Best of Budapest

The Budapest Music Center is one of the most exciting experiments in recent years. A none-too-original neo-classical building was renovated in such a way that it was given a new sense of balance and purpose. The building’s corner was removed and in its place a glass and metal structure was installed. The past was preserved, but the renovators left their mark, leaving a much more exciting building behind.

I’ve explored the building on the inside and the concert hall is especially amazing, but that’s not what I want to write about here. This location is also where the Opus Jazz Club was given space: every Thursday, Friday and Saturday they organize jazz concerts. It’s a bar, restaurant and concert venue all in one, in a desirable and pleasant environment: the dream of all jazz enthusiasts.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of jazz myself, which is why I only checked the place out recently.

The Kriszta Pocsai Quintet took the stage the night I went. I knew nothing about them in advance, but my friend Misi, who’s a huge music fan, convinced me to join him in the hopes that it would be good. We arrived around 8:30 pm, half an hour before the show was due to start, and were among the first people to be there aside from the employees.

The place has a really pleasant atmosphere. The tables are a combination of auditorium and bistro. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, for the music is not meant to just provide a backdrop - it’s intended to accompany your food and conversations. Everyone pays attention to the artists, while waiters will only rarely attend to the tables in the front row, so as not to disturb the musicians.

The prices were a nice surprise, since I was expecting it to be far more expensive than it was.

For around a thousand forints you can get “concert bites” that consist of feta melon salad, tuna pâté or fried squash, with mains starting around 1250 forints. Among the mains, you can find lecsó (similar to ratatouille) with Debrecen sausage.

The good kind.

You can also order a steak, but that’s going to cost you a fair amount more. The kitchen appears to offer quite a wide variety of options. A plus is their selection of great craft beers, among them Ogre and Fekete for 650 forints from the Szent András Brewery.

The concert, by the way, was great. Kriszta Pocsai sang with her eyes closed as József Barcza-Horváth provided the bass behind her, while Gábor Cseke and Zoltán Schneider provided nice  accents, and Péter Kaszás beat the skins.

The concert consisted primarily of covers with unparalleled 7/8 and 9/8 time signatures to which they frequently added or subtracted elements. You would think this would make it difficult to follow, but the opposite was true: Kriszta Pocsai and her band were able to bring everything together in this way. You could not feel the beginning, nor the end. You could not divide it into sections, it all just flowed from the stage and into your ears.

Following the concert, nearly everyone stood up to pay. We would have stayed to chat for a few hours more, but it would have been rather uncomfortable with all of the other tables being empty. It would appear that the guests here really come just for the concerts, leaving as soon as the last chord is played. As far as I’m concerned, a concert is only part of the evening’s menu, and I’d much rather have stayed a while longer – but that’s more of a compliment than a put-down.

Opus Jazz Club
Address: 1093 Budapest, Mátyás u. 8. 
Opening Hours: Mon-Tue 11:30 am - 10:00 pm, Wed-Fri 11:30 am - midnight, Sat 6:00 pm - midnight

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

You may find the original article here.

World Refugee Day was on June 20th. To mark the occasion, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees launched a billboard campaign to promote awareness. Four refugees who came to Hungary are introduced through the billboards. These individuals love the country where they now live and work. By learning their stories, we can learn more about ourselves as well.

One of the posters features Begum Ali:

As a result of the campaign, she recently became one of Hungary’s most famous refugees.

And she cooks in Akácfa Street, close to the likewise Bangladeshi Bangla Büfé. It’s true: Budapest has become a city where you can find two Bangladeshi joints on the same street. How about that?

As far as the billboard campaign is concerned, the UN invited a bunch of journalists to the restaurant to learn her family’s history, and of course, to sample her dishes. My reaction to both was: wow!

Begum Ali, who is currently 41, spent 20 years wandering the world as a refugee after family members in her old village were murdered. She has spent half her life traveling from one country to the next, trying to find a new home for herself and her children, who were born in Pakistan. It’s almost impossible to imagine what it’s like to cross a border on foot with your children, sleeping in forests, only to be caught by the police and sent back. Her children, Ferdous, Lutfa and Kalam also work in the restaurant as wait staff where mom cooks.

Kalam speaks five languages. In addition to his mother tongue, he picked up the languages of the various countries that temporarily accepted them before sending them elsewhere: following Pakistan, they went to Iran, Turkey and Greece. They lived for nine years in Athens, so Kalam and Lutfa speak Greek to each other. He studied Hungarian for seven months, the results of which are fantastic.

They are survivors in every sense of the word. Open, friendly and willing to smile, but a look of caution remains in their eyes. They are progressing, working and establishing themselves, but you can see that they are yet to relax. If you spent your entire childhood constantly finding yourself in new surroundings or living for years as a mother in a refugee camp, there is not much you aren’t prepared for. But it’s still preferable to living at home in fear of your life.

