Soul Bistro — Restaurant in okres Brno-město

Soul(less) Bistro 19 Apr 2016 19:30-20:00

Fish & Chips 2x Matcha & Elderflower Lemonade 2x

From outside we could see an almost full house, and our anticipation piqued when we saw the lively bustle inside. Surely the food would be as good as they say on Trip Advisor and Zomato.

Upon entering the bistro, we were instantly greeted by wall of fish stink; not the sort of smell you'd find at a fish market. No, this was the foul stink of fish gone bad, of fish that had been taken out to thaw after half a year in the freezer, sat at room temperature for an hour during lunch, put back into the freezer after not getting used, and then taken out to thaw once again to serve for dinner. At best, it was the stink of fish offal left on a table that hadn't been washed all day. This should have set off alarms in my thick skull, but my empty stomach and my stubborn taste for fish & chips demanded satisfaction. We were only a party of 2, so we were able to find a cozy spot in the corner by the window where we thought we could distance ourselves from the fish stink emanating from they main dining area. Sitting on the counter by the window next to our table sat a tin bucket planter with rosemary and thyme. I quickly took a couple of sprigs of rosemary for us to roll and rub between our hands to provide some relief from the horrible smell.

The waitress came and we placed our orders:

2x matcha elderflower lemonade 2x fish & chips

And now for some notes about the food:

The Drinks: -tasty, but where's the elderflower? The meal: -fish floppy & limp -where's the crunch? -Stinky, unseasoned (do Czechs have an aversion to seasoning?), and under cooked -chips (more like fries), while hand-cut were unevenly cooked...some under cooked, but not a single piece cooked properly. They should par cook the fries and use the twice fried method -caramelized onions tasted fast cooked with sugar instead of slow cooked to draw out the natural sugars without adding sugar

There are videos on YouTube that show you how to cook these things properly. While Soul Bistro is not intended to be haute cuisine, it clearly misses some culinary fundamentals. But then again, this has been my experience with Czech gastronomic attempts at emulating non-Czech cuisine. When I saw the growing list of new restaurants upon my return from Vienna, I had hoped that Brno would finally have its own gastronomic Renaissance, but as long as the local palate remains untrained, or perhaps it's the Czech tendency to accept things the way they are (perhaps a vestige of their communist past), their status quo of half-baked attempts at emulating international cuisine will continue to disappoint.

It seems to me that in most cases, dining out in Czech Republic is more a social event than a gastronomic experience. Czechs go out to eat to be seen and heard and not for culinary enjoyment.

Their Motto: "Live to eat not eat to live"... Serve something to satisfy the palate, and anyone can live by...

We went there for lunch today after all the good reviews we saw and having had coffee and cakes there before.

They have a big menu with no clear indication what's available or not and as the staff informed us they didn't have the vegetarian daily menu anymore and also didn't have any beer on tap.

The staff wasn't very friendly, came in quite abrupt before we could even check the catalogue and wasn't very helpful aside from informing us that what we wanted was not available. In addition, while we were speaking English there was no effort from the staff to help us in anything but Czech. Thankfully my partner is Czech so she translated for me.

The food:

We ended up having a fish & chips and a fried rice with egg. Firstly, the fish and chips came with very cold mushy peas and a mayo. It was served inside a folded piece of baking paper. You get a small amount of nicely tasting fish and a normal amount of very bad chips with it. They were oily, browned and not very nicely fried.

The fried rice was a big portion without much inside and tasted overly sweet. For the price I'd just recommend going to one of the surrounding asian restaurants.

We would never go back there for food but the coffee and cake...

Very child unfriendly. We were at this restaurant with a toddler. The lady who served us tonight was helpful in opening the door for us, but when we tried to rearrange our seating to make room for the child seat and find a place for our stroller she treated us quite rudely. Our child played with the cuttlery cases and at some point he dropped them on the floor. I understand that it might be irritating, however again we got a very unpleasant reaction from the lady. She could have communicated in a different way. I believe she might have been tired and I know that small children are not the easiest to deal with in a restaurant setting. But we would certainly pick another place next time to dine...