It’s all a fairy tale, beautiful Bremen is more than a historic city preserved with all of its romance and magic, it boasts a tale by the Brothers Grimm; The Bremen Town Musicians. As the tale goes, there were four farm animals who had reached an old age and we’re no longer of much use to the farmer. So the farmer thought to kill them. The donkey, dog, cat and rooster ran away to become town musicians in Bremen, the city of freedom saying, “We can find something better than death anywhere.”

According to the fairy tale, the Bremen town musicians never made it to Bremen but the town put up a monument to them anyway on the west side of the Town Hall. Visitors who touch the statue are said to be granted a wish and will one day return to Bremen.

This is my first visit to Bremen and yes, I like everyone else, touched the donkey’s feet meaning I can look forward to returning to this beautiful town. I love to sit in the Old Town Square at one of the restaurants. All of them have tables that spill out onto the square. It’s tradition to sit and sip a Beck beer (it comes from Bremen). It’s exceptionally amazing to be among the towering, ancient buildings and the large statue of Roland. Both have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On the other side of Town Hall is Domshof. Since the Middle Ages this large square has been a place of public meetings. Today it remains a community-gathering place around the farmers’ market and a beautiful flower market (open six days a week). The flower market offers tulip bulbs in hundreds of different varieties and colours. The hundreds of crates arranged for display makes you want to take a few hundred home with you.
I love to wander through the market looking at the different offerings of meat, fish, fruit, herbs, culinary ingredients, even clothing and warm foods you can eat while strolling. I picked up a few apples and black plums to eat as I stroll.

Germans love sweet black plums wrapped with cinnamon and sweet yeast pastry. They bake them all together for a delicious pastry I feasted on for breakfast. You can also find black plums lining the tops of thin cake like little soldiers waiting to be devoured by anyone with an appetite for the delicious side of Bremen.

Buy a salty pretzel and walk along the River Weser. The pretzels here are fat and large but mouthwateringly salty and yeasty – so good. At the Weser River there is a wide promenade called the Schlachte Weser Promenade full of restaurants, cafes and beer gardens spilling onto the promenade intermixed with artisan shops. Stroll along the promenade with views of beautiful ships and enjoying your pretzel with a coffee.

A tip on Bremen sweets, here they love peppermint sugar sticks. These long, narrow sticks of sweetness can be found in almost all of the artisan candy shops. It was invented by local candymaker Albert Friedrich Bruns. They’re delicious and last a long, long time. The traditional Bremen Klaben is a large bun loaded with raisins and dusted with lots of sugar. It looks rather sexy and irresistible in pastry counters and it’s not to be confused with the Bremen Kluten which is peppermint fondant covered partially with chocolate, another delicious must try food of beautiful Bremen.

While walking the streets enjoying your peppermint sugar stick you’re inevitably going to walk through a maze of tiny streets all strung together like beads on a string. In fact, this area is called Schnoor and it means “string”. Schnoor is the oldest preserved section of the town with a different charm than the Old Town Square.

The 500-year-old buildings hold each other up for support as the houses romantically wind their way into laneways, mini courtyards and alleys so narrow that only one person can pass at a time. Here you’ll find artisans of jewelry, chocolate, hand crafts, weavers, sewers and more. There’s even a fruitcake shop that also makes authentic Bremen Klaben and at Christmas time they make Wickelkuchen, cinnamon stars and gingerbread. The little shop prides itself in using as many local ingredients as they can in their authentic German specialties.

The Katzen Café is one of the better restaurants with classic French cuisine. Yes, they serve traditional German cuisine but you can also find a delicious Bouillabaisse. Stop by the Feiner Tee for a cup of warm Ronnefeldt tea served in fine porcelain and accompanied by home made delicious cakes. In a city of pork and sauerkraut, the Feiner Tee offers up a full vegetarian menu.

For all of your shopaholics, you’d be impressed with Bremens complex and varied shopping area that starts where Town Square ends. Many of the streets and walkways have been covered in glass making it an all-weather, outdoor shopping experience. There’s everything here from independently owned shops to international chain stores, from boutiques to specialty stores all are intertwined with irresistible bakeries, cafés and restaurants. Shop until you’re hungry for more cultural experiences or until your stomach aches for more of Bremen’s unique dishes.

