A restaurant like no other

It was in the summer of 2021. My husband wanted to surprise me and took me into a really nice restaurant in Prague. It was on a rooftop! The views of the old part of town were amazing. The sun was about to set and the outdoor temperature was just perfect.

The menu looked great too. There were two things that didn’t fit, though. One of them was the music coming out of the speakers – it was dance music, more suitable for a gym and not a fancy restaurant.

The waiter was a bit odd too. He was trying too hard to be nice and fancy and said Thank you to pretty much anything we said. He also had a bad habit of showing up out of nowhere (I was sitting with my back against the entrance so I could never see him approaching) and at the wrong time (often when we discussed something private).

We had mixed feelings about our visit. The view was indeed incredible, the service, well… Interesting. We laughed about the waiter’s unnatural behavior which was more chatbot-like than human.

In the end, this visit was fruitful. It inspired me to write a dialogue for my students (based on our experience, but I added few things which I made up). I asked my good friend Olga to record it for me (with another friend of hers) and made a video of it. You can watch it on Youtube. It’s an amusing way to practise Czech!

Have you every had a bizarre experience at a restaurant?

Here are a few phrases you can use when ordering:

Dám si + name of the dish (in accusative case) I will have …
Dám si kuřecí polévku. I’ll have chicken soup.
Dal/a bych si… I would like to have…
Já si dám… I (emphasizing I, e.g., when there are more people ordering) I will have …
Já bych si dal/a… I would like to have…
Dáme si… We will have…
Dali bychom si… We would like to have…
Poprosím (vás) o (+ accusative) I will ask (you) for a…
Začnu (+ instrumental) I will start with…
Zatím začnu vodou. For now, I will start with water.