sam and the city

Budapest Part III - food

Good day faithful readers. Guidebooks for cities are wonderful things. Arriving at the airport they explain the best way to get into the city. In the city they advise on hotels to stay at. And once you've dropped off your bags it tells you the things that you MUST see before you have to leave again, ensuring that you can have your picture taken with the greatest number of landmarks in the time available!

One of the other things that it advises you on is good restaurants to eat at, which is good when you're faced with the multitude of options somewhere like Budapest has to offer. With only 4 main meal to be consumed, I wouldn't want to be wasting one of them on second rate Goulash!

On one particular evening, after walking around all day, I decided that I was starting to feel peckish, so I pulled out my book and fingered through it until I found a place that sounded good. "Rezkakas - One of the best places to eat in traditional Hungarian style" it said. Just what I wanted. Upon entering, in jeans, polo shirt and runners, I was amazed to find that despite being a communist country for quite a long period of time, Hungarians "traditionally" dine very lavishly. It would be something of an understatement to say that I felt out of place among everyone else dressed mostly in suit and tie. Nevertheless, once I had been tucked away in the corner, out of sight, I was able to relax and I enjoyed what was an extremely good meal. And for only 10,000HUF (approx 25pounds)! There is no way that you could have starters, main course, a bottle of wine and coffee for that much in London!

Another place recommended by my guidebook that I had to visit, and somewhere where I thankfully knew what to expect thanks to the fact that it was located on one of the squares, is Gerbeaud, Budapest's most famous confectionery maker and coffee house. I decided to leave this until my last morning in the city, once I had seen all there was to see so that I could sit in the square and happily enjoy my cake at a leisurely pace... and let me tell you, if I didn't have a flight to catch, I may have remained there all day enjoying their cakes!

You know, I quite often lust after material things like cars, clothes, bikes, electronic gadgets, but when it comes down to it I'm very easily satisfied. All I need is coffee, cake, sun and nice scenery... be it rolling hills, ocean waves, flowing river, scantily clad Hungarian women, and I'm totally happy.

posted by sam @ 8:05 pm