Historically, the Czechs have spent more time perfecting the art of beer than the art of food.  There are literally more beer recipes than food recipes.  But the few Czech dishes that exist can be quite tasty.

The Czech Republic is limited by what I like to call “the cold weather diet”: soup, meat and potatoes.  That’s about it.  The food is dense and hearty and it gets the job done without much style.  Here’s a list of what to eat in the Czech Republic (it may be a small list, but everything tastes good after a few beers, right?):

Soup

You can’t go wrong with a cup of garlic soup.  Each restaurant and pub serves it differently — some with chunks of pork, some with croutons.  I had it almost everywhere and it was always delicious, especially on a cold day.  The great thing is, it’s cheap — about $1 a cup.

Other popular soups are potato, beef with liver dumpling, onion, goulash, and a carp soup that’s served around the holidays.

Meat

There’s really only one popular Czech dish: vepřo-knedlo-zelo, which is pork, dumplings and cabbage.  Sounds boring, right?  But there is some variety: dumplings can either be potato or bread, cabbage can either be sweet or sour, and pork can either be grilled, pan fried or slow-cooked brisket-style.

Almost every meal I ate in Prague — lunch or dinner — was vepřo-knedlo-zelo.  Surprisingly, I never got tired of it because every restaurant served their own unique version of the dish.

The only other common dish is svíčková, a slab of roast beef covered in a creamy sauce and topped with… get this… whipped cream and fruit compote.  The juxtaposition between the hot, savory meat with the cold, sweet whipped cream and fruit was… interesting.  It was hard to wrap my mind around eating a dinner item and a dessert item simultaneously.

Sausages and bratwursts, called klobásy, are common in pubs.

Potatoes

The most popular side dish is cmunda, which is basically a hash brown — a greasy, fried potato pancake spiced with garlic, salt and pepper.  Sometimes it’s topped with sweet cabbage or slow-cooked pork.

Other potato side dishes include boiled potatoes that are sliced and called dumplings, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potato wedges and potato salad.

Dessert

Just about every European country serves some kind of crepe and the Czech Republic is no different.  Their version is called palačinky.

The most popular dessert is ovocné knedlíky, a fried dumpling filled with whole fruit like plums or apricots and topped with powdered sugar.

Other dessert options are medovník (a honey cake), jablečný závin (apple strudel) or zmrzlinový pohár (a typical ice cream sundae).