Best of Budapest

We rarely accept invitations, but we like the person, Csaba Harmath who is behind the concept of Terminál, since he helped us launch our blog with useful comments and advice. So we said yes to a lunch together. No one else can be as embarrassing in a restaurant. He can spot the most insignificant problem and then immediately brings it up. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to see him in his own restaurant: what kind of place is run by a person who pays attention to every bit of detail and does he notice problems when he is the boss?

I got the answer to the second question in no time: in the first five minutes, Csaba made the staff run around several times and criticized the food more than an average restaurant manager would in the first year. I told him I would certainly not want to be one of his employees, but I would be happy to eat at his place any time because the menu he ordered for us, which lacked any sense in terms of quantity, was almost perfect all the way. Its quality is unquestionable, but at the same time it doesn’t set such a high standard that a person needs to be educated to appreciate it.

Here are the courses.

Strawberry soup with basil and mozzarella: it sounds quite absurd, I know. But it’s awesome. It’s like spring, fresh, both salty and sweet. I would never have ordered it myself, but if you trust me just a little, you’ll taste it as soon as you can. Strawberry season is coming. (HUF 1190 Ft)

Duck consommé with its liver (HUF 1490):

Goulash soup from beef cheek: recently I had a wonderful goulash at La Maréda in Győr and I wondered how the goulash cooked in Terminál would compare to it. I was even more curious to see how Csaba makes this dish after a year or so ago he meticulously analyzed the goulash in a downtown restaurant and explained why every single ingredient was bad in it. The meat was hard and from the wrong cut, the vegetables were overcooked. He explained in detail all his objections to the waiter who was adjusting his weight from one leg to the other. I wonder how things are in that restaurant now, but Terminál’s goulash is really good: the beef cheek is tender and adequately fatty, the vegetables are all tender but crisp, and the heat is just enough so you don’t want to add anything. Five stars. (HUF 1490)

Homemade ripened beef sirloin: a likeable, well-composed and light plate, but my favorite was something else.

Chicken Caesar salad: Csaba loves it and it’s really good, but it only excited me a little because... (HUF 2390)

...the potato salad arrived with green asparagus, smoked trout and boiled egg. Now this one was really fantastic. If the only thing you want to have in the city center is a fish salad, that’s what you should try. Especially for HUF 1980.

Veal stew with curd cheese noodles: I’m running short of words now and I’m saving the best ones for my favorites. Suffice it to say that there’s nothing to criticize: it’s clearly a stew with all the necessary flavors and substance but for some reason it’s lighter than usual (HUF 2790).

Supreme chicken with spring vegetables: those of you who like chicken will love it. I don’t like chicken (HUF 2890).

Mascarpone homemade pasta with three kinds of peas and prosciutto. DEAR GOD. I’m usually not crazy about pasta either. For me something that did not walk on four feet is not food. This one had ham in it, but that’s not what sells it. It’s a fantastic, fresh, crisp and tender, exciting and perfect dish. (HUF 2490)

Rib-eye steak (at this point I began to feel sick): quite good. The meat was tender and enjoyably fatty (had it been a bit more underdone, it would have been even better), taking over the flavors of the vegetables and thus creating a Mediterranean impression. I would never have thought there was anything like an overall Mediterranean impression but after having the rib eye I immediately realized that it was real (HUF 5980).

Elderberry and gooseberry mille-feuille: compared to how much I struggled with spelling the French words, it wasn’t unforgettable. Ok, but it was the least significant item on the menu (HUF 1290).

Curd cheese dumplings with soured cream: I liked this one a lot more, but after tasting it, Csaba jumped up and started explaining something to the staff with a serious face. I have no idea what made him so upset about this pleasant, likeable dessert (HUF 1290).

Lemon cake with lemon kompot: a worthy counterpart to the mascarpone homemade pasta. A perfect, powerful, exciting and fresh dessert. Whatever you have beforehand, close the menu with this one (HUF 1290).

They stuffed a total of 13 courses into me. No wonder that now, as I’m writing this article, five hours after lunch I still cannot think of eating. Well, I can, but it hurts. Of course, I did not devour everything; by the end of lunch I was just picking at the food. The portions were perfect, three courses are more than enough. The menu offers such a wide selection and the meals are so playfully delicious that in some sense Terminal fills a gap in the city center. I wonder what Csaba would say if he just dropped by as an independent critic. I’m sure he would find fault with everything (that’s what he actually did), but this place passed my test easily.

