One of the things I love about traveling to new places is being able to experience what is so great about them. Food being one of them. I am sure you could tell from the post I wrote about on the food I ate in Budapest that I did try things I wouldn’t normally eat back home. Not that I eat fast food all the time but I didn’t want to eat at a McDonalds or Burger King when I was visiting another country. That is something I could get when I was home.
Budapest has many food choices and I only had a week to try as many of them as I could. One of the things I wanted to try was the stuffed cabbage; not as heavy as some of the other food. I am glad I tried it but it wasn’t one of my favorite meals while I was there. I am not sure how to explain what I didn’t like about it. It could have been that the garnish around the cabbage tasted like sauerkraut. I am not a big fan of sauerkraut unless it is on a hot dog. As for the meat inside of the cabbage; couldn’t tell you what kind of meat it was. So I basically ate the cabbage part of it and left most of the meat still on the plate. Sour cream is added as a garnishment on top of the stuffed cabbage so that helps with masking the taste of the meat. As for drinks – I ordered 7-up since I didn’t see anything that would be considered a diet drink on the menu. Just remember that the drinks will not come with ice. That is something I still can’t get used to since I am so used to putting ice in my drinks. Luckily the drink was cold so I didn’t need any ice in the drink.
Another thing I wanted to try was the Chicken Paprikish. It took me walking down Vaci Street before I finally settled on the Hungarian Goulash & Wine Kitchen for where I would be eating. Along with the Paprikish, I ordered the jasmine rice to go along with it. This time around, I was able to order a natural lemonade to drink instead of a soda that would be filled with loads of sugar. The whole meal was exceptional. The food wasn’t spicy and the portion size was small compared to what you would expect in the U.S. That turned out to be a good thing because I didn’t leave one spec of food on my plate. It was that good.
With so many food choices in a city that I clearly love; how do you choose what you want to eat? Some nights it was difficult for me to decide what I wanted. One night I went with hamburger and fries for dinner. Go figure. On top of that, the fries were served with mayonnaise and the hamburger was served on flat bread.
Another day, I went with gyros. So good. It reminded me of the gyros I had when I was in Greece many years ago. A bit spicy. The gyros I had ordered was called a gyros pita so it came with everything. When I say everything, I mean it came with coleslaw and tzatziki sauce inside of the pita. I found this place from one of the girls sharing the same room as me at Maverick Hostel. It turns out this place was located next door to our hostel inside of a Turkish Restaurant.
And on another day, I had ham and feta cheese on focaccia bread. The cheese wasn’t slapped onto the sandwich but was melted through so you really did need the fork and knife that the waiter brought to your table with the food. I am used to picking up my sandwiches, biting into them, and not using utensils. As stated above, they were needed for this particular sandwich. So if you ever visit Budapest, the place to stop in for this type of sandwich is Coffee and More which is located off of Vaci Street.
Seriously I could go on and on about the food I ate but know I would forget something. You just need to visit Budapest to see what I mean.
Now onto what I would call street food or should I say street sweets. One thing Budapest might be known for is the chimney cake. This is something that is rolled in sugar and could be dusted in almonds, chocolate or cinnamon. Mine was dusted with chocolate which actually made it sweeter than I would have liked. Anyway, as you pull on the cake, it spirals all the way down to the last bite. It was good but I think it would have been a lot better if it was hot when it was given to me. It was a little on the cool side so it wasn’t as good as I think it could have been.
As you can tell, I loved everything about my food experiences, whether good or bad, because it was great to experience food from another country.
What foods have you tried if you’ve been to Budapest? Was it the Langos that looked like pizza and was the perfect food on the go? Was it the Chicken Paprikish that had just the right spices added to it that made it the perfect meal at the end of the day? Was it the Chimney Cake that felt like it was spiraling out of control as you started to pull it apart to take a bite of it? Was it something else not mentioned that you tried when you visited this city? I would love to hear your thoughts on the foods you loved and didn’t love when you were here.
