Tag Archives: Budapest

Király utca, Still a Work In Progress

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Király utca has come full-circle. Once a lively shopping street, after World War Two stucco crumbled from the elegant buildings and shops were nationalized. Over the past few years, galleries and design shops have slowly begun to make their way back to “King Street,” and some of the city’s coolest open-air drinking spots are within steps. In 2005 the street got a much-needed renovation. But the construction was shoddy, the sidewalks are falling apart, and some of the new buildings are hideous. The plan was to make Király utca a walking street, but it didn’t really turn out that way. Nevertheless, the designers and artists keep coming and Király utca is on its way to being the place in Budapest to shop for designer home furnishings. New places are constantly opening—surely a good omen—but it remains a work-in-progress.

Király utca begins near Deák Ferenc tér and forms the edge of the Jewish quarter. Andrassy út is two blocks west and theatre-lined Nagymező utca and café-filled Liszt Ferenc tér intersect. VAM Design Center (Király utca 26) is the street’s largest gallery, occupying an entire building with a café in the covered courtyard surrounded by artwork hanging on exposed brick walls. The four-year-old Inda Gallery (Király utca 34) hosts a dozen exhibitions annually and represents 14 artists. G13 Art Gallery (Király utca 13) is located in Gozsdu udvar—a complex of seven buildings linked by six courtyards that was restored in 2008. Sirály (Király utca 50), a star of the neighborhood’s alternative cultural scene, has a bar, a café and performance/exhibition space on three levels. The edgy Boulevard & Brezsnyev Gallery (Király utca 39-46) specializes in young, unknown artists.

Müller Mónika (Király utca 36) was the first designer to arrive on Király utca. Her shop stocks her own designs, crafted by local mill workers, artists, and restorers. KARE (Király utca 43-45) is the Budapest outlet of the German home-furnishing brand, and is already rallying the street’s businesses and planning art exhibitions. On its opening-day, owner Ágnes Déri held a festival showcasing the street’s design shops, and hopes to make it a regular event (the next one is coming up on June 19th). “Király utca used to be one of Budapest’s most famous shopping streets and trade centers,” said Déri, “and I really believe this will become the single famous furniture and design street in Budapest.” Goa Home (Király utca 19­21) has several storefronts brimming with pieces from around the world. Arioso (Király utca 9) stocks international houseware, stunning flowers, and French food products by La Petite Francaise. Be sure to check out the small green courtyard café. Látomás (Király utca 39) sells one-off fashions designed by a longtime Budapest expat.

At night, the neighborhood fills with drinkers heading to the kerts—which spring up in empty, grungy buildings—for cheap beer and wine. Graffiti-covered Kuplung (Király utca 46) is located on the site of a former motorcycle repair. Café Bobek (Kazinczy utca 51), named for a Communist-era cartoon character, has tables in a green yard. Kőleves Kert (Kazinczy utca 35) serves food from its own restaurant, and the outdoor bar has swings for barstools and other playground-like effects. Around the corner, Mumus (Dob utca 18) is two levels, with a piano bar and barstools made of stacked beer boxes. Take a walk on Király utca for some of Budapest’s hippest venues, from high-concept design shops to retro bars. The best part: the feeling that lots more is yet to come.

–Carolyn

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Home-Cooking In the City

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On a nondescript street in Budapest’s seventh district—a neighborhood of run-down crumbling buildings—one of my favorite restaurants hides in plain sight in a storefront of an early-19th-century apartment house. There’s no wine list, the brown-checked tablecloths are smudged, and there are no frills (in everything from the service and the décor to the food and the menu). You may have to share a table if the place is packed (like it usually is), and English is non-existent. Kívánság Étkezde (VII. Alsóerdősor utca 36) serves the kind of home-style food that a village grandmother would prepare. Regulars come daily, and elderly neighbors socialize over steaming bowls of húsleves (consomme). In exchange for the simplicity, you won’t pay more than five or six euros for a meal. It is hardly the only place like this in Budapest. The best way to find one? Follow office workers on their way to lunch.