You should account for HUF 6000 per head for three courses and wine.

TERMINÁL Étterem & Bár 
1051 Budapest
Erzsébet tér 13.

Translation provided by Helpers Business and Immigration Services. Find us at www.helpers.hu

You may find the original article here.

So, here's our top list of fast food places in Budapest, in no particular order, as they are all outstanding. Let's see what we have.

Bors: you can never grow tired of their sandwich called brain dead. Brains, jalapeño, crispy baguette. They’re constantly experimenting, so you have little chance of getting bored by a particular dish. The soups are excellent and the prices are affordable. The only problem is that if I realize at half past 10 pm that I would like to eat something, they are not an option because they close around 10 pm and run home in a cowardly manner to escape the drunken hordes.

Zing: our favorite hamburger. When we first tried it last summer, we would not have thought we would be waiting in the queue at their van for a hamburger in the cold of December, and as far as I know, the owners had different plans too. And there you have it: regardless of the weather, we certainly grab a bite to eat at this place once or twice a month. Well, if it’s really cold, the roll gets cold by the time you get it, which is not good, but these days it’s not really a problem.

W35: our second favorite hamburger with a great price-value ratio and excellent sauces. And I guess you can’t get a kilogram of good hamburger for a cheaper price if you want good quality. By this what I want to say is that the burgers here are not just good, they’re huge. Now they’re selling their wonderful burgers at two different locations, so you can take your pick.

La Delizia: after all this juicy meat, it’s nice to try some dry pastries. We first checked out Delizia four years ago and ever since have been crazy about the best cookies in town. The prices are affordable, almost cheap, and no matter how great your grandma is, she will never make anything like it. There is no better location if you just want to sit with someone in a romantic atmosphere for about an hour.

Once you’ve had enough romance, let’s go to our favorite pho place, Funky Pho, which we had been trying to check out for months. Eventually, when it opened, we immediately invaded and wrote an article on it pointing out how good it was. Soon afterwards, it received various prizes, including the Gault&Millau award, which is quite cool, so now it’s an officially good place for eats.

La Taste! A fantastic place that after an already superb launch greatly improved: when we tested it, we were knocked out by their original and innovative Middle Eastern pies, which they recently managed to further improve by making them even more authentic with more exciting flavors.

El Rapido: this place doesn’t need much introduction. It’s a benchmark, like the popular Hungarian book Egri Csillagok (known in English as Eclipse of the Crescent Moon), everybody knows it, and if it’s not compulsory, it’s a lot of fun. El Rapido is not compulsory, but it’s a super Mexican fast food place before, during or after getting drunk in Kazinczy Street.

The other new favorite in the city center: in Pista bá (Uncle Pista) what happens to the sandwiches is just what they’re longing for: they’re turned into brilliant dishes in sandwich heaven. At this location, they cook the pork for half a day if that’s what they think is right, experimenting with the ingredients and techniques all the time to make sure that the final result is excellent.

The Butcher's Kitchen: another trendy sandwich place where they focus on quality as much as in Pista Bá. The only difference is that here they more freely experiment with the flavors, making their sandwiches irresistible. You should try both places to decide which one you prefer. You will like this one once, and the other one next time.

Sonkapult (Ham Counter): if you wanted to go to Italy to eat something good, but you don’t have a week and a couple hundred thousand forints, it’s enough to visit this place since both the style and the flavors are what you are looking for. Super eats, trendy furniture and a five-star atmosphere every summer.

So that you can then undo the healthiness with a brutal and heavy waffle topped with whipped cream, which is still nonetheless refreshing, contrary to all expectations, and especially so if you buy it at Ferenciek Square. Disgusting, but great!

2Spaghi: we are jumping across the continents, but that’s the way it should be. Who else would you buy Italian stuff from if not from Italians, right? They continue to speak broken Hungarian, but they also continue to offer a pasta at which you wouldn’t turn up your nose in Naples either.

