I fancied some Czech food but was all too aware that many of the places around here are for tourists, regardless of their scores on TripAdvisor, so I pinged a friend I will be meeting up with on Saturday. Potrefena Husa was his response, a ‘gastro’ pub chain owned by the Staropramen brewery.

Turned out their Narodni branch is round the corner from my hotel, so round I went. First I must remind the reader, this is a pub. You walk in and it looks like a bar, sounds like a bar, has a long bar to sit at, and many tables, which were already filling up. The menu includes regional and Czech dishes, plus some standard fare. There’s also a reasonable selection of beer. I started with a brown beer from their specials list, which was very nice, and being the slow drinker I am, it lasted me the meal.

For a starter I had goulash soup in a wholemeal boule style loaf. More regional than Czech, but it was very nice and would have been a light meal by itself.

For my main I went with the traditional Czech meal of pork knuckle. Like lamb/pork shanks it needs cooking slow and long else you end up with lots of fat. I do not like fat. I’m happy to say it had virtually all been rendered down in to the meat, with just a thin layer behind the skin. It was very nice, though maybe a little dry. It also defeated me. Small the portion was not.

In the end, with friendly staff, a nice atmosphere, I had a good time (even with just the one beer), and for a larger starter, heavy meat main course, and a beer 544 Czech Crown, or about £20.