Sometimes an obvious food-wine combination comes along and all you can think is: Why did I never try that before? That's more or less the culinary epiphany Skat and I had in Prague the first weekend in December.

Since our 2nd year together, we have had our very own birthday ritual, just like many other couples. Ours stems from the fact that our birthdays are only 8 days apart AND both in December. Which means that December is potentially a month fraught with 'What do I give the man/woman in my life I already live with, for 2 occasions within one month'. We solved it by forgoing any big presents (and give each other smaller sillier ones) but opting for a weekend away, generally somewhere cold, Christmas-y and with lots of mulled wine. Thus we've made it to New York /Washington D.C, Strasbourg, Geneva, Stockholm and now Prague. Oh, how decadent we are!

For the past 2 years we opted to go back to Denmark instead for a weekend, to have some yule-time with Skat's family, seeing as we spend Christmas with my family in France. But this year, Mother-In-Law is coming to France, which means that we could splurge on a romantic weekend away again!!! And Prague had been on my wish-list for the last 10 years...

I'll spare you all the tourist clichés, as this is a food blog, but if you haven't been to Prague yet, I cannot recommend it too much. Only, be prepared to stop in your tracks every 3 steps to ogle at YET ANOTHER beautiful building. Or the Charles Bridge in another light, from another angle. Or the Castle. Or the... You get my drift, but in case you don't:

I'm told that it's Stag-Party Hell in the summer, but in December we had none of that, only Mittel-European loveliness and beauty. My particular gratitude goes to those clever people in Prague who decided that Christmas decorations should only go up once it's December, and not in October as is the case in London and many other capitals. When we arrived on 30 November, there were none and 2 days later there were amazing and tasteful decorations everywhere and each little square was boasting a Christmas market, awash with roasted chestnuts, candied apples, mulled wine, mulled cider, roast pig, sausages, local 'pizza-like' thingies and Skat's favourite: TRDLO (no, I have NO idea how to pronounce it). Trdlo appears to be thin rolls of dough, rolled around a large metal pin, rolled in sugar and cinnamon, then 'grilled' over a flame while (you guessed it) rolling around. Once 'baked', they are... rolled in sugar and flaked almonds before being rolled off the pin and (sadly not rolled) handed to the customer. Maybe Trdlo means Rolled?

So here are a few of the delicacies sampled:

After 2 days of pig and pickled cabbage, our stomachs and palates were crying out for different fayre and we decided to try one of the modern cuisine restaurants. The most famous one, Kampa Park, is a celebrity hang-out and therefore MUCH too imtimidating for us. We chose one of its 'sister' restaurants called Square and it was scrumptious! I had a cloud-light vitello tonnatto where the thin and butter-tender slices of pink veal were resting on a not-too-tonnatto-y sauce, followed by a local speciality: duck. The foie gras was superb, the breast was perfect but sadly the confit was too dry. Skat had a risotto nero which matched any of the best ones in Italy, followed by another local speciality: venison fillet. I'm not a big fan of game, but that one was masterly. And compared to London prices, it was VERY reasonable.

Sausages and Champagne? Ah, I see that you have been paying attention. Well, when in Prague... Czech out the sausages, haha. We opted for a red variety called (funnily enough) Prague Sausage, which turned out to be one of the tastiest I have ever encountered. And I'm pretty sure they're hand-made too, as the meat-to-fat ratio was sky high, the mustard seeds were cracking between my teeth and I came across a whole garlic clove. Oh Yum! They were good! While eating (actually sharing) our first sausage, we noticed that the sausage ladies were also selling the local bubbly: Bohemian Sekt.

Well, we had already sampled it abundantly since our arrival, as it is simply dirt-cheap and in many bars only marginally more expensive than the local (EXCELLENT) cheapissimo beer (Favourite: Urquell) and still cheaper than coke. That's my kinda place! And to our surprise the first morning we came down to the fantastic breakfast smorgasbord in the hotel, there was a chilled bottle of said Sekt on hand to be mixed (or not) with orange juice and make a celebration of the breaking of each fast. At the risk of sounding senile: my kinda place!

The day after our first sausage-day was also our last day in the lovely city, so we decided to part in style and shlepped all the way to Wenceslas Square to our sausage stand where we ordered 2 Prague Sausages and a whole bottle of Sekt. Well, you'd have thought we were the first people ever doing that! The Sausage Ladies asked us laughingly if it was a special occasion, people on the side walk stopped in their tracks and ogled. PFF!!! If they sell it, it must be because people buy it. No? Anyway, the combo is worthy of a repeat performance, but I fear sausage stands around other world cities don't live up to this standard, so we'll just have to go back...

PS: Notice the guy in the background. I had no idea he was there when I took the picture...