And the same is true for the pizza: it’s simply impossible to make a good one using domestic ingredients and techniques. The best proof for this is that although Budapest is full of pizzerias, Pizza Mamma Sofia with its genuine Italian ingredients and Italian owners was the first to bring the experience of a slim, tender yet crispy street pizza to this city.

Staying with the pizza: Pizzica, a paraphrase of Mamma Sofia, or the other way round, also serves great pizzas, only in a totally different way. Here the dough is thick and drowned with toppings, but not with an unambitious canned liquid. The toppings are full of great, boldly composed ingredients. Fabulous!

What they focus on here is this: cheap, filling and good chow made from acceptable ingredients. El Bigote didn’t want to come up with a too serious concept. After all, that’s what a fast food place should be all about: you eat what you get and it won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth, you won’t get sick in an hour, and you won’t die in twenty years. This place perfectly meets these expectations.

Budapest Bägel: that was a big jump. Sometimes we make a bad choice. Although the avocado sandwich I recently had was pretty poor, they generally make very good bagels and stuff them so much that it’s hard to eat them and one is nearly enough to fill you. This explains the somewhat high prices. The place has a great atmosphere, perfect for an evening or late afternoon get-together. If I’m not mistaken, you can get a tattoo upstairs. Bagels and tattoos, what else can you ask for?

Fánk: the quality is not high-end, but it’s still a great new place in Újlipótváros that specializes in doughnuts. It should open a bit earlier, but otherwise you can’t have any objections: good design, a nice box for takeaway and, most importantly, a lot of different doughnuts of the quality you’d expect. You have no chance of leaving this place under eight thousand calories.

Finomító Kantin: What a great hamburger in Buda! I’ve been to this place several times with Ádám and we were always amazed by the great, creamily melting and harmonious hamburgers. If you come from a part of the world where the hamburger is unknown or you’ve had an aversion to hamburgers so far, this is where you should start your journey into hamburger world.

Kerkyra: our favorite gyros in the city center. Special flavors, special sauces, enthusiastic, nice and friendly staff who tell you everything about the secrets of gyros. It’s worth popping in even if you’re just sick and tired of the daily routine and want to take a half hour break from the endlessly busy day. And they have a double gyros which is IMPOSSIBLE to eat in one sitting.

Street Tacos: good ingredients, homemade corn tortillas, Mexican chef, good proportions. This place puts the Mexican kitchen into a street food context. It’s one of the few good places in its category.In the meantime, it has closed.

Kyros gyros: for me, this is the place which is the closest to the original puritan gyros. If you just want to see how the pros make it, if you want to taste good quality basic ingredients, this is where you should go. You won’t regret it.

Bubba's Water Grill: I don’t recommend eating there, but you can get food to go, mostly some fine fresh fish, in a nice box. If you have come this far, leave the fish & chips varieties alone and choose a grilled meal, which is among the best in Budapest.

Finally, here are the locations on a map: 

 Leave a comment if we have missed anything.

Translation provided by Helpers Business and Immigration Services. Find us at www.helpers.hu

You may find the original article here.

ZONA has become one of Hungary’s best restaurants without lengthy preparations in advance. The interior spaces are huge, for this is not a small, intimate restaurant, but a minimalist, upper middle-class gastro cathedral. The service is perfect and the clientele is international. The place is full by 9 pm: we didn’t see any vacant tables. They must have all been invited bloggers.

Now the dinner menu: five courses for 10,000. This price might look a bit frightening at first, but let’s put the place into context: Costes’s degustation menu costs HUF 25,000 (5 courses). Onyx’s is HUF 25,500 (6 courses). ZONA offers approximately the same number of courses for much less and by the end of the dinner we were so full that we could hardly wait to get home and get rid of all our clothes. Even my watch strap was too tight by then.

Let’s run through the courses: while waiting, we had some wonderful homemade bread with olive oil. Only those who have never been to a presentation given by an oil sommelier are surprised by this. I have, and received enough surprises then for a lifetime (we drank the oil from a glass. A glass!).

Then came some scallops with cucumbers, which was a great welcoming dish.

