Hungarian Food

In addition to Trofea Grill, we had some other good food in Budapest. My niece Julie, and her friend, Alex, served LDS missions in Hungary and both currently live in Romania. They met us in Budapest and were our guides. It was wonderful because they not only knew Hungarian, but also knew the various transportation systems and some good places to go for food. 

The first place they took us, and we went back again, was Nagyi Palacsintazoja, or Granny's Pancake House in English. Granny's uses a local thin, crepe style pancake and then add fillings, from sweet to savory. Sweet included things like hazelnut cream, coconut, apple, marzipan, honey/banana, sour cherry/poppy seed and many more. Savory included sour cream and cheese, ham, cheese, ham and mushroom, Granny hot dog, Hungarian pork and others. It was inexpensive and provided a nice variety. 

We spent a morning going through the Central Market Hall. For brunch we stopped at Fakanal Etterem Restaurant, on the second floor. It was cafeteria style with tables to sit at. It serves "real Hungarian cuisine" which is always of interest to us. I was eating solely vegan at the time, so I picked up plates including boiled purple cabbage (which I really like and virtually everywhere we went), sliced tomatoes, boiled vegetables, including Brussels sprouts, carrots and cauliflower and boiled potatoes with spices and their wonderful paprika, red pepper sauce. Judy got roast goose, purple cabbage and spaetzle, which I had my eye on. Hungary and the Czech Republic are the only places I've been where goose is on the menu and if I'd been eating meat, it is probably what I'd have gotten. My brother-in-law, Stan, got roast pork with potatoes and purple cabbage. As he pulled it apart and I looked at the beautiful fatty meat, it was all I could do to keep from commandeering his plate. My sister-in-law, Chris, got something I don't recall and I'm trying to figure out from the picture. I believe it is a skewer with mushroom, sausage, chicken or turkey and beef or pork, with cooked onions and potatoes. 

Roast goose, purple cabbage and spaetzle.

Roast pork

Skewers with mushroom, sausage and various kinds of meat.

The vegan option - not quite roast pork or goose.

While our wives were shopping for doo-dads in the Central Market Hall, Stan and I looked particularly closely at the food stalls. Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures, but what really stoked my interest was the sausage, including goose, deer and boar. We ended up buying some paprika, or pepper sauce, in varying degrees of hotness, which we really love to add as a spice to our food at home. 

goose sausage

deer sausage

boar sausage

paprika paste

paprika sauce - very good stuff

a grocery stall

Finally, we encountered a cheese stall out on the street and Judy ordered a huge slice of Emmentaler  off a cheese wheel, the first time I've ever seen it in the form. I didn't have any, but Judy mentioned that it was extremely good.  

a large slice of Emmentaler