Red Corner: Cool Restaurants Prague

by Neil Woodburn on

I’m a little disappointed.

Today while shopping I ran across a book called Cool Restaurants Prague. Having lived in this fair city, and frequented what I thought were its “cool” restaurants, I was excited to find a book all about them. The only problem was that the book was wrapped in plastic. No worries, I thought. How could someone screw up such an easy concept?

So, I bought the book and just spent the afternoon glancing through it.

Cool Restaurants is actually a series of books published by teNeues Publishing Group in Italy that spotlights “cool” eating establishments in more than 20 cities across the world. The concept is simple: offer a few pages of photographs of the interior of each, showcase one recipe, and then move on to the next restaurant.

The problem with the Prague book is that it is soulless. The majority of photographs lack warmth and charm and fail entirely in, what I assume, is their goal of evoking cozy, architecturally arousing eating establishments that are hip, beautiful, and… cool. Sure, a few of them do indeed look great and I would love to check them out, but the book as a whole fails to motivate, inspire, or even tempt my appetite. I’m not sure about the others in the series, but had the Prague book not been wrapped, I would have had the opportunity to leaf through it and then put it aside.

Of course, I might simply be bitter that nearly every restaurant in the book was new to me. If they are indeed the city’s new crop of “cool” restaurant, I’m no longer in the know. And that’s depressing.

Red Corner: Bunking Down in Latvian Prison

by Neil Woodburn on

Rather low on my list of things to do before I die is to spend a night in jail.

Good news, however, for adventure tourists hopped up on doing so; they can now avoid the social stigma of a public trial, and simply pay a few bucks for the experience.
For just $8, the very curious can sleep overnight in Latvia’s notorious Karosta prison. Each guest receives his own jail cell and cot, access to a communal “Soviet prison toilet,” and cold water.

For just four dollars more, a local theater troupe will dress up as guards and turn an already harrowing experience into an altogether more frightening and realistic one. They won’t beat you, but they ain’t putting chocolates on your pillows either.

A quick word about the prison. Karosta isn’t a modern prison with automatic doors and a row of bars to clank your metal cup against. This is an old school jail. Built in 1905, it was operated by the 20th century’s most notorious regimes; the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War. It was a horrible place that still harbors horrible memories even today. Don’t expect a good night of sleep while bedding down there.

Red Corner: 2014 Olympic Games?

by Neil Woodburn on

Today not only begins the 20th Winter Olympics Games in Turin, but also speculation on where the next Winter Games will be held. Vancouver has already been selected for 2010 (get your tickets now), but the location for 2014 is still up in the air.

With this in mind, Nick Kaye of the New York Times looks deep into his crystal ball to explore those venues being considered for the 22nd Games. I was happy to discover that four of the seven locations are surprisingly in the former Eastern Bloc; Almaty, Kazakhstan, Borjomi, Georgia, Sochi, Russia and Sofia, Bulgaria.

Kaye’s short article introduces the reader to these winter playgrounds that are very well known in their home countries, but rather unheard of anywhere else. He then weighs the pros and cons of each location-such as no W Hotel in Borjomi.

Although Kaye doesn’t come right out and say it, I got the impression he feels most of these former commie resorts are going to be long shots and that Western darling Salzburg, Austria may get the eventual nod.

Red Corner: Baltic States vs. United States

by Neil Woodburn on

What are the differences between the Baltic States and the United States?

Well, there are quite a few-beginning with the fact that most any Baltic citizen over the age of ten can find America on a map, while most Americans can’t even identify the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) much less locate them on a globe (and I’m not talking about you finely educated, American Gadling readers here).

Apparently the differences between the Baltics and the U.S. are numerous enough that Michael Tarm, a former editor of the Baltic City Paper, and a current resident of Chicago, has felt it necessary to boil down just the Top 10 and share them with the world. The list is quite humorous, and not exactly in favor of the United States, but hey, if you can’t laugh at yourself, you can you laugh at?

Now, if you could just point me in the direction of the nearest Latvian embassy. I feel some flames coming on.

Ouch! Just kidding folks!

Red Corner: Moscow Cafe Culture

by Neil Woodburn on

For those of you who still imagine Moscow as a poverty-stricken, Cold War backwater of breadlines and borscht-slurping malcontents, I invite you to check out the following website.

Coffee Mania is a chain of coffee shops which has become quite popular in Moscow. When I first started visiting the city in the early 1990s, coffee came black or not at all. Cups of Joe could be purchased in the few food establishments around the city, but there was no café culture where one could leisurely enjoy a drink and chat with their friends (Allowing the discontented a venue in which to collectively express their anger is never a good idea for a dictatorship).

But, with the fall of communism, café culture has come back to Moscow. In addition to Coffee Mania, there are at least half a dozen other coffee chains and numerous independent cafes in which to comfortably sip away one’s time in the capital (although I can’t promise the same for areas outside of Moscow).

Please take a moment to check out the amazing site from Coffee Mania. Not only will its virtual tour make believers of Cold War stalwarts that there is capitalist normalcy in Moscow, but the site is amazing itself (albeit a bit slow to upload). It is simply the best virtual tour I’ve seen to date on the web (which also says quite a bit about the progress of Russian programming).