New Intern Tips III

OK apparently there is a common misconception about the previous postings on this blog which leads to an even worse misconception that I am an alcoholic (which is so very NOT true by the way). I admit that I never wrote useful posts for example how to pick a gym, announcement of the Grand Reunion Hawaii 2010/2011, or Club Andel hosting heads-up rule like other contributors did, all you find here from me is drunken stories and photos (someone sees the purpose of blogs are a) brag about your travels and b) get more hits. There should be c) brag about your drinking, I might add), but I did co-write something that everyone agrees to be "sooo true that it's not even funny". Alright, so much for the weak argument. After a lazy weekend of walking around in the beautiful sunshine, picking on Gokkie and smelling dog shit lying on the grass in Kampa Park, I decided to start trying to be useful.

So here we go, New Intern Tips Episode III – pick a tearoom in Prague. (Nice try, eh?)

All the Praha people who know me, I can see the big evil grin on your face right now, because I know you know what I'm going to talk about. Yes, shisha (hookah, nargile, waterpipe, however you call it).

Most of the tearooms in Prague serve shisha which fits well in the relaxing setting and chilling style of this city. Some of them don't, meaning pure tea, no smoking, no pivo, which is pretty cool too but they don’t fall in the topic of the day sorry (I had you fooled for a second with the bold headline didn't I!).

Siva

My personal favorite in Prague that so far gets the most hits from the Andel crew. Siva has four tearooms in Prague in different styles:

Siva in Old Town Square, Middle East style, free belly dance show, two floor place with a small private room downstairs. Good tea. Has the most complete shisha tobacco collection in town (even pistachio, coconut, choco-mint, you name it). Has a good tea+shisha shop inside the venue where you can equip yourself very well. Closes relatively late (23:00 during the week and 23:30 during weekend, good for a pre-party cup of tea and shisha). Cons: unimpressive food, slow service (waiters are probably smoking away themselves so sometimes you may even have to help yourself to the coals), a bit far from Andel (Add: Masna 8, closest Metro stop: Namesti Republiky). Shisha price: 98 Kc (3 EUR).

Siva in Namesti Miru, decorate in a more Asian style with three separated room, lots of couches to pass out on when you feel lazy because that's probably what the atmosphere will make you. Good tea. Closes late (24:00) on weekends. Less packed than the one in Old Town Square, so quieter too. From experience I figure their shisha runs better than the one in Old Town Square, cheaper too: 89 Kc for one.

The other two tearooms of Siva are both in Praha 7, never tried, but keen to check out.

[Update] Siva in Namesti Republiky is ruled out. Siva boycotting has officially started since last night. "Sorry, one shisha, one coal. You can't add coals.... Just tourists." WHAT THE FUTSK!

Dobra Cajovna

Probably the largest tearoom franchise in the Czech Republic and has the best service and interior design. I ran into their shop in Cesky Krumlov and it was immediately my favorite tearoom. The Dobra Cajovna tearoom in Prague has a very favorable location: Vaclavske Namesti. The flip side though is it closes early: 21:30 on weekdays. So if you want to chill out after dinner or work this place will make you rush.

[Update] It turns out that the Dobra Čajovna in Vaclavske Namesti doesn't serve shisha actually. But the setting is sweet.

Cajovna Daruma

First of all, it's close to Andel, very close. A small room with carpeted and cushioned floor space looks very comfy and cosy. However the problem of being small is it's obviously pretty packed all the time. Their shisha is slightly more expensive: 115 Kc. But I like all those Tibetan motet flags hanging from the ceiling.

There's also one Café/tearoom at the corner of Al, Richie & Neil's place but the setting isn't cozy. What add points though are the good food, friendly waiter, and a mysterious shisha tobacoo called "exotic".

Dahab is famous for good food and good belly dance show but it's too luxurious for us. We are cheap. Plus they didn't even want to spare us a piece of charcoal last time when Mix Master was in town and all we wanted was to light up his Egyptian shisha in Andel. At last it was Siva who did the trick for us. Salut!

If you find the tips helpful I'm glad you read through the post and proved that I can be useful.
If you know more of good shisha places in Prague I'm all ears.
If you also enjoy shisha or chilling out over a cuppa tea you are more than welcome to join us in our routine Wednesday shisha night (you need something to carry on with for the week! Drop me an email or leave a comment with your email address to sign up and I’ll keep you updated).
If you just started smoking shisha my suggestion is don't indulge yourself. I know I can’t talk. But again, Gabriele, no you are not supposed to see stars and circles when you close your eyes nor can you fly after a shisha session. So I'm glad you enjoyed it, but you need a break. :)

Bolero, Masarykovo Nadrazi 12. In Alice's words, "they haven't decided what kind of restaurant they wanna be. It's a Mexican-Thai restaurant with shisha; salsa and karaoke on week days and Belly dance on weekends". It turned out last night that no karaoke was actually going on apart from the disturbing music video playing on the wall in a tearoom with oriental setting; they ran out of tea pots to serve so they had to recycle half of our pots so that they serve tea to the other half, wtf; and their shisha costs 120 Kc while one of the pipe keeps falling off the base, wtf again. Good thing that both hookah's worked very well which won back all the points. Our good ol' hookah never fails us, huh?

Mystická Čajovna, Muchova 4, Praha 6. Small place, but SWEEEEEET service! Nice nice nice tea room boy!