If you have time for only one restaurant in Bremen, you must make it the Ratskeller. It dates back to 1405 and is the oldest restaurant I’ve ever eaten in. Descend into the basement of the Town Hall, and the restaurant unfolds before you with polished white cathedral ceilings and giant wooden casks. The long narrow restaurant ends with a beautiful, glassed in room for private affairs. Here they serve traditional German fare with Bratwurst, Suckling Pig and even a dish of pork fat you can spread on bread – very hardy German fare.

There is more to see and eat in Bremen than I had time for in my three days but if you’re looking to explore a new beautiful town in Europe, Bremen should definitely be on your list.

It’s a small cafe, quaint, very unassuming from the front door, soft in colour – like chocolate, with an awfully welcoming atmosphere. It’s the best chocolate shop in all of Prague and I don’t even think they sell chocolates. Their specialty? Hot chocolate drinks.

Like a coffee shop offering different flavours and varieties of coffees, so Choco Café is offering up almost 70 different chocolate drinks. Some of them are spiked with alcohol like my favourite whisky spiced hot chocolate but then, I don’t really know if it’s a favourite because I haven’t tried the Cherry Rum or the Forest Fruits + Eggnog hot chocolates yet.

Looking over the chocolate list, I just can’t decide. Should I have one of the drinks from the Michel Cluizel list of chocolates or the Valrhona selection. Each one is described like a wine explaining the body, the floral or fruity notes and characteristics such as low acidity or bitterness. Some have nuances of red fruit and others honey. Where does one start? Where do you start on a wine list if you know nothing about wine? Daunting?? I’ve never been daunted by chocolate before – excited yes, but never daunted.

On my first visit I had the Choco Cocoa Special, a concoction of chocolate, milk, milk foam and whisky cream. It comes in three distinct layers that you can see through the glass mug. This beauty is a drink for all of your senses; eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

Dip your spoon into it and immediately feel the resistance of the bottom layer against the spoon, this is a thick blob of black gold. The top layer is a frothy, whipped cream dusted with hazelnuts, the perfect sweet nutty flavour to boost the nuance of this nutty biscuit whisky flavoured drink. Once in your mouth it luxuriates across your palate coating your tongue with hugs and blasting the roof of your mouth with a hefty coating of chocolate that you can’t quite get a handle on; is it medium chocolate or dark? It keeps me guessing. In either case, it’s a serious low level of sweetness, just enough to tame the tannic bitterness of true dark chocolate and no more. The price for sipping on warm bliss is 95, Czech Koruna, or $4.90 CDN and yes, you can hear the angels singing with every sip.

The next time I went into Choco Café, I was with my personal walking encyclopedia. Michelle, a woman with the knowledge of a complete set of Prague’s history encyclopedia’s but better, Michelle includes the behind the scenes anecdotal comments and juicy gossip that only someone with here ear to the ground would know. Her challenge for the day was to weave some culinary topics into her 8-hour walking tour of Prague’s history and architecture. When she found out we had a mutual love for chocolate, we went to Choco Café.

Once again it’s hard to decide. I ordered the Tanzanie 75% Africa from the Cacao Barry (original chocolate) collection. It was described as, “very fruity, extraordinary flavour, extremely rich and wildly earthy”. It was 89, Czech Koruna that translates into $4.60 CDN. We got our chocolate to go. The waitress handed us small paper cups that were half full of chocolate. It was so thick, the little plastic stir stick was taking its time to reach the side of the cup; lazily slicing like it didn’t have a care in the world. I tried to stir the thick liquid – I think it would be easier to stir tar.

I held it in my hand like a sacred artifact and like a sacred artifact I had no idea what to do with it. Michelle was well on her way out the door when I called for her to wait. I wanted to drink this not snort it. She gave me a little spoon, but I didn’t see how that would be delightful or even respectful enough for this drink, but I had another idea in mind. Not sure why it was so amusing when I asked for some warm milk to be added, but they obliged. I walked away stirring and sipping. Even though it wasn’t as serious a drink as they like in Prague, it was loving my psyche all the same.

