I went on a food tour yesterday with a wonderful, friendly, knowledgeable guide, and met some lovely fellow travelers, but holy cow, there's a reason no one has ever mentioned Hungarian food as one of the world's great cuisines. The tour started strong with a savory pastry called a
langos, which is fried dough covered in sour cream, garlic, and cheese, and it was as delicious as it sounds, but other than some tasty sausages, everything else was plain and frankly, not very appealing or tasty. I still very much enjoyed the tour though - the point wasn't to eat delicious food (although that's always great), the point was to get out and about with a group, hang with a local, and chat with some other explorers, all of which I did.
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| Flodni: cake layered with poppy seed and walnut paste, and plum and apricot jam; meh. |
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| strudel shop |
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| making strudel |
K
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the red sausage was actually really good; the brown one was really weird.
The long, skinny, orange thing is a pickled pepper and it was crunchy, spicy, tangy, and delicious. |
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Zsimpla - the oldest ruin bar in Budapest - a repurposed factory turned very cool club/bar space.
It's empty because it's afternoon and therefor closed. There are several ruin bars in Budapest and they're packed at night until 4am. |
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| more sausage and pork cracklins. The cracklins weren't that crackly, kind of soft and mushy. |
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| pork stew and spaetzle, although the spaetzle was called something else. It was ok. |
Again, I really enjoyed the tour and to be fair, I've had some of the best gelato ever right in my neighborhood, and the chicken gyro at the stand around the corner from my apartment is fantastic. But I don't think any place in Budapest is going to earning a Michelin star any time soon.