This type of restaurant is known as the étkezde or kifőzde: usually a single room with less than a dozen tables and a frequently changing menu of traditional Hungarian dishes. They typically open for weekday lunch, and coffee and alcohol are seldom served. The idea is to eat quickly and surrender your table. For the traveler seeking authenticity and a true peek at Budapest life, this is the jackpot. Budapest’s markets are brimming with pig brains and snouts, tripe and beef tail, and rooster testicles and chicken hearts. The étkezde is the place to go to taste these things. There are also tamer options, and the short menu includes several soups and stews, several types of roasted, fried, or stuffed meats, pickled salads, a főzelék (a stewed vegetable dish), a pasta or two, and one or two desserts.

Kádár Étkezde (VII. Klauzál tér 9) is an institution in the old Jewish quarter. The food here is among the best in the city, and on busy Saturdays lines are long and it can be hard to get a table. Known for Jewish specialties like cholent, (bean stew with goose leg, ham, or hard-boiled egg), it also serves fantastic stuffed cabbage and peppers, duck with red cabbage, and vargabéles (a pasta and strudel cake). Celebrity photos line the walls, and you pay the proprietor, standing by the door in a white coat, as you leave. The adorable Ráday Étkezde (IX. Ráday utca 29) is on one of the city’s trendiest streets, but doesn’t offer an English menu. It has a few tables in the gallery (every one with a single Gerber daisy), recipes painted on the ceiling, and random magazine pages glued to the walls. Come here for good chicken paprikás, as well as other étkezde staples like fried cheese and pörkölt (stew). Regulars come daily from the nearby university.

The Rákóczi Kifőzde (VIII. Rákóczi tér 9) sits next to an old market hall on a torn-up square that will be the site of a new metro stop. An old hussar uniform hangs on the wall, the tablecloths are red checked, and the daily specials are scrawled in Hungarian on a whiteboard. The menu holds a few random international dishes, but it is best to stick to the Hungarian classics (like the vadpörkölt, game stew, with potato croquettes). Cross the river to find the Róma Ételbár (I. Csalogány utca 20). This cozy place (with 1970s décor) is slightly more expensive than the others and serves slabs of meat nearly as big as a plate. Try the hagymás rostélyos (a thin piece of beef topped with crispy fried onions) or the cigány pecsenye (a pork cutlet topped with bacon and garlic).

If you aren’t lucky enough to be invited to a Hungarian home, these étkezdes are the next best thing. For a fraction of the price of a regular restaurant, the étkezde fills a primal desire for honest, authentic, every-day food.

This piece was originally published in Ling.

–Carolyn

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The Amazing 8th

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Like most people who have lived in a place for a long time (in my case nearly ten years), doing the touristy things can often get overlooked. Things like daily life can really get in the way. I seem to have done most of my sightseeing in Budapest on my first extended visit to the city, before I even moved here. And I seem to fill in the blanks whenever I have guests visiting. But the best thing about writing (for me) is that it keeps me out there, constantly exploring the city and the country, especially the non-touristy parts. Not being one for doing guided tours—I usually prefer to explore on my own—I was intrigued when I heard about Beyond Budapest, a small company which does specialized walking tours of Budapest’s 8th district.

I’ve long-loved the 8th district, and now, it seems everybody does. What was once the city’s most dangerous neighborhood now holds boutique hotels, stylish bars and cafes, and a bunch of art galleries. The tour ended in the apartment of a Roma couple, where we were told to ask whatever questions we wanted. Beyond Budapest also does tours introducing the neighborhood’s contemporary art scene. Read what I wrote about the district in this article.

–Carolyn

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All Saint’s Day {Mindenszentek Napja}

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Although there are an increasing number of costume parties and events for children, Hungarians don’t really celebrate Halloween. And Halloween just isn’t Halloween without the trick-or-treating. Hungarians do celebrate All Saint’s Day, which is a way for them to honor their deceased loved ones. On November 1st, and the days leading up to it, they go to the cemeteries where their relatives are buried, clean the area surrounding the graves, plant flowers, and light candles. Some families will travel to several cemeteries around the country, if necessary, to be sure that the graves of their relatives are tended to.

Last night we went to Kerepesi Cemetery—a beautiful cemetery where many of the most famous Hungarians are buried—where there were swarms of people, crossing guards to direct the pedestrians, and many vendors selling flowers and candles. Gábor noted that he hated this day when as a child his parents piled the whole family into the car, hauled them to Budapest to visit the cemetery, and then on to Jászberény for another cemetery. Once they arrived at the family graves, they took out their shovels and rakes, tended the graves, and always noted how the deceased “deserved to have lived better lives.” I can see how it wouldn’t be too much for for a child, but with the burning candles, full moon, and vases of flowers everywhere, it was a gorgeous sight.