Choco Café also serves traditional Czech Hořice. These are rolled wafers, stuffed with whipped cream and dipped in shot-glasses filled with thick hot chocolate. The wafers took me back to communion in the Catholic Church. They had the same texture and flavour, but no church wafer was ever stuffed with the seductive textures of whipped cream or dipped in thick sultry chocolate. Hořice are however, heavenly and divine. Wonder what I’ll have tomorrow?

There’s this little place on Dlouhá in the Old Town district of Prague worth saving your appetite for. You can’t miss it; during the day there will be people lined up out the door and into the streets. In the evening, the little butcher shop is buzzing with carnivores lusting over the meat counter, distracted with the slicing and dicing of the blood stained butchers behind the window. This is Naše Maso.

Lean over the butcher counter and master butcher, Frantisek Ksana is right there to boast the quality standards of his products like a North American locavore. He’s the most enthusiastic butcher I’ve ever met. This man hails from a family of butchers and he played a significant role in brining back the Přeštice pig, a heritage breed named after the region it’s farmed. Frank, as he tells us to call him, claims this pig has the perfect ratio of meat to fat and the meat has a richness of flavours lost on other pigs.

At Naše Maso they not only offer up the best beef and pork in the country, but they’ll cook it up for you too. I’m handed a warm slice of smoked Přeštice sausage. Wow, it’s a powerful, robust, smoky-rich mouthful. It has a burly character with an elegant finesse that lingers long on your palate.

The butcher shop has three butcher block tables for diners to sit around and a few beer spigots in the corner to quench their thirst. I overhear a conversation about controversial Czech sculpture David Černý. They were talking about his giant statue of an upside down dead horse with a rider on its underbelly. The bronze looking statue hangs from a glass ceiling in the Lucerna Palace. I say bronze looking because certainly a glass ceiling could never hold such a massive weight. The debate was over its construction; styrofoam or fiberglass.

I love David Černý’s work because he’s always way out there. He became well-known when he painted a Soviet tank pink; rumour has it for love. Love or not, he was promptly jailed for it. We’re now distracted by the best steak tartare in the city and I never heard if they guessed styrofoam or not.

The juicy disc of succulent meat laced with minced, house-made pickles, onions and mustard is eye candy to any self-respecting gastronome. Lop it onto the warm sourdough toast only after you’ve rubbed it sufficiently with a whole clove of garlic, now sink your teeth into it. The gracious, animal flesh creams the top of your mouth with flirtatious nuances of subtle beef, earthy richness and exquisite complexity. It’s a marvelous roll-your-eyes back and savour the moment experience.

We begin a conversation about our own favourite David Černý’s pieces. High above your head on Husova is a thought provoking sculpture of Sigmund Freud hanging from a pole. The meaning of this is up to interpretation so a debate was inevitable. Does it represent the choice to live or die or does it represent the invisible line between sanity and insanity? Or are they one in the same?

The little butcher shop is buzzing with people who begin to look at us as if they want to join in the conversation; or do they just want our burgers? I only eat good burgers, which means I don’t eat burgers often. But at Naše Maso they grind their burgers from a noble breed of Czech pied cattle that have been properly fattened for an optimum balance of meat to fat. All of their beef is dry aged by experienced butchers. So starting with the best quality, they grind and form into patties – so simple!

The burger is grilled to a perfect medium-rare with little or no shrinkage at all. Topped with thin slices of their house-made pickles and red onion it’s then sandwiched in a thin, toasted roll of little substance (except to hold the meat together). It’s the perfect bun to showcase the beef. Bite into it and feel your shoulders slink down in total satisfaction. Czech pied cattle has an elegance character and a robust beefy flavour; two opposites that play on the palate like Freud plays on the psyche. The result is a burger as polished as a prime steak.

