dijon baked chicken stuffed with banana

I was overcome with curiosity ... “Dijon Baked Chicken Stuffed with Banana,” read the chalked menu board outside the restaurant of Hotel Constance, a quaint little inn tucked away in one of Prague’s many secret passageways around the castle and Old Town. I had discovered it one afternoon as I was searching for the U.S. Embassy.

“What do you think Dijon Baked Chicken Stuffed with Banana tastes like?” I asked one morning during a break in between classes to anyone who was listening.

Some faces screwed up, some raised their eyebrows, and some combined the two. But the general consensus was that no one could imagine what it could possibly taste like.

“Let’s try it,” said Jennifer.

I find that’s how I get involved in most things. I will be sitting there, and a thought will slip through my lips making itself public. Soon after, the thought blows up into an all out event. “I think I’ll go see Phantom of the Opera movie this weekend,” soon becomes ten people sharing a row in the theater and then everyone heading to Bennigan’s later to grab a bite to eat.

So Jennifer and I decided that today would be the day. We had been let out of class earlier than usual, so we hopped a tram across the river to Hotel Constance. Our tastebuds were working themselves into a tizzy of anticipation. Just imagine ... our sense of taste was going to experience something entirely new. It was like a shepherd from the hills of Kazakhstan seeing the color florescent pink for the first time. Or a couch potato in Madison, Wisconsin watching a National Geographic special hearing the click-grunt language of an African tribesman for the first time ... It’s sensory overload.

If I were a food critic for the Prague Post, my review of the dish might read,

... entirely unexpected and altogether pleasing ...