Budapest's Best Restaurants

After three short flights from Detroit to Boston, Boston to Paris, and Paris to Budapest, I am totally ready to dig into the Hungarian culture.  I heard Hungarian uses paprika almost in all of their food, even dessert!!! Oh yes it makes me have food orgasm just to think about it.

I research on restaurants to visits in Budapest, but I also came across to some of the places that I listed on this post by accident.  Most of the time, I would just walk around the city and see a restaurant that full of people and stop by for a taste.

I learned that lots of Hungarian food are pretty similar with Indonesian.  Unlike Western European, Hungarian food full of spices.  Many looks like Rendang but taste different.  Their soup are crazy good and usually contain mushroom in it.  Also, Hungarian takes ice cream seriously.  There are a bunch of ice cream parlors around the city, and each of them would probably have thousands of customer each day.

Another thing that is unique in Europe is that they LOVE soda water.  So, if you don't like it make sure you order "natural water" or "still water".  If you just say water, they most likely would give you the carbonated one.  If you are trying to buy regular water at a convenient store, grab the pink one! Blue stands for soda water here.

Lastly, you need to give 10% tips whenever you eat a a restaurant in Budapest and it is considered rude to leave your money at the table.  So make sure you ask for the bill and wait til the server takes the money.

Now, since you know the basic Hungarian dining etiquette, you are ready to go visits some restaurants...

Gastland Oktogon Bistro 

This is a must go buffet! For only 1190 ft, you can try all sort of Hungarian dishes.  From Hungarian curry vegetable soup, pickled red cabbages, deep fried breaded cauliflower, Hungarian grilled chicken, all the way to some sort of Mongolian style beef.  Oh my lord they have it all!!! They even sell gelato outside for only 99 ft/scoop.  Is this even real??

Cafe Vian 

This is your all European cafe.  It serves some Italian, French, German food too.  But of course since I am in Hungary, I promised myself to eat only Hungarian food.  I didn't eat too much because I was still kinda full from breakfast.  Therefore, I ordered frozen smoothie with banana for 890 Ft and Hungarian mushroom soup for 850 Ft. The menu on the website says 790 Ft for the soup, I guess they have increased the price but haven't really update the website.

My friend Kaiser ordered a Chicken Vian Style, which basically is a ratatouille plus some kind of hash brown.  However, I need to make a note on this because the hash brown was sooooooooo good!  It's so different from what we have in the US.  It is well seasoned and had some onion in it.

I really like Cafe Vian because not only they provide perfect food at a reasonable price, but the servers were really friendly too.

Első Pesti Rétesház Kávéház

I went to this wonderful restaurant for a welcoming dinner of our study abroad program. We went there with our professor and our fabulous tour guide. All cost was included in our program fee and all of the food was pre-ordered. So I have to take a look at the menu online and try to figure out what I ate at the dinner.

We all get to try the Chicken Soup "Ujházi" Style which apparently cost 1.490 Ft. Then we have Filet Mignon of Pork with "Letscho" Potato Hungarian Style for 3.990 Ft. So yes, this restaurant is fancy and expensive. But you'll get strudel making show in additional to the lovely food that you get to eat.

Moreover, this restaurant is also known as the "Strudel House" because on top of the shows, they allow you to try to make some strudels. They said that Hungarian need to know how to make strudel, otherwise they would never get married hahhha. Of course I would volunteer for this opportunity!

So apparently I would end up as a Nun, cuz we failed so bad, but the pastry chef was being really nice and keep on praising our terrible job hahahah. Then, after we are done with our meal, we even get to try the strudel that the pastry chef made during the show. We got the Almás (Appel) strudel and potato cottage cheese strudel. It wasn't as sweet as American dessert, but still good.

The restaurant also have gorgeous decoration. Even the restroom was decorated with transparent sink that allows you to see through things below, so vintage and interesting. Definitely would recommend tourist to visit!

Kovari Grill

I found this in a Bread and Cheese festival on May 10.  I shared the meal with my friends Grace and Shuo.  We didn't know what's the name of the food that we ordered, we just point and the server would scoop up the meats and put it on top of a pita bread.

