A Slice of Czechoslovakia in Davis

Today was beautiful with sunny skies, mild temperatures, and all the colors of fall spread out in the vineyards that are ever present in my part of California north of the Golden Gate. A friend and I drove up to Davis, home of the University of California at Davis, and also the home of Little Prague, a delightful, atmospheric restaurant

in the downtown, not far from the Ace Hardware store. (Note: There are hardware stores and hardware stores, but this one in Davis is quite something for an independent, non-chain hardware store. Not only do they have a separate building for pets and plants, but they have another full sized building, across the street a ways, that is devoted to housewares. If you get to Davis, CA, check out the Ace Hardware store...you are sure to find something to delight you.)

Little Prague makes a fantastic goulash, serves Pilsner Urquell beer from Czechoslovakia, has a carb heavy but delicious vegetarian lasagna, and yummy sandwiches and salads. However, the star of the meal is always the desserts. The selection of cakes is awe inspiring and the cakes are delicious and wickedly full of butter, sugar and cream and often chocolate, too. We met my sister there so there were three of us, which meant that we could order three different desserts and split them in three, then each have a small portion of each. It worked very well.

A fair amount of time was taken with standing by the rotating cake and dessert display looking at the gorgeous choices. The princess cake had a pastel green marzipan topping, the lemon tart was pretty with golden crust and deep yellow filling. There was a New York style cheesecake that was covered with three kinds of fresh, ripe berries. There were two minis that were mousse's, one all chocolate, and one with dark chocolate, light chocolate and white chocolate layers. None of these ended up being the ones we chose, although they may be our choice the next time.

I chose a Strawberry Chocolate Torte that combined deep chocolate layer cake with whipped cream and strawberries and a dark Belgian chocolate ganache.

My sister chose the chocolate nut cake which included walnut and chocolate layers, chocolate buttercream filling and white chocolate buttercream frosting, then a dusting of toasted walnuts around the side.

My friend chose the chocolate Napoleons, layers of puff pastry, chocolate pastry cream, whipped cream, vanilla pastry cream and a drizzle of ganache on top.

Not too surprisingly, I liked my choice best, then the Napoleon, then the nut cake. The white chocolate buttercream icing was a bit sweeter than I liked, but it was still awesome.

Fortunately later in the day I did lots and lots of walking (at the outlet mall in Vacaville - but that's still walking) to burn off some of those calories from the delectable trio found at Little Prague. They still have some for you...maybe you'll try that cheesecake and tell me how you liked it.

Little Prague

Bohemian Restaurant

330 G St

Davis, CA 95616

530-756-1107