuzi was in fact raised there, too.), she has a unique insight into both Vietnamese and Czech food and culture, and isn’t afraid to share it. What started as cooking Vietnamese dishes for her friends (and she has many, often recruited from young fashion and design circles) eventually snowballed into one of the most popular tours to Sapa. She also seems to be travelling all the time, which we often observe on social media with thinly disguised envy. So yes, we like her, and we think you’d like her too. Here’s her five faves for Prague and social media.


Best Breakfast in Prague

Best Breakfast in Prague

We don’t know about you, but we think breakfast can make or break a day, especially when you’re on vacation. We looove us some breakfast, and we wrote about breakfast in Prague extensively before. If there is a better way to start the day in Prague than just relax, let it all hang out, have a scrumptuous breakfast (booze optional but recommended) and prepare for what the day has to offer, we’d like to know. (Well sure, our Prague food tours are obviously the best way to start the day, but that’s just a shameless plug. Sorry, you gotta do whatcha gotta do.)

Before we get to specific recommendations and tips, a few things you should know about breakfast in Prague in general. First, if you’re planning to eat breakfast at a popular venue, make sure you have a reservation. We’re not saying Prague is the Portland of Central Europe, but the fact is that the lines can get crazy long. Want proof? Just have a look at the cold, blank stares of the people who have waited in vain for two hours to get a table at Café Savoy on a Sunday morning. 

Second, don’t expect to be wowed by creativity when it comes to breakfast in Prague. Sure, things have been getting better but cutting edge breakfast and playful dishes are strill rare and far apart. What you should expect instead is lots of eggs and comfort cooking, which is fantastic in the winter, or as a hangover cure. In the summer, things have been getting better on the “healthy lifestyle” front, with more options if you actually like quinoa and cold-fermented porridge. Also, brunch cocktails are still in their infancy here in Prague, but that should not deter you from ordering booze for brunch. Hey, you’re on vacation and you deserve it.

Finally, coffee in Prague is seriously and surprisingly good, and while not every place that serves great breakfast serves great coffee, and vice versa, the overlap of the two has been growing steadily in the past few years. Therefore, if you think breakfast is incomplete without a cup of great coffee (and we totally feel you), Prague will treat you well. 

Below are our favorite breakfast spots in Prague.


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Prague food scene in 2017 - a year in review

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Prague food scene in 2017 - a year in review

Oh, what a year 2017 was. What started rather slowly has become, both for us personally and for Prague’s food scene in general, a year of excitement and hope. Here’s the year 2017 in review, as it relates to the Prague food scene.

(And yes, we did not know what picture to post as the title photo, so we put a pic from Maso a Kobliha with JJ's first hand modeling assignment.)


It's a boy! (Oh, and we're alive, too.)

It's a boy! (Oh, and we're alive, too.)

This post is really one long apology. 

You see, if you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you may have noticed that the frequency of our blog posts has decreased in the past years. Well, „decreased“ is a nice way of putting it. We hardly posted anything this year. We’re sorry. We did not die, or split up, or go on a hunger strike. But there’s a reason for the silence, and a change is coming.


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