We leave Naše Maso with a plan to return tomorrow for a steak. In the meantime, we walk back wondering if we should stop for a chocolate drink at Choco Café or a sweet from Bakeshop. So many great eateries in Prague and not enough room in my stomach to put it all away.

“I hope you all wore a good pair of walking shoes and stretchable pants,” says Mirka Charlotte Kostelkova of a new tour company in Prague called Eating Prague. From a North American perspective one may envision the food of the Czech Republic as being pork, cabbage and dumplings but our small group of seven foodies were about to be educated in the most delicious way.

Eating Prague is part of a larger family of Eating tour companies that, not surprisingly, started in Italy. Headquartered in Rome, Eating Italy quickly spread to London and this year Eating Amsterdam and Eating Prague are opening doors to the kitchens of their perspective cities to crowds of mouthwatering foodies who lust for new food experiences.

We all sat around a long wooden harvest table under the shade of a grape arbour. There were two girls from Singapore, one from San Francisco, New York City, a gentleman from Bali. Together with Jon and I representing Canada that made seven. Mirka was telling us what to expect on the four-hour tour.

We were in a hidden courtyard of an art gallery called Le Court where we were served squat glasses of water and thick slices of cinnamon spiked apple strudel. Each slice was bulging with tiny chunks of soft warm apples and plump raisins all wrapped up in a crust that was both elastic and flaky, yum. The strudel was served neat, without any of the typical whipped cream or ice cream; it’s the Czech way.

We walked through the courtyard onto old cobblestone streets. To our delight Mirka is passionate about food, not just a tour guide. She begins to talk of a few good restaurants; Local for casual fare, La Degustation, one of the two Michelin-Star restaurants in the city and U Modré Kachnicky (The Blue Duckling). Prague cuisine can easily be divided into two camps. The first is of traditional, country-style hearty dishes, typically consisting of pork, cabbage, dumplings and beer. Czech’s just can’t resist spilling a little or a lot of beer into almost any dish simmering on the stove. The other, a modern, nouvelle version of traditional dishes being reinvented by top chefs.

We arrive at Sisters for the classic chlebíčky (open faced sandwiches). Owned and operated by Hana Michopulu, affectionately known as Prague’s own Alice Waters, Hana was responsible for bringing farmers’ markets to Prague and she only uses locally sourced foods in her modern looking eatery tucked into an ancient building.

Chlebíčky is an ancient food that dates back well over 100 years. It’s the Czech’s most popular finger food but contrary to thick slices of bread piled with over mayonnaised potato salad and slices of meat, these small melba-toast sized slices of deliciousness are eye-candy to the modern palate. The first chlebíčky was a blood red beet topped with a chunk of Czech goat cheese and walnut over slightly tangy sourdough bread. The beets creamed their natural sweetness over your tongue while the tang of the bread and earthiness of the cheese layered with the walnut tannins for an elegant mouthful. The second, and my favourite was a grated celeriac salad with tarragon, chervil and parsley over dark bread spread with soft, sweet butter and topped with a cherry tomato – yum. The third and most interesting was a chlebíčky of wasabi, baby radish, dill and herring for a playful dance of heat, cold and luscious textures. All of these were being washed down with a chilled elderflower drink flavoured with fresh mint leaves and slivers of lime.

As we savoured the chlebíčky in Sisters, we could watch the buzz in the butcher shop next door. People were seated at the window bar eating tartar on small wooden cutting boards, plates of shaved Prague ham and grilled sausages in soft white buns. Mirka announced we didn’t have to go far for our next tasting as we walked into the butcher shop.

Like a restaurant with an open kitchen Nase Maso’s has an open butcher block buzzing with blood stained white jacketed butchers carving, shopping and slicing. It’s all too exciting for our small group and they start chatting about their mutual love of charcuterie.

Out of the back comes a young man with a clean chefs jacket holding a large platter of meat. He offers it up to our group. The first sample was a slice of meatloaf on top of rustic sourdough and spread with spicy mustard. The loaf is rich with a peppery flavour that takes on the challenge of spicy mustard skillfully. It’s a full, robust mouthful. Next were warm, pieces of juicy, smoked Přeštice sausage named after the region it is known for. It filled your palate with powerful robust smoky-rich flavours, a burly character sure to warm in the cold weather.

