I absolutely love exploring new and different cuisines from all around the world, so when I saw an article in the Prague Post about new Armenian restaurant Noy situated out in Žižkov's farthest reaches, I definitely thought it was worth a trip to the end of the line (trams 1, 9 and 16) to try it out for myself. For no particular reason, though, it took me a good couple of months to finally get round to it, but still -- better late than never here, I suppose...

The exterior to Noy is unassuming, to say the least, sandwiched as it is between a block of residential flats on the one side and the obligatory neighborhood herna bar to the other, with a couple of tacky neon signs up in the windows to advertise its presence in an otherwise relatively bleak area of the city.

Not a problem for me, however -- cozy, unpretentious neighborhood restaurants are just what I like best, provided that the food there is good at the very least.

The interior to Noy was likewise quite modest, but inviting, with a painting of the fabled Mount Ararat over the bar.

Unfortunately there didn't seem to be many bums on seats here on a Saturday night, with our little group appearing to be one of only two or three parties over the course of the evening.

Our table was enthusiastically served by a super-friendly Ukrainian fellow without a word of English and prone to decidedly rapid-fire Czech. I barely understood two words together in his staccato conversational flow, but -- despite the obvious language barrier -- could easily tell that we were experiencing a rare display of actual restaurant hospitality here.

Our new friend suggested we try a glass of Armenian wine (not listed on the menu), which my dining companions for the evening, J and Z, were more than up for sampling as well. Z also ordered an aperitif of Cinzano Rosso at the same time.

The Armenian wine actually turned out to be very viscous and sweet, more like port than red wine as we traditionally know it. Port being my typical Christmas tipple of choice (along with sweet sherry, Amaretto, Baileys, and of course the obligatory glass of breakfast champagne), I rather liked it, though can imagine it maybe wouldn't be to everyone's tastes.

After much deliberation over the menu, we decided to order a set of mixed starters to share between us.

The first of these to come out of the kitchen was the blinchiki, two delicious stuffed mincemeat pancakes served with a couple of spoonfuls of thick tzatziki and a side of pickled vegetables (55 CZK).

These two tasty morsels definitely went down well with all three of us, as did the next dish, smbuk, which consisted of two folded layers of aubergine (eggplant) stuffed with thick yogurt sauce and almond flakes, accompanied by several warm slices of pita and what appeared to be a mashed chickpea patty on the side.

The fluffy pita here definitely outshone the three slices of lavaš flat bread (20 CZK per piece) we'd also somewhat redundantly ordered, which by comparison we found a bit tasteless and dull.

Still, the lavaš was useful enough at least in scooping up portions of our third and final shared starter in the borsch.

I sampled a lot of borsch back in my Moscow/St. Petersburg student days, and in my recollection this one was definitely up there among the heartiest and more flavorsome varieties I have ever had -- almost more a stew than a soup, with chunky pieces of pinkened potato and sizeable hunks of tender beef. Believe me, it smelled like absolute heaven.

By comparison to the sublime starters, I found a couple of the mains ever so slightly disappointing.

My garni arah (145 CZK), for example, consisted of an overly crisped aubergine half filled with rather plain minced meat and accompanied by a disappointingly bland and watery cheese-and-tomato sauce. I definitely wished that I'd gone for the pelmeni stuffed dumplings here instead.

J fared somewhat better with her Adžab-sandals beef-and-aubergine stew with steamed rice (145 CZK), which -- similar to the borsch before it -- was extremely juicy, flavorsome and fresh.

However, the definite hit among the mains on this occasion was Z's chorovac (pictured above), a shashlik-style kebab made with tender pork meat, seasoned in spicy sauce and served atop yet more lavaš bread (165 CZK). Extremely more-ish, to say the least, and I'm not usually one for pork under normal circumstances either.

Served with each of the mains were two sides -- one consisting of egg, radish and spring onion salad, and the other of plain green cabbage and carrot. Nice enough additions to the meal, if nothing particularly outstanding here.

By this point of the dinner, we were all understandably getting on for full, but decided to squeeze in just the one dessert between the three of us, in the shape of the gata, described on the menu as a "stuffed puff-pastry dessert" (30 CZK).

I'm not exactly sure what it was supposed to be stuffed with here, if not fresh air, as essentially the gata consisted of little more than dry bread and a bit of brown sugar. This may well be the authentic Armenian article for all I know, but we'd all been expecting something a little more along the lines of a sticky-sweet baklava-type dish, and this, by comparison, couldn't help but disappoint. Ho hum...

And one thing's for sure -- if dessert hadn't been exactly sweet here, the bill likewise quite definitely put a real sour taste in all of our mouths. The collective cost for all the food came to an eminently reasonable 660 CZK, but, unfortunately for us, with another 1,000-odd added on top for the cost of (as I recall) seven glasses of Armenian wine consumed between us -- ouch. To be fair, I have a feeling the guy did tell us the price initially, but that the true cost somehow got lost in translation between the two parties -- either way, just a heads-up for any would-be Noy visitors out there!

Still, unfortunate misunderstanding over price of wine aside, we'd all really enjoyed our meal at Noy and agreed that it had definitely been worth the trip out to the Žižkov-Hrdlořezy border on its account. Not every choice had been a hit, admittedly, but the vast majority of excellent dishes we'd had over the course of the evening had more than persuaded me, for one, that a second visit was definitely in order at some point to sample Noy's other offerings from their traditional Armenian kitchen.

Next time, though, I will definitely be skipping dessert and sticking firmly to the Müller Thurgau... :-)

Arménská restaurace Noy
Koněvova 251
Prague 3
Phone: (+420) 777 077 372

Prague Directory Listing