The food in Budapest is incredible. All food is ridiculously cheap and great quality. Or maybe that was luck, but we didn't have a bad meal anywhere. Even in the tourist areas, it is a lot cheaper than anything you would pay for over here. We could get a three-course meal for about £10-£12 easy.
On my first night just after arriving, we went for a very late dinner. The first thing I ate was a dish that seemed influenced by Duck and Waffle!! Instead of duck and maple syrup, however, this place used chicken.
Full description: black spaghetti with chicken, almonds and maple syrup. It was sweet, but you know I love sweet. So it was gooood. The white stuff on top was of a prawn cracker type texture that you get from Chinese restaurants. But no where near as good. So I'm not really sure at all what it was.
Sophie ordered a duck dish with some kind of amazing potato cake thing and plum rice.
It was very yummy.
We got there so late, the kitchen had closed and we couldn't order dessert. It's ok though because it meant we had an excuse to order midnight room service!!
You know I wish I could remember the names of some of these places we went to. Unfortunately for me, the language is so strange-looking that I find it near on impossible to remember the names of anywhere we went.
One I can remember, however, is Book Café. Because that's it it's English name!!
From the street, you would have absolutely no idea that this beautiful café is here. It literally is a hidden gem. House on the top floor of a book shop, Book Café is one of the most stunning places I have ever seen.
As you can see, it's not packed with tourists. I don't know if that was due to the times we went or if it really hasn't been discovered by them yet (although it is on Trip Advisor so....).
It had an amazing array of cakes and pastries, sandwiches and patés to choose from, click "read more" to see them!!
The average price of a slice of cake here was just over a £1.
JUST OVER ONE POUND.
LOOK AT THEM!!!!!!
I went for a marzipan and chocolate cake, Sophie went for a walnut cake.
Both really good choices!!
That evening we headed to (this one I wrote down) Kispiac Bistro. It was the tiniest little place in the middle of nowhere. We would never have found it had we not been told about it. It had about 5 tables, one chef we could see cooking our food, and it was so homely and welcoming, I absolutely loved it.
This was my chance to get some proper homely Hungarian food.
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| The kitchen. |
To start we had the BEST duck liver paté I have EVER ever ever had in my life. It was incredible. At first, we laughed when they literally brought an entire loaf of bread out to eat with it...but in actual fact the paté was so good we finished the lot!!
For mains, S had roast pork....
And I had the belly of pork, with some of the most crispy delicious crackling I've ever had.
I was a very happy bunny.
This place shut at 10pm, so we headed out for more cocktails. Unfortunately in the really touristy area.
I wasn't so keen on my super sugary, not very nice drink.
For breakfast the next day we headed to a patisserie that was right next door to our hotel, but again it wasn't rammed with tourists and prices were very reasonable. In fact it was a freaking steal.
I went for a chocolate, marzipan and plum surprise cake. Something a bit different and I've never had anything like it before. Very interesting and delicious!!
S went for a traditional Hungarian cake. I think it had almonds in....but I can't really remember!!
That evening we decided to go a little more modern, to a place called Chess - English name. I remember.
They brought out complimentary glasses of champagne with a lavender syrup and an amouse bouche of smoked salmon with....something. I should really have written this down.
For starter I finally went for the classic. Goulash soup.
Which was very tasty.
S had a cream of asparagus soup I think!!
For main, I went Italian and had a veal and asparagus cannelloni. S had pork with COCOA BEAN DOUGHNUTS and sour cherries.
Those savoury but sweet doughnuts were some of the strangest but yummiest things I've ever tasted in my life!!
Now dessert I hesitate to show you because it ruined a great meal because it was pretty awful. It was supposed to be a pistachio souffle with vanilla cream and apricot jelly.
But as you can see, both of our soufflés aren't soufflés...they're cakes. It looks like something either went wrong or they don't know what a soufflé is and they didn't taste of anything, let alone pistachio. The apricot jelly was....odd. The vanilla cream however was very yummy and the best part of the plate. I don't really like cream, but I ate all of mine.
On my last day I had to go it alone a bit because S was at work.
I went to Book Café again, because I couldn't resist sitting in that stunning building once more.
I'll admit. I may have got excited and went a little over board with what I ordered. But I had money I didn't want to bring back to England!!
SO that little feast consists of: a blackberry and pistachio mousse (UH-MAY-ZING), a rum, chocolate and chestnut heart (so good) and a hazelnut and cinnamon coffee. WHICH IN MY DEFENSE did not say it would come with whipped cream (which I hate and had to scrape off) or that the hazelnut would be basically nutella - so chocolate and hazelnut - at the bottom of the glass.
Then I went to the most expensive restaurant I'd seen all my time in Budapest to burn more of my money. It was called Paris Budapest and it was the hotel in the Sofitel, right on the river front.
The restaurant was of a modern style, lacking in any real personality.
Barrels were a nice touch, but not really in keeping with the ultra modern lines of the rest of the decor. I guess they're trying to relate to all the wines that they stock, but they were a little unnecessary.
I loved however that you could see the pass of the kitchen.
It was interestingly lit, from below and above and I loved all the industrial stainless steel surrounding it.
I ordered some Hungarian wine - very nice actually! - however I didn't appreciate that the maitre d' tried to "suggest" for me the most expensive glass on the menu. Rather obvious. However, all presented very nicely in an interesting glass.
Who would have thought that in Hungary of all places would be where I would have my first taste of molecular gastronomy. I guess it's because I could actually afford it!!
I had a squid ink acquerello risotto with shrimp and piquillos sauce with a shrimp foam. It tasted DIVINE. Huge pieces of shrimp in the risotto and the flavour coming from both the risotto and the foam together was like a dance of angels on my tongue.
For dessert, I ordered what was simply known as "the Snickers". A chocolate mousse with a peanut butter centre. It was my perfect dessert.
Drooling looking at this now.
Feeling well and truly stuffed, they then decided to roll out the petits-fours!!!
The macarons were delightful, but my favourite were the little chocolate and rum balls.
Now tipping over the edge into needing-to-undo-my-jeans territory I paid and left a hearty tip. They had only charged 7% service, which on my bill added up to about £1.50 in tip, which is ridiculous.
I then headed back to the hotel to S after work, before my getting a shuttle back to the airport to catch my flight home. Bit of an awkward moment in the airport where I couldn't shake off a creepy man who I'd met in the shuttle to the airport who just had to be on the same flight as me. I think he was just trying to be friendly, but I was not in the mood. You'd think they'd get the hint from the moody, mumbled replies and a face like thunder, but no. And YES I did try to lose him but unfortunately he found me again. Thankfully Easyjet now have assigned seating. And he wasn't to be seen again!!
What is it with me and airports?!?!!?
Trains and boats from now on.
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