Restaurants

 

Buffalo Steak Hause:   www.buffaloetterem.hu   Reservations required!

 

1201. Budapest Török Flóris utca 217.

 

Tortuga Étterem: www.tortugaetterem.hu

 

1203 Budapest, Kossuth Lajos u. 73.Tel: 285-70-84

 
Sramli Csárda: http://www.soroksarisramli.hu/ 

 

1239 Budapest, Soroksár, Grassalkovich út 241. 

 

Telefon+361/286-0037

 

Csili Étterem:  www.csilietterem.hu

 

Raday utca (the Raday Street) is a very nice restaurant street. It starts from the Kalvin Square and during most of the street (streching in the direction of thePetőfi híd) you can find nice outdoor and indoor restaurants and coffeebars. It is just as popular among many as the Liszt Ferenc tér.

Below you can see a list mentioning some of the restaurants to be found in the Raday Street:

Hungarians love fast, cheap food, especially in large portions. 

Tourists love a bargain.  It's lucky that these two characteristics can work well together.

You can come at finding good, cheap food from either of two directions: kind of food, or kind of restaurant.

Four distinctyively local foods from which a solid (perhaps too solid unless you stop in time) meal can be made are: Főzelék (vegetables in a thickened cream sauce or soup), lángos (fried dough with any of a range of toppings), retes (strédel, and in particular kaposzta retes -- cabbage strudel -- whjich is basically savory rather than a dessert), and pogácsa  biscuit made in both sweet and savory versions).

Főzelék, (pronounced FOOHZ-eh-lake) is based on traditional Hungarian vegetable dishes like zucchini in a  sweet/sour dill amnd cream sauce.  Főzelék takes on a totally different character depending on what vegetable forms its base.  There are quite a number o Főzelék bars throughout the city, servibng comfort food fopr the locals and great bargains for travelers.  You can purchase various fried things (usually fish, chicken, turkey, potatoes or soybean rissoles).  Or you don't have to purchase the fried meat items, and your meal is vegetarian.   The most visible example of a bustling Főzelék bar is  Főzelékfaló Ételbár which has several branches, the most tourist-accessible one  located on  Nagymező utca just past Andrássy út in the direction of the Operetta Theatre.

Lángos (LAHN-gauche) is a flat paddle of fried dough.     You can get all sorts of toppings on lángos, most commonly cheese, sour cream, or a combination of the two.  But serious lángos vendors offer all sorts of topping, from cabbage to ham, to almost anything imaginable.  The most accessible excellent source of lángos  Central Market, where the toppings range widely and the lángos are always fresh out of the cooker.  But even better examples may be found in the lángos stall of the Ecseri flea market, and at two other market halls -- the Fény Utca Market Hall behind the Mammut Mall a block from Szell Kalman ter (aka Moszkva ter) in Buda and the Hunyadi Tér Market in Pest.

 Hungarian cabbage strudel. Sweet but saltty, and, especially, peppery, cabbage strudel makes a great and satisfying meal.   (RAY-tesh) stand in the Central Market Hall,  And there's the First Strudel House of Pest, a somewhat upmarket introduction to rétes on October 6 utca.  Therev are tiny strudel sshops all over the city, worth sampling just to see if you can uncover a personal favorite.

A pogácsa (POH-gah-cha) provides a kind of sweet or savory biscuit or scone: dense, golden yellow, dry and drying (there's the sense that you are chewing on a mouthful of comparatively tasty sand).  Filling.  Sometimes topped with cheese, or with seeds and nuts, or dotted inside with tiny bits of ham or bacon.  Literally every bakery in the city offers them, among the best is at Jég Bufé across from Ferenciek tere, but they are ubiquitous and each place makes them slightly differently.


The traditional workman's lunch  can be found in butcher shops (hentesáru bolt) and in the public markets.  Butchers will sell a boiled or fried kolbász sausage to eat there right along a stand-up counter in the store.  Along with the kolbász, butchers usually sell fried or roasted chicken, white bread and pickles.  Usually you pay according to weight and your items are put on a paper plate along with a dollop of mustard. You can purchase a drink and then get started a nearby stand up counter.

Another traditional cheap and easy option is palacsinta, (Hungarian crepes, pronounced pah-lah-cheen-tah) which can be filled with sweet or savory toppings. There are palacsinta shops dotted all around Budapest.