See more photos on our flickr page.

–Carolyn

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Budapest in Olive Magazine

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If you’re in a place where the BBC’s Olive magazine is available, my article “48 Hours in Budapest” was published in the January issue. In Budapest, it’s available with a very high mark-up (2,550 HUF!) at Bestsellers. The article includes food-themed recommendations for  a Budapest weekend.

Download the article (pdf file)

–Carolyn

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Markets as Museums

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The New York Times travel section last weekend was devoted to food related travel, and there was a nice piece by Mimi Sheraton about her visits to some of the world’s greatest markets and their cultural importance. I’ve always counted visiting markets as one of the highlights of traveling to new places, even more so than museums. Exploring a country’s food and shopping style gives you a fascinating peek into new cultures. I even love exploring grocery stores in new countries–with their funny packaging, languages I don’t understand, produce I might not often see, and products which I’m not sure what do do with or how to eat. Although when I’m traveling it’s always frustrating to see something that looks so good (or unusual) and all I want to do is take it home and cook it, but can’t because I’m staying in a hotel.

Sheraton writes:

“IT is a given that no serious traveler would forgo visits to museums, cathedrals, castles, monuments and legendary streets. Yet food markets deserve equally high billing on a must-see list. For as inspiring as the more standard sights can be, they do not rival the ebullience of modern-day markets and their colorful links to the economy, customs and even dialects of a city. In a world ever more homogenized, food markets afford visitors one of the few opportunities to glimpse locals going about one of their essential daily chores.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve always loved markets and trips to Eastern Market, my neighborhood market in DC, were part of my weekend routine while I was growing up. Eastern Market is a true neighborhood market where people will go just to see who they’ll run into, even if they don’t plan to buy anything.

Budapest’s markets, on the other hand, are more straightforward places where serious shoppers stock their baskets and bags with little need to socialize. I was happy to see that Sheraton mentioned Budapest’s Central Market Hall in her article. I always love shopping there, but it feels tame in comparison to some of Budapest’s less central markets like the Bosnyák tér Market and the Lehel téri Market.If you’re visiting Budapest the Central Market Hall should be the first market you visit, but you’ll get so much more of the “living theater” that Sheraton writes about by checking out the city’s more neighborhood-oriented markets.

“Attending this living theater, one can assess the local economy by noting the quality and variety of foods available and compare prices to our own. One can observe how locals treat one another.”

–Carolyn

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Summer at Fény utca

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One of the things I like best about living in Budapest is doing my shopping at the markets, especially in August when there’s so much good stuff there. My neighborhood market, the Fény utca piac, also happens to be my favorite market in the city. On some days old ladies come and set up tables to sell their farm-fresh eggs, as well as homemade butter, sour cream, and cheese. There are good butchers, especially the one who specializes in Mangalica pork and Hungarian Grey beef (two Hungarian heritage breeds that were in danger of extinction not too long ago but have made somewhat of a comeback since breeding efforts were revitalized).

But, today my interest was solely with the late summer fruits and vegetables, some of which won’t be around for much longer. There’s a nice mix of vendors here selling stuff produced by independent growers and producers (opposed to those selling only the stuff that comes from Budapest’s wholesale market). I bought two tiny Ogen melons, which were too cute to resist. Almost like honeydews, these two tasty
melons were less than 200 HUF ($1). Raspberries aren’t as plentiful (or as cheap) now as they were in July when I bought them in massive quantities and made jam, ice cream, and tarts with them, but they’re still around. And then there were the figs for just 60 HUF each (about 30 cents).

The fruit quickly disappeared, but I still have these gorgeous rókagombak (yellow chanterelles) from the Mátra hills. A forager had a pile of these earthy mushrooms and nothing else spread out on a tablecloth. They’re usually as expensive as they are sought after, but these were just 300 HUF for 100 grams (which works out to a little more than $7 a pound). I haven’t decided yet what to do with these, but I know it will be something simple like sautéing them in butter and tossing them with pasta and herbs or just adding them to an omelet.

It’s often grimly noted that in America it’s less affordable to eat fesh fruits and veggies, and cheaper and easier to buy the mass produced energy dense foods that are so high in sugar and fat. In Budapest, I’m happy to say, that isn’t so.

–Carolyn

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