The next sample was the pride of Prague; Prague Ham. To the naked eye it may look like simple ham but there is nothing simple about this. It’s injected with a secret mixture of salt water and spices, then cured, marinated then smoked. All of this takes several days of skill and patience. The result is a deliciously clean tasting pork with an elegant ham flavour; very sophisticated, irresistibly delicious. The Prague Ham was shaved and sitting on slices of dark bread.

The last sample was another in-house meat by Nase Maso. Mirka called it Beef Ham and it looked remarkably like artisan pastrami. It was rich, juicy and would have done a robust red wine justice! All was amazingly delicious. I started to notice the food samples were being devoured without the bread to make room for our next stop. Our group was beginning to strategize in the face of abundance!

We headed out on what Mirka calls a digestive cultural walk. As she guides us to our next destination she talks of Czech food and beer, of historic buildings and statues and of course, more restaurants. Bellevue Restaurant has the most beautiful views of Charles Bridge and some stunning seasonal dishes with a touch of traditional Czech cuisine. Café Imperial is a must stop because it’s run by Executive Chef Zdenek Pohlreich, claimed by some to be Prague’s Gordon Ramsay.

We had arrived at our next destination, Zvonice. It’s a restaurant on the 8th floor of a 600 year old bell tower. The beautiful room had stonewalls, small windows with glorious views, giant beams and a huge brass bell named Mary in the centre. Here we ate a yummy sauerkraut soup they call Staroceska Zeinice or Old Bohemian Sauerkraut Soup. The thick soup had chunks of robust deer sausage, a quenelle of mashed potatoes, slivers of chanterel mushrooms and uberfine threads of fermented cabbage that acted more like melted, stringy cheese than sauerkraut in the soup. All was drizzled with basil oil and a dollop of sour cream. It’s a super mouth warming, succulent soup with a bottom weight of savoury sausage interjected with frequent spikes of sauerkraut acidity and earthy flavours that linger long on the palate. It’s amazingly delicious and we all ask for the recipe.

Prague is the beer capital of the Czech republic with citizens drinking a whopping 157 litres per capita. Pilsner and Budweiser are both brewed in the Czech Republic, but unlike the cheap watery beer brewed in the U.S., Budweiser is a high quality beer here.

After all this talk of beer, we drop by Pivovarský Dům, a microbrewery and restaurant serving up Czech pub food. Giant copper stills sit in the middle of the restaurant and we wander down to the dark underground tank cellar to sip some good Czech beer.

We leave a little thirst quenched and walk into the sunshine again. We pass a modern looking ice cream shop called Beautiful Me. Mirka says it’s her favourite in town. We pass a stand with rotating poles covered with cinnamon sugared bread. It’s called Trdelnik. The poles rotate the bread and it cooks over hot coals then removed from the poles and sprinkled with more sugar.

Our next stop, Café Louvre is a historic Czech café where we were served a traditional Czech dish of braised beef with pureed vegetables (sauce) and dumplings. The braised beef was interestingly covered with cranberry jam and whipped cream. The beef was fork tender and the sauce was of fresh sweet carrots and celery. The dumplings looked like two slices of bread on the plate, a different kind of dumpling for sure.

Moving on we arrive at Choco Café, a family-owned chocolate café serving traditional Hořice, rolled wafers, stuffed with whipped cream and dipped in shot-glasses filled with thick hot chocolate. The wafers took me back to communion in the Catholic Church. They had the same texture and flavour, but no church wafer was ever stuffed with the seductive textures of whipped cream or dipped in thick sultry chocolate. Hořice are however, heavenly and divine.

Mirka is a foodie and when she wasn’t talking about her love for Prague’s food shops and restaurants, she was gushing with pride over its history and historical beauty. We experienced some of Prague’s hidden treasures, learned the history behind some of its magnificent buildings and best of all, cut through the thick layer of brash tourism that sometimes interferes with a fabulous experience. I give Eating Prague 10 stars!