As we were waiting for the dinner, we ordered a plate of ham and a plate of cheese. The waiters are familiar with international gastro trends. We had to twice repeat that yes, we know the usual order of presentation, but we still want these courses at the beginning and not at the end of the dinner. Finally we got our plates. I wasn’t able to take a good picture of the cheese, although it was exciting, especially the two types of goat cheese, but nothing can compete with the cheese plates served at Laci?Konyha! and Kistücsök (we have to admit that neither of them are available in the same form anymore).

The best ham in the world, Joselito was perfect though: a marbled, fatty, well-stored meat, freshly sliced after 32 months of ripening, with artichoke:

And now the first official course: Jerusalem artichoke consommé with mashed chestnut. This had such a kick to it that I got the other kick from the Michelin star folded in the Gault&Millau cover. What this full-bodied soup did with the restrained chestnut is something the best restaurants in the world could be proud of.

And that was not all, because the next part of the menu was also built on contrasts. Saint Jacob scallops, lobster sauce with noodles, peas with bacon. The first contrast we had to fight with was between our general visual expectations regarding food and the noodles which looked like a zombie earthworm and responded like an earthworm when pressed. For a moment we really had to overcome nausea, but as soon as the noodle got into our mouth we viewed it as food. Fine food. However, the real excitement was the scallops and bacon pairing. The poor Saint Jacob is being added to everything these days. It was served with sausage in tapasbár, which we reviewed last week, and here it was served with bacon. It always receives a more full-bodied partner, which is amusing since we are dealing with a terribly expensive, tender food with a nearly neutral flavor. Logically there’s no point in serving it with sausage or bacon because it will be overwhelmed by them. But the Saint Jacob scallop suddenly gains some meaning by changing and highlighting the flavor of the food it is served with.

The quail egg with lecsó (“Hungarian ratatouille”) was more like a cheerful transition, although I’ve never had such a perfectly prepared egg before and everything else on the plate was great. Funnily enough, now that I’m writing this article, the flavors are coming back clearly even a week later, which very rarely happens to me.

The next dish was the theoretical main course, although in a degustation menu it doesn’t really make sense: venison rib with egg barley and eryngii mushrooms. I developed a like for it when it was recommended since the waiter noted that the chef is not WILLING to cook it all the way through, so if we don’t like that we should have cod instead.

No, we don’t mind, we love it! And we got it:

A beautiful, harmonious course. What looks like chocolate cream on the meat is actually fowl jus, and the thing on the right is the mushroom. A perfect, beautiful composition, although I missed the special twist that the previous courses had.

Of the two desserts we ordered the chocolate was modest to the fourth power, while the raspberry soup was newly rebellious so it was easy to be enthusiastic about it.

So, the entire menu with the wines, a cheese platter and a ham platter for two was about HUF 25-30,000. It would be foolish to deny that’s a lot. But it is also part of the story that you would be lucky to get a dinner for one at this price at the other two restaurants that offer the same quality, and they are not swimming in profits either: it takes a lot of money to build and run a place like this, to purchase these ingredients and to pay such well-qualified employees, so in all likelihood ZONA is currently creating a massive loss (which Baldaszti doesn’t seem to mind in the catering industry anyway). So, check out ZONA as long as it exists or before they brutally raise the prices – since you cannot find this quality for this amount anywhere else in Hungary.

ZONA
Budapest, Lánchíd utca 7/9
Tel: +36 30 422 5981

Translation provided by Helpers Business and Immigration Services. Find us at www.helpers.hu

You may find the original article here.

Master Wang’s restaurants rarely appear promising at first glance. The locations at Telepy and Gizella Streets looked pretty much like any other Chinese cookshop. Every piece of furniture looked cheap and was cheap indeed. The headquarters at Gizella Street functioned as a cookshop at lunchtime, offering the evening meals at a fraction of the regular price, but they were lukewarm and apparently not freshly made. Nonetheless, the quality was still better than many other “some sort of dragon” eateries for the same price.

Then Mr. Wang decided to close both restaurants. The one in Telepy Street was closed for good and, according to some internal sources, sold to a friend. One of our readers accidentally sampled the new owner’s ambitions and said you should not expect the former quality. Master Wang focused solely on the place in Gizella Street, where reconstruction work started at the beginning of the summer 2013. The renovated place opened a few months later. And the changes are baffling.

First, take a look at the outside of the building.

And how it looked like just a few years ago.

