Hungarian Food
Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 9:12 pm
OK I know this isn't a holiday forum, but I beg the moderators' indulgence, as when I go on holiday one of the most important bits is to try and get a taste for the local cuisine! So I'm going to try and describe Hungarian food and what we had.
First of all, they eat BIG, and they eat RICH! Why oh why the only overweight people we saw were tourists I will never understand, unless they only eat every two days or something!
Our first meal was in perhaps the coolest place I have EVER eaten. I'll try and upload some photos later into the Album. It was called the Feszek Klub and was the dilapidated garden courtyard of a shabby little hotel on a back street. It had three huge trees completely sheltering it (2 chestnuts and a something-else), which had dropped lots of buds and pollen and leaves all over the tables, making it look completely run down and abandoned. Surrounding the courtyard was a slightly raised walkway, with black wrought-iron fence separating walkway from courtyard, and more wrought-iron on the walls around the walkway. In one corner there was something very much like a temple!!! within which was a large cast of a centaur holding up a child (and not really in a sweet way, more like a 'mmm, lunch!' way).
Because we'd got up at 00.30 that day and had travelled all day we ate at about 4pm so the place was deserted apart from one other guy and his mum having coffee. I had a delicious, very traditional (ie loads of paprika!) gulash soup followed by a huge slab of lightly battered pork with a few uninspired veg.
Lunch next day we found a nice pavement cafe called 'Eklectik' where, after two huge rich dinners in two days I decided to have something light, so I had grilled duck with salad. the salad was dressed with RASPBERRY flavoured balsamic vinegar which was very bizarre but yummy. As well as usual salad stuff there was quite a bit of sliced apple. Duck was duck.
During day I discovered that I had found a beer that I liked, which is very very uncommon. Their Hungarian brand 'Dreher' is lovely (ie not too beery!), light and served icecold.
That evening we went to the Noa Grill House . I had a delicious soup to start. It was chicken, honey and lime. Sounds very odd but mmmmmmm. The type of thing, if you were sick you could drink gallons of. main course was another huge slab of meat, beef this time, with very very very very spicy potato wedge/chip type things.
Next lunch we went to this pedestrian street (very spanish-y) where every shop was a restaurant with outdoor eating. We chose a place called Menza which we'd read had an odd menu that appealed to 'the young crowd'. My soup was forgettable, but Sook went for the 'cold cream of strawberry soup' which was very bizarre - strawberry flavour thin cream with a big dollop of strawberry ice cream in it. Main courses nothing special.
Our last meal , because we were feeling very overweight and bloated from all the meat and rich stuff, we went to a sushi bar!
All in all, great food! Very rich, very meaty, and I don't think I saw a green veg. Sook thought most of it was too salty (but most things are for her). Lots and lots of paprika (every tourist shop sold tins of the stuff
).
First of all, they eat BIG, and they eat RICH! Why oh why the only overweight people we saw were tourists I will never understand, unless they only eat every two days or something!
Our first meal was in perhaps the coolest place I have EVER eaten. I'll try and upload some photos later into the Album. It was called the Feszek Klub and was the dilapidated garden courtyard of a shabby little hotel on a back street. It had three huge trees completely sheltering it (2 chestnuts and a something-else), which had dropped lots of buds and pollen and leaves all over the tables, making it look completely run down and abandoned. Surrounding the courtyard was a slightly raised walkway, with black wrought-iron fence separating walkway from courtyard, and more wrought-iron on the walls around the walkway. In one corner there was something very much like a temple!!! within which was a large cast of a centaur holding up a child (and not really in a sweet way, more like a 'mmm, lunch!' way).
Because we'd got up at 00.30 that day and had travelled all day we ate at about 4pm so the place was deserted apart from one other guy and his mum having coffee. I had a delicious, very traditional (ie loads of paprika!) gulash soup followed by a huge slab of lightly battered pork with a few uninspired veg.
Lunch next day we found a nice pavement cafe called 'Eklectik' where, after two huge rich dinners in two days I decided to have something light, so I had grilled duck with salad. the salad was dressed with RASPBERRY flavoured balsamic vinegar which was very bizarre but yummy. As well as usual salad stuff there was quite a bit of sliced apple. Duck was duck.
During day I discovered that I had found a beer that I liked, which is very very uncommon. Their Hungarian brand 'Dreher' is lovely (ie not too beery!), light and served icecold.
That evening we went to the Noa Grill House . I had a delicious soup to start. It was chicken, honey and lime. Sounds very odd but mmmmmmm. The type of thing, if you were sick you could drink gallons of. main course was another huge slab of meat, beef this time, with very very very very spicy potato wedge/chip type things.
Next lunch we went to this pedestrian street (very spanish-y) where every shop was a restaurant with outdoor eating. We chose a place called Menza which we'd read had an odd menu that appealed to 'the young crowd'. My soup was forgettable, but Sook went for the 'cold cream of strawberry soup' which was very bizarre - strawberry flavour thin cream with a big dollop of strawberry ice cream in it. Main courses nothing special.
Our last meal , because we were feeling very overweight and bloated from all the meat and rich stuff, we went to a sushi bar!
All in all, great food! Very rich, very meaty, and I don't think I saw a green veg. Sook thought most of it was too salty (but most things are for her). Lots and lots of paprika (every tourist shop sold tins of the stuff
).
I had to crop them ridiculously small to get them to fit!
), lots of bread, stewed meats and vegetables, potatoes... I think it must be next to impossible to be a vegetarian in Eastern Europe. It's pretty damned hard in this house, that's for sure. 
