What to eat in Prague
Czech food beyond the chimney-cake stalls: svíčková, goulash in bread, pork knee, dumplings, brewery cheese and how a pub actually works.

[ ] Eat svíčková na smetaně
    Beef under a thick sauce of puréed root vegetables and cream, with dumplings, a spoon of cranberry and a cloud of whipped cream. The faint sweetness is the dish working as intended, not a kitchen error.
[ ] Try Czech goulash
    A dark, thick beef stew with onion and caraway, far less paprika-driven than the Hungarian version. Served with dumplings, or in pubs inside a hollowed-out loaf.
[ ] Eat vepřové koleno
    Pork knuckle marinated in beer and roasted until the skin crackles, served on a board with mustard, horseradish and pickled peppers. It is a portion for two, and that is not an exaggeration.
[ ] Get to know knedlíky
    Boiled slices of dough that stand in for both bread and potatoes. Houskové are bread dumplings, airy and porous; bramborové are potato ones, dense and greyish, for the fattier meats.
[ ] Try smažený sýr
    A thick slab of Edam in breadcrumbs, deep-fried and served with potatoes and tartare sauce. The country's main vegetarian dish and the classic post-pub meal.
[ ] Order utopenci
    Sausages pickled for weeks in vinegar with onion, pepper and bay, served cold with dark bread. The name translates as drowned men, after how they look in the jar.
[ ] Try bramboračka
    A thick potato soup with dried mushrooms, marjoram and root vegetables, often served inside a bread loaf. In winter it is a whole lunch rather than a starter.
[ ] Try kulajda
    A sour cream soup with mushrooms, potato, dill and a poached egg in the middle. The vinegar tang is a distinctly Czech note that surprises on the first spoonful.
[ ] Try Prague ham
    Ham brined and lightly smoked over beechwood, with moist pink flesh. Eaten in thin slices with horseradish, or as a hot slab with mustard at a market stall.
[ ] Understand the trdelník
    A hollow sweet tube of dough baked on a spit and rolled in sugar and nuts. Tasty when hot, but it is not a Czech tradition — it is a recent invention aimed at visitors.
[ ] Try koláče
    Round yeast pastries with a dip in the middle filled with curd cheese, plum jam or poppy seed. Village baking, found in Prague's old bakeries rather than the cafés on the square.
[ ] Try medovník
    A layered honey cake with condensed-milk cream between the layers and crumbs on top. Dense, not cloying and available in almost every café — the city's safest dessert.
[ ] Drink Kofola
    A dark fizzy drink built on a herbal syrup, created in socialist Czechoslovakia as an answer to cola. Less sweet, with a bitter herbal edge, and markedly better from the tap than the bottle.
[ ] Drink a světlý ležák
    The pale bottom-fermented lager invented in Plzeň that set the standard for half the world. A pub pours it with a thick head that should hold to the bottom of the glass.
[ ] Try Becherovka
    A herbal liqueur from Karlovy Vary with cinnamon and clove, originally sold as a medicinal tonic. Drunk chilled to a syrupy thickness, in small glasses after a heavy meal.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-prague