Look at the interior:

This is how it looked before:

It’s no longer a buffet, nor is it like the golden kitsch display of the Taiwan restaurant. This is a modern, trendy Chinese restaurant. In my opinion, it has created its own category in Budapest.

We went out with Évi and two friends for dinner to see if they had anything new in the kitchen. That was when we were struck by another surprise: the waiter. He had been working there as long as Master Wang himself. Instead of the “I wear whatever is at hand” kind of clothing we had seen before, he was wearing a black shirt, black trousers and pointed black shoes. Obviously, it was his uniform and suited him well.

The new menu is more or less the same, with a few new dishes. Of course, I ordered something new, chicken with water chestnuts, homemade noodles with vegetables, and wood ear mushroom salad, which is a must.

Then came the third surprise: the serving. New plates with a Darth Maul-like head. Heavy chopsticks, golden for men and silver decorated for women. And the dishes arrived with a new presentation as well, for example the Beijing onion chicken:

Wood ear mushroom salad:

Freshly fried meat dumplings (these are actually boiled and then fried a bit)

The fried noodles are still damn good:

The sweet and sour chicken is served with pears, kiwi and tomatoes, and take a look at the decoration on the left. You could not imagine anything like this here before:

And the new main course, the chicken with water chestnuts and vegetables:

It is served while still boiling, with a fire burning beneath it as you begin to help yourself to it. What can I say? It’s my new favorite. Every single bite is a bit different, one is dominated by the meat, another one by bamboo and vegetables, and yet in another one you bite into a Sichuan pepper. It’s rich and varied, which is why I come here often.

And now the fourth surprise, which is not so pleasant: The prices.

It’s understandable that they raised their prices, since now the place is more exclusive and one where you can safely take your date or business partner for a great meal. The presentation of the dishes themselves are also more civilized and extras are added to each course (see the sweet and sour chicken). Yet the prices were not raised equally.

Let me be a little unfair now: I’m going to compare the current prices to those two years ago. On one hand, because I have the old menu saved, and on the other, because there was already a painful price hike last year. I wanted to see the two together as I was a regular here two years ago. I was curious to know what the difference was between now and then.

The good news is that some prices are the same. One example is the knuckle roll á la Wang: it’s still HUF 1890.

The prices of most dishes, however, were raised by 20-30%. The famous homemade Wang fried noodles went from HUF 1290 to HUF 1590, which is 23%. I think it’s still a good price.

The rice portions became smaller. You may have to order more than one for one person, although its price is more than twice as much. But we have to admit that the quality of the rice is noticeably better.

What really hurts is the wood ear mushroom salad. It’s a must. Two years ago it cost HUF 890, but now it’s HUF 1590. A light, weightless starter for the price of what a main course used to cost. I was sorry to see that.

For us a typical feast for two looks like this: meat dumplings, wood ear mushroom salad, one main course (say Beijing onion chicken), Wang fried noodles and rice. This used to cost HUF 4880 two years ago, but now it’s HUF 7350. This is a 50% increase in two years.

I broke the numbers down because you will also notice the jump and begin to count. I wanted to save you the trouble. Despite all this, I will continue to be a regular here. Actually, I will be more happy to come here than before. I’ll be glad to take my relatives here without having to find any excuse why I chose this place. We can get a near-premium quality service that we are not used to in a Chinese restaurant in Budapest. And finally, one more important thing. The cooks had a few months to rest at home so now they are good-tempered, which you can feel in the dishes they make.

Wang’s restaurant has become damn good. Period.

You can get a lunch menu between noon and 3 pm. The old self-service counter was replaced by an open kitchen where you can watch the cooks making your dishes in front of you. The prices are really fair during this time with HUF 1300-1600 for one or two courses. By the way, the open kitchen will stay for the evening too. The noodle chef will be making the homemade stuff here.

Translation provided by Helpers Business and Immigration Services. Find us at www.helpers.hu

You may find the original article here.

When approaching the gate of Élesztő, a quiet murmur reveals that we are at the right place. Turning in, we find ourselves in an inner yard that looks like a ruin pub with a lot of greenery, adequately quiet music and a very long line. The thirsty masses.

