On two of my four nights in town, I did break the cap by not stopping at one (or two) extra-crisp Czech pilsners, an overdraft that I feel most beer-worshipping Prague residents would understand and approve. My cousin Michael certainly did, as he took me out for “a” beer on a Monday night that turned into four or five starting at the Prague Beer Museum with its large (but not cheap) selection of Czech beers and wound to U Sudu, an underground labyrinth of high-arched brick ceilings and packed with beer-drinking students, a few of whom we dragged into 20-crown games of foosball. I commented on how the place was surprisingly full late on a weeknight. “You never know what’s going to happen in Prague,” Michael said. “Sometimes Monday nights are the best nights.”

Another night, one beer turned into three at Vinohradsky Pivovar, a highly regarded brew pub (disclaimer: Michael’s friends are part-owners). I loved the pilsner there so much that for the first time I can remember, I voluntarily drank it even though an IPA was available.

I should note that I also occasionally ate well on the cheap. I kept snack spending to a minimum by packing Tatranky bars, old-fashioned chocolate-covered wafers, that cost me five to 10 koruny at the supermarket. Pulling them out of my pocket turned out to be a neat party trick, evoking double-takes from Czechs surprised to see a foreigner eating a childhood favorite. It was more or less how I would react coming across a group of Chinese tourists in Times Square unwrapping Ding Dongs.

Aside from a couple of bargain Vietnamese meals at the market, I stuck with Czech cuisine throughout. A cafeteria-style restaurant, Havelska Koruna, was amazingly located right in Stare Mesto. There’s a slight markup for the location, and a 39-crown add-on if you can’t resist the fruit dumpling topped in creamy sauce, but it was still a great deal. Czechs were tickled I ate there as well. “That’s where we used to go when we were younger and had a hangover,” said Kristyna Pekarkova a Prague native who I met through Michael. She is 24.