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Festival of flavors

Authentic Korean cuisine stands out at Man-na
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By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 14th, 2007 issue

Korean meals can seem more like a festival than an orderly procession. There are plates everywhere, little steaming bowls of rice, hissing stone cauldrons, tabletop grills and flavors that bounce wildly between tart and pungent and fiery.

Man-na reproduces Korean tradition with surprising accuracy, starting with a table setting of metal chopsticks and bottles of soju in house. Wait staff places containers in the correct position, rice to the left. Banchan (side dishes) occupy any gaps between the accumulated plates. And the menu is straightforward, unsullied by regional overreaching. No pan-Asian hybrids — just page after page of dishes fermented and marinated.
Man-na

U Milosrdných 10
Prague 1–Old Town
Tel. 222 320 101
Open Mon.–Sat. 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m., 6 p.m.–11 p.m., Sun. 6 p.m.–11 p.m.

Food
Service
Atmosphere
Overall
Kimchi is the most prominent staple of Korean meals. At Man-na, you first encounter the preserved cabbage as part of the banchan spread. In its side-dish guise, the kimchi exhibits a sharp and single-minded purpose, more sour than hot. As a jjigae (stew), however, the stuff wields daggers — a coal-fire red broth that clutches your palate and begins jabbing away with impunity. Garlic takes full advantage of the furious charge, tossing in with a reeking, bitter aftermath (don’t order the kimchi stew before a meeting or date). Bits of green vegetables and fine cubes of tofu disappear into the background. Only slices of pork with a soft, milky flavor ease, momentarily, the licking flames.
Gochujang fuels this melting pot. Yet the dark, sienna-red chili paste also common to Korean recipes can assume a more subtle disguise. While it dominates rubbery chunks of stir-fried squid, a smoky residue swirls behind the steady furnace of chili, almost like a Far Eastern version of chipotle.
From the Menu
  • Seafood pancakes 300 Kč
  • Stir-fried squid 350 Kč
  • Bibimbap 350 Kč
  • Kimchi stew 300 Kč
  • Beer 40 Kč
Sometimes the softer flavors win out. The gochujang paste served alongside bibimbap lags meekly in the background, content to unite a motley and disinterested assortment of things good: julienned vegetables, mushrooms, beef, rice and egg. Bibimbap itself is an inelegant bowl, meant to be stirred, snarled and generally messed up by the diner. Distinction, in this case, begins to emerge as rice trapped on the bottom of the pot begins to burn and crisp in a thin veneer of sesame seed oil. By working through the tawdry mélange, you are rewarded with a mellow toasted flavor, a gentle gesture from the kitchen after plates loaded with powerful ingredients.
There’s a price to pay, though, for this epic simplicity — in my case, 720 Kč ($33.60) for lunch, and a tab of nearly 900 Kč for dinner for one with no dessert (none was available anyway — something to do, my waitress explained, with the season). These are not extraordinary rates for a high-end place, mind you. But unless you manage to book into a place serving full-on royal cuisine, Korean fare is not generally lumped into the fine-dining category.
At Man-na, you’re paying for the kitchen staff’s grasp of authenticity, as well as its ability to carry it out. The chef, I’m told, came to Prague after cooking for 20 years on the peninsula, and most of the guests speak Korean as a first language.
At these rates, however, shortcuts can be alarming — such as the inclusion of slimy, fishy “krab” in the seafood pancakes. The vile stuff destroyed an already-strange banchan offering on one visit: an ill-advised combination of both Waldorf salad and seafood salad, tossed in mayonnaise.
For the price, such callow posturing seems an insult.
Otherwise, Man-na’s banchan and the menu offerings hold true to form. The salty, briny, sour, biting flavors are all in place. Occasional lapses, such as imitation ingredients, mar the festivities. But, really, it’s as authentic as you will find in Prague.

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (14/03/2007):

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