Vietnamese Bistro Nhà hai hành (The House of the Two Onions), Prague
The bistro Nhà hai hành ("The House of the Two Onions") in Prague's Smíchov is, without a doubt, one of the city's still under-the-radar Vietnamese food gems. The bistro calls itself "punk" and the decor lives up to it, right down to the tables papered over with advertising flyers. Behind all that playfulness, though, are years of experience - head chef Tomáš Cibulka and his Vietnamese wife Phương Anh Trần. Tomáš Cibulka spent six years at La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise (which holds a Michelin star) - and that is in fact where he met his wife. The two of them later spent some time in Vietnam, and the food there has stayed with them ever since.
Nhà hai hành focuses on home-style Vietnamese cooking - the dishes Vietnamese families like to make for themselves. Simple recipes, but wonderful to eat. The bistro serves them family style, "mâm", which means everyone at the table shares. The food arrives in a spread of little bowls along with side dishes, herbs, sauces and vegetables, and everyone helps themselves to whatever they feel like at that moment. Eating this way is enormous fun - something is always happening at the table and the meal turns into a shared experience.
My last visit to Nhà hai hành was with three good friends, for a hot pot built around fish and seafood. Hot pot, also known as steamboat, is an Asian way of cooking in which the soup simmers right on your dining table. The pot can be split in two - in our case one half held a spicy broth, the other a milder one. You drop whatever takes your fancy into the bubbling broth, and a few minutes later you fish it back out with a ladle.
We went for the special seafood version. Out came a small army of colorful bowls: pieces of fish, sliced squid, fish tofu, shrimp-filled dumplings, shrimp, crab sticks, mushrooms, several more kinds of fish and shrimp dumplings, slices of beef, clams, sliced fennel, a salad with perilla and banana flower, and dried instant noodles to finish.
Practically everything comes to the table raw and you cook it in the broth yourself. Thin slices of beef are done in seconds, other ingredients need a couple of minutes. You also get a set of sauces to season what you have just cooked. And the broth keeps getting better as more and more goes into it. If you still have room at the end, finish the soup with the instant noodles - that is the moment it tastes best of all.
To drink, you can order bottled Saigon beer, Bia Saigon - a 0.33 l bottle set us back 55 CZK (2.20 EUR). We also had a big thermos of the unusual artichoke tea (trà atiso) for 50 CZK (2 EUR). I loved it, but for the friends I was eating with the flavor was a step too far. We tried the excellent lemonades too: "ugly fruit" (nước sấu), lychee (nước vải) and mango (nước xoài). A glass of each came to 45 CZK (1.80 EUR).
In photos the interior can look wildly odd - the walls are covered in phone numbers and tangles of electrical cable hang from the ceiling. Inside, though, the atmosphere is genuinely welcoming and somehow it all works together. The staff are unbelievably kind and attentive. They will happily talk you through the dishes you don't know and tell you how long each ingredient needs in the hot pot.
The hot pot has to be ordered at least 48 hours ahead; the fish version came to 590 CZK (23.60 EUR) per person, the basic one to 390 CZK (15.60 EUR). You can of course also order from the regular menu. Given what lands on your table for that money, the value is hard to beat.
If you want to eat in a way you won't find anywhere else and enjoy authentic Vietnamese home cooking while you do it, Nhà hai hành is worth the trip. When we came in on a Saturday evening every table was taken, so it is definitely worth booking ahead.
Bon appétit!
Pohlreich's Best Restaurant
Nhà hai hành took part in Pohlreich's Best Restaurant, a Czech television show with an exceptionally strong line-up. I visited about three weeks before the fifth episode aired, in which the bistro went up against the Vietnamese restaurant Dian.
Nhà hai hành