Begum Ali’s meals are excellent despite her lack of training as a chef. This was her first occupation in Hungary, and it was a wise choice. In Budapest, the tastes and flavors of an unknown country are perhaps the best way to draw the curious in from the street. The chapatti and parati are amazing, with which the beef, fish, chicken or chickpea curries go well. The rice is quite well prepared too, as is their biryani. But the same can be said of their vegetable samosas, which look to be hard but are as soft as butter once you bite into them. And the best way to wash it all down is with a mango lassi.

If you love Indian, you’ll love this too. If you have the opportunity, give them a try so that we can help them get their life on the track that everyone deserves. And try not to be too embarrassed by those other billboards erected with public funds you see across the city.

Begum All Modina Restaurant
Address: Budapest 1073, Akácfa utca 57.
Opening Hours: Mon – Sun: 11:00 am - midnight

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

You may find the original article here.

CNN aired a Hungary-centric episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown a couple of weeks ago. You can watch the episode by clicking on the link below, at least until CNN’s lawyers have it taken down. 

I think it turned out quite well. It serves good-sized portions of the arts, culture and culinary delights, and gives us a history lesson through personal stories. It touches on the how the city boomed during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as the effects of the two World Wars, all through the eyes of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who shares several personal stories throughout.

Bourdain opens with an attempt to describe just how beautiful he finds Budapest. He has difficulty finding the right words, finally settling on “building porn” for lack of a better alternative. “You can feel a still-present empire through these buildings,” Bourdain claimed. Of course, this statement also harbors the observation that those days appear to be long gone. The host adds that many Hungarian artists – a significant proportion of its cultural base – emigrated in search of a new home, and one can almost sense the sorrow emanating from the screen.

Since Bourdain, despite becoming a globe-trotting television host, was first and foremost a trained chef, we are treated to several minutes’ worth of culinary delights every ten minutes or so. These are the locations he visited:

New York Café – Here he met the writer Péter Zilahy and discussed café culture, as well as the question of why writers used to frequent a glitzy place if they had no money. And why could they get coffee on credit? They try the restaurant, and this is the 30 seconds in the show dedicated to fine dining. That’s all that the gastro-revolution received, as this was followed by the parts your average tourist would be interested in.

Pléhcsárda ­- we’ve also been here, in the land of ginormous slices of meat, where no one is bothered if their meat hangs off the sides of their dish and touches the table. Before that, it was placed on a scale drenched in oil anyway. Bourdain samples the chicken liver and marrow stew crêpe, as well as the super-sized schnitzel.

Belvárosi Disznótoros – the host is taken here by Dániel Máté, who considers himself an economist. The journalist and former head of the Ministry of Finance’s press and communications office is a huge fan of butcher shops, and shows Bourdain where you can see blood sausage being prepared in Budapest.

Szeged, an indeterminate fisherman’s csárda - I couldn’t figure out which one it is (according to our reader Márta it’s the Öreg Kőrössy Halászcsárda), nonetheless they try some good fisherman’s soup here. Vilmos Zsigmond takes us into the past as he recounts the pre-war period, and then some moments from communism.

Margit Bangó’s home-cooked meals – Introduced as “The Aretha Franklin of Hungarian Gypsy music”, she also prepares a meal for the crew, with music played all the while.

The program was quite interesting, and the city appears quite exciting despite the crew visiting over the winter. I would have added more emphasis on discovering meals that exist between the two extremes showcased by the New York Café and the Pléhcsárda, and would have entered into a few restaurants that offer pleasant surprises, but the show seemed to want to find balance by showing extremes. A decaying courtyard and shining gold. Fine dining and a deep fryer.

Regardless, it turned out well, and we can look forward to more visitors coming to our city, one of the most exhilarating in Europe.

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

You may find the original article here.

In Central Budapest, you’ll find a square that’s been revived from the dead, so to speak. In the past, it had one of the worst reputations in the city, but these days it’s being rediscovered as a place where new and old architecture stand side-by-side in harmony. Rákóczi Square contains everything that makes District VIII (Józsefváros or “Josephtown”) exciting: all sorts share the seats that surround the reflecting pool, but you can find similarities between the people gathered here. In addition to the elderly playing cards, the moms pushing strollers and the college student reading a book, you can also find faces twisted by their hard lives, not to mention the occasionally bizarre characters that still find their way here. All you need to do is find a seat, sit back, and watch.

In the first part of our series dedicated to Rákóczi Square, we focused on the Rákóczi Restaurant Taverna. It’s a place where you can find pizza, schnitzel, rabbit paprikash, tripe stew, all with the word “tavern” included in the name. It’s the kind of place that remains unchanged, showing what a kitchen in District VIII should be like. It preserves memories of what the square was formerly like, but it nonetheless still has as much to offer these days as it did in the past.

This time, we only have to walk a few meters across the street to Csiga (Snail).

Csiga is at once a gastro pub and café. If anyone wonders what a place like this is doing on this corner, go inside one afternoon and check it out for yourself. You’ll soon realize just how much this place truly belongs here.

I don’t know where to start. The place has an eclectic interior, with wooden surfaces, wrought-iron snail shapes and many windows to let the sun shine through. And greenery too: the place is filled with potted flowers, cacti and other plants to make sure the incoming light is used to create more oxygen. The walls contain paintings, some of which are more exciting than others. Truth be told, a café in District VIII is one of the best locations to display contemporary art.