Still, we are served in ten minutes. We can spot one of Élesztő’s owners, Dániel Bart behind the beer taps. He is the author of the Folyékony kenyér blog (Liquid Bread blog) and the organizer of Főzdefest. For those of you who don’t know the story: he started as a wine drinker and was later asked to write Gösser’s sponsor blog so he became absorbed in beer. So much so that shortly afterward he declared a beer revolution, organized Főzdefest, a beer festival, embraced the cause of craft beers and now he serves everything in a glass worthy of attention (on the left in the picture below).

As we look above the counter, we discover why there is so much excitement:

These are draft beers. 17 different kinds (by Saturday only 16), which in itself is puzzling, and all of them are specialties. Old beer, sour cherry beer, brutal, millet and elderberry, you can get all sort of beers here. For now, they are all Hungarian brands, but barrels will be coming from London soon.

We get our beers, a glass of Hopfanatic, Splash and Távoli Galaxis (Distant Galaxy). As we walk to the rear, we notice a semi-dark inner room with armchairs on the right. From here you can go down to an especially scary cellar to the restrooms with the lingering smell of fresh paint still in the air.

You can feel the residual atmosphere of the former Tündérgyár (Fairy Factory) everywhere, which the owner has yet to transform from one of getting high and lying about to one of drinking beer in a fun atmosphere. Apparently they did not have enough money for it, which is later confirmed by Dániel: the entire budget can be found on invoices from DIY stores.

However, the place will still undergo changes. As shown on the invitation card, the owners want to set up a gastro boulevard with the yard in the middle turned into a walking street with several rooms on the right and the left. They will be expanding in the hundred year-old building step by step, which was originally built as a glass-blowing plant, but later it was used as a parking lot and nobody cared much about its condition.

There will be a beer tasting and brewery school, a theatre hall, lectures, an apartment restaurant upstairs where you can also stay, beer dinners downstairs, and next to the entrance a coffee bar is opening shop.

And now the beers. I started with a Hopfanatic Splash, which is a light lager, but you shouldn’t think of tasteless watered-down beers. This is an exciting beer rich in flavor, produced by a brewery recently opened in Kiskunhalas.

But what really astonished me was Távoli Galaxis. This beer made by the Legenda Brewery just recently received the Grand Champion title of the 2nd Hungarian Homemade Beer Competition, and accordingly, it’s an incredibly exciting drink. First, the scent of elderberry hits you, and with the first sip you begin to sense intense aromas and a full body, but it’s not an offensive bitterness, it’s a sip that you can bite on and something easily drinkable and pleasant. The aftertaste has its own afterlife, staying in your mouth for a long time with its sweet, pleasant aromas. Brilliant. By the time I finished my mug, I was told that they had run out of it. Not only for that evening, but for good, since that was all the brewery produced. That’s what is meant by craft beer: a brewer makes a few hundred liters that people drink quickly and that’s it. Then comes the begging, like please make some more of it, because it was so good.

I’m sending the same message to Zoltán Róth, the brewer of this beer.

So, Élesztő is a great place, the beers are wonderful and the atmosphere is pleasant. The interior could do with some revamping, but if the plans materialize, this will cease to be a problem. You can see the prices yourselves. If you don’t buy the cheapest mass-produced beer in the city center but something a bit more expensive, you’ll end up paying the same. The experience, however, is light-years away from what you can get there.

After the test Csaba and I went over to Léhűtő as well. In principle it’s the same kind of venue, the drinks are of the same quality, and Dániel Bart is also one of the founders, but it’s still different. It’s a few meters away from the busy Gozsdu Court and located in a basement, but after Élesztő I wasn’t in the mood to sit down here. It was quiet, with a sense of stuffiness, and the candles didn’t manage to convince me that I should stay.

I still recommend this place to those who come around here. You can get seven kinds of craft beer on tap, and although the prices are a bit higher than in Élesztő, you don’t need to leave the center of the city’s nightlife to do so.

Élesztő
1094, Budapest, Tűzoltó utca 22.
Opening hours: Monday through Sunday, 15:00 – 03:00
elesztohaz@gmail.com

Léhűtő
Budapest, Holló utca 12-14.

Translation provided by Helpers Business and Immigration Services. Find us at www.helpers.hu

You may find the original article here.