Although stuffy on a hot summer evening, U Bile Kravy is a good French bistro, with an English menu featuring beef. The food merited returning for our last evening in Prague. I tried steak on our first visit, which was typical European beef– more strongly favored than US beef and noticeably tougher. That’s the way it’s been everywhere in Europe where we’ve tried beef, so this was no fault of the restaurant. Americans may or may not like European beef, but this is a good place to try it since prices are low.
I also ordered a side of green beans, because European green beans are superb. These were grilled and nicely flavored.
The first night, she had chicken rolls stuffed with broccoli, ham, and cheese, accompanied by a crab or crayfish cake and an excellent cream sauce. I liked my taste of this dish well enough to order it the second night. Her chicken breast with cream sauce on our second visit was also fine. Portions are large, as an entrée, accompanied by a mélange of vegetables and greens, was plenty.
Befitting a fine restaurant, meals are prepared from scratch, and that takes awhile. Be prepared to wait 30 to 45 minutes.
A big treat of the evening is paying the bill. For a big steak with a side order of green beans, the chicken and crab dish, three beers, and tip, the tab was not much, and although a 15% tip might have been too much, for the next night, our waiter from the night before recognized us and pounced before the other waiter could.
Both French and Moravian wines are offered, but we opted for Czech beer, being in world’s number-one beer-drinking country. The beer menu includes Pilsner Urquell, the father of all modern beers and still, after 600 years, among the best. In the 1300s, the Urquell brewery in Plzen (German: Pilsen, adding ‘er’ for the possessive – Pilsner Urquell, or Pilzen’s Urquell brewery) discovered a new and improved method of brewing beer, which is why you sometimes hear beers described as pilsners, meaning they use Pilsen’s Urquell’s brewing method. But, as fine as Urquell is, we opted for a stunning dark beer not available in the USA, at least not in Utah, but Urquell is.
Cost: Diner for two, three beers, and tip: Meal 1 was $27, and meal 2 was $19.
A quirk of Czech restaurants that often irritates Americans is that the basket of bread the waiter puts on the table is an extra charge ($0.50 to $2). If you don’t want it, tell him to remove it when he brings it to the table. U Bile Kravy is one place where you should get the bread, slices of a typical French baguette, for the incredibly good crab roe butter that comes with it. This stuff is terrific and not to missed.
The ambience is delightful, sort of rustic French farmhouse, with three small dining rooms, two with six tables and one with three tables for two.