“The chefs: Geri, Gyuri. Their assistants: Csabi, Sanya. We usually have Sanyi to thank for the desserts. Jani helps where he can. He’s always here at home.”

That’s what’s written at the bottom of the menu. And this is not some stilted attempt at being funny, for that’s really how they are. The service is efficient and friendly but not too-friendly, and if the afternoon is quite busy, they are just quick, but there’s no problem with that. A forced fake friendliness would just not work here.

Ten years ago, when the place was still known as Pillangó (Butterfly), the clientele was entirely different. Back then, figures from the underworld used to frequent the place and there was a tension in the atmosphere. These days, however, half the tables are occupied by local youths working on their laptops, while the other half consists of tourists, with the bar propped up by the regulars (or perhaps the other way around). Despite many tables being occupied by people actually working, the place is quite noisy. Even when no one is talking. Sound drifts in from the street and is in the air. If you were you to stand up and sing a peasant cantata, no one would bat an eyelid. It’s all good as long as you don’t knock a plate from the server’s hand.

For lunch, soups will run you 300-400 forints, while mains cost 600-700 forints. A glass of beer or a fröccs (wine spritzer) on the side will be 200 forints more. But what they are proudest of are their breakfasts, as one of their servers told me. They serve tapas, omelets and Spanish breakfasts (bacon, eggs, paprika, potatoes, onion and olives), but I was feeling in a French mood that day as everyone sitting near me was seemingly speaking the language (half a busload of French backpackers arrived to check out this cult location). So I asked for a Croque Madame.

The French sandwich contains a Béchamel-type sauce, cheese and ham, with a fried egg on top. Beyond this, there are no requirements for how to prepare one – it can be prepared from thin or thick bread, and can contain one or several slices of ham. The bread was exceptionally thick for this one.

But everything was just as it should be: the bread contained pieces of sundried tomatoes, in place of ham it had tarja (smoked or boiled chuck or upper neck of pork), which gave it a Hungarian twist. The layer of cheese had a slightly moldy flavor to it, while the egg was just plain good. This type of breakfast belongs here, and it was just fine. The Croque Madame from Josephtown in the picture came to 1450 forints, including coffee and orange juice.

What else makes this place unique? Their selection of rum. The shelves have an entire section dedicated to this spirit. I can’t say much about the bottles, but you might know more about them. Either way, it shows this place is also a good destination in the evenings.

One of the most important measuring sticks regarding the changes underway in District VIII is the quality of the bars that open. That sets the tone for society: if there’s no good foundation for a healthy drinking culture with good meeting points where conflicting ideologies can encounter one another, then there’s no National Song (a famous Hungarian poem) and no Nyugat (an important early 20th century literary periodical), just wallowing about. And it seems like more and more good places are opening their doors, such as the Drunken Tailor with a unique interior that defies categorization, as well as Macska and Csiga. All of these are the types of places where the atmosphere is its defining characteristic. “Don’t be nervous. What difference does it make?” the public inside asks, to which you respond with a satisfied “Yes, and why not?”

Csiga
Address: 1084 Budapest, Vásár u. 2. (Rákóczi tér)
Opening Hours:

Mo-Sa 9am – midnight

Su 10am – midnight

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

You may find the original article here.

Near Gellért Square, on the side of the embankment, we noticed some peculiar cement blocks:

Once we took a closer look, we realized what they are: seats. Made of cement. They are dreadfully simple and an even more dreadfully practical solution to facilitate our plopping down on the Danube’s banks. Since the current situation is that there are still unfortunately very few locations in Budapest where we can do this – only Margaret Island, Kopaszi Dam, the Chain Bridge’s Buda end or the Roman shore in District III. This didn’t cost money and they didn’t ceremoniously appear. One day, these blocks were just there.

The seats were placed as part of the 5th BETON (cement) course. In addition to such works as the Braille graffiti for the visually impaired or the reimagined car-blocking posts on the sidewalks, these cement stools allowed 60 students to discover the creative side of cement. Architects, engineers, industrial and furniture designers, as well as graphic artists, came together to see through the project with the aid of the designers at the S’39 Hibrid Design Manufaktúra, which will do some good for the city and give us some new perspectives on the areas we are accustomed to.

The seats you can see in the photos were prepared with professional mentoring by the architect Dávid Varga, who over the years has participated in the creation of several public spaces along the river as part of the VaLyo Group. This project’s name is “Ficcenés” and the location chosen for the project is not coincidental either: the spot next to the drainage pipe for the Gellért Bath’s waters that flow into the Danube is a good place to get some peace and quiet, but despite this, it is an unused location, and not particularly comfortable for meeting others. It’s somewhat better now as a result of this initiative.

And where were these things prepared? I prepared a few photos last year as they took shape.

I’m somewhat sad that the widely-supported development plans for the Budapest embankments were dropped and this is what we get instead, but at the same time, I’m happy that enthusiastic private individuals do things that get the rest of us to take notice of the river that flows through our city.

Read more about the project here.

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

You may find the original article here.