Unfortunately I took a bad picture and only show one of the meat that we chose, which looks a lot like Rendang.  It taste different though, it wasn't as spicy and I don't think they use coconut milk to make the sauce.  On the other side of the plate there was suppose to be a chicken dish with tons of paprika and onion.  It was salty but wasn't quite like any other dish that I have tasted before.  It was pretty expensive though, the whole thing cost us 3750 Ft.

Belvarosi Lugas

I definitely never thought that Eggplant and cheese would go together so well! It just reminded me of the royal wedding, because the combination was so perfect! The eggplant was stewed with some tomatoes, and it wasn't overcook. The skin was soft but the inside is light and fluffy. Then they put the cheese on top of the stew and probably baked it for a little bit, so the side of the cheese are slightly turning brown. The eggplant stew doesn't really have a strong flavor on its own, but the cheese gives enough saltiness to the complete dish.

Chivas

I was just looking at something on the menu that sounds unique and doesn't cost that much, and decided to go with the chicken yogurt with grilled peach. It was indeed unique in a good way. The chicken was seasoned and grilled to perfection. and the peach was sweet and refreshing. It kinda take the same role as pineapple on Hawaiian pizza. The only thing that I was kinda disappointing is the fact that I could not really taste the yogurt at all.

Menza

Hungarian cabbage and minced meat was the special main dish of the day and it cost only 1290 Ft, so without a second thought I ordered it.  It came in Hungarian size (read: BIG).  It doesn't look fancy at all, but absolutely taste good.  The cabbage are stewed until it doesn't have any form and mixed with some potatoes and orange sauce.  The meat taste like meatloaf in general.

Look at me getting really excited to be in the picture.  I almost dropped the food, but as you can see my friend luckily stopped me from doing so.

Overall,  the dish was not surprising and pretty bland.  It is probably my least favorite out of what I have had in Hungary.  However, my friends ordered other stuff and I tried a little bit of everything, and it was good.

On top of that, I really like Menza because they have a retro and earthly theme that's just awesome.  The walls were painted in warm orange and and decorated with flowery wall paper.  Super cute!! a really nice place for family, friends, or even for a date.

Zeller Bistro

You need to make a reservation way ahead if you would like to go to Zeller.  We were so surprised that we got in when we made the reservation only two days ahead.  Usually people would make reservation two weeks ahead.  Zeller do not have an online menu or website because they changes the menu every now and then to fit the ingredients available during the time.  Zeller is located in a rather shady place, but this is THE BEST restaurant in Budapest that I have been to.

To start with, they gives us welcoming champagne with 2% alcohol and it was delicious!!!

Then after we put in our order, they brought a basket of never ending bread (which is uncommon in Hungary).  On the side they also brought some really good olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chili pepper, and salt.  I don't know what it is, but the olive oil is different from what I have had in the past.  Zeller's olive oil almost had a little bit garlic taste in it.

Afterwards, come the appetizer.  My friend Grace ordered a Goose liver and Helen ordered small fish appetizer.  I had a bite on both dishes and I could swear the heaven split open and the angels sang Gloria as when Jesus was born.  Both dishes was really good, the goose liver was so soft you could break it with a light touch.  My friend Kenny trying to safe up some money, but immediately order another goose liver once he tried one.  It was that good!

Once we finished the appetizer, here come the main dish.  I ordered a paprika chicken for 2200 Ft.  Really affordable considering they gave us free champagne and bread.  The chicken was really good too, I never had a chicken breast that is cooked to perfection like this.  It was really moist and chewy but cooked, I really don't know how they do it.

We were really happy with the service and the food, so we were ready to pay for our meal and leave a huge tip.  Just when we receive the check, we had another surprise.  They even gave us poppy seeds cupcakes with cream cheese on top and some Hungarian candy.  Oh come on!!!! Now I wish I had more Hungarian Forint.

Unfortunately I had exchange every Forint that I had before I went to the restaurant, leaving enough money to give only 10% tips.  Otherwise I would give 20% or even 50%.  Zeller really gave me the Disney happy ending in Budapest.

I would have a separate post on Hungarian snacks and dessert, please look forward to it.

Until the next adventure you all, Vagabond girl is out~