Day: November 27, 2013

Chocolate museum in Corvin

Posted on by Budapest Guide

Sometimes shops are given names that doesn’t exactly describe what is actually is. That is the truth for the Chocolate museum (original name: Csokolade muzeum) located in Corvin shopping center. It is a great place for chocolate lovers, but I guess the reality is that the place is more of a chocolate shop than a chocolate museum.

Not long ago I noticed this place as I visited the Corvin shopping center. Readers of the Budapest blog probably know by now that I am a chocolate lover, so of course I visit the chocolate museum/shop to see what they had to offer.

What can be found in the Chocolate museum?

Inside the walls of the chocolate museum you will find exactly what you expect to find, tons of chocolate. The main product of the shop are all kinds of Rakoczi products, but in addition you can buy traditional chocolates and quite a lot of imported Belgian chocolate and Mozart sweets. They have some special stuff in this shop that I have not seen to many other places, so you can buy a piece of chocolate with a tea spoon which should be placed inside a cup of hot milk, and within a few minutes your cup of hot chocolate is ready.

Since the profile of the shop is the Rakoczi brand you can buy really exclusive Rakoczi chocolate with all kinds of strange ingredients. I bought a white chocolate with strawberries, orange tea, lemongrass and other snacks added to it. It looked and tasted differently and I guess the word remaining on my tongue after the chocolate had melted was „interesting.”

Chocolate museum wrap up

In addition to all kinds of chocolate you can also buy chocolate fondue equipment, tea bags, some toys and other effects in the chocolate museum. Not a place I couldn’t live without, but if you are a chocolate lover you should probably drop by the place if you ever are in the area near Corvin cinema and the Corvin shopping center.

[stextbox id=”info”]As you have understood this isn’t a real chocolate museum. There is though a real chocolate museum in Budapest, so maybe we will return with an article about that some other time![/stextbox]

Tesco house delivery

Posted on by Budablogger

A while back Tesco spread the rumor that house delivery was about to be launched, and now it is finally here. We have tried Tesco house delivery and we were very impressed!

For a long time I waited for the Tesco house delivery to come. Last Saturday I was out walking in Budapest and suddenly I noticed a Tesco house delivery car passing by. As I got home in the evening I visited the Tesco website, registered for house delivery and placed my first order. Before ordering I was curious whether the prices would be the same as in a normal Tesco shop, would club card points be gathered during an order and what would the price be for delivering the goods to my house. I got answer to all my questions!

My Tesco house delivery answers

Together with my wife we made a list of all kinds of products from a mixture of the „products on sale” and from the normal Tesco catalog. We immediately noticed that all prices are exactly the same as if we would go and shop in Tesco ourselves. Our order had a total value of a bit more than 10,000 HUF and after filling our shopping cart we needed to arrange with time of house delivery.

It was very easy to reserve a price for the goods to be delivered to our house. We ordered on Saturday evening and we could select for our order to be delivered in the evening next day, Sunday. We could have asked for the goods to be delivered a week later as well, meaning we were free to decide for the time of delivery ourselves. The price for the house delivery was 899 HUF, and it had no influence what time of the day or what date we chose for the products to be delivered.

During registration I was also able to add my Tesco club card code, meaning that I gathered points when ordered products to my home.

Tesco delivering to my Budapest home

Sunday evening arrived, and so did the guy from Tesco delivering the products. He carried everything to our door (turning twice). A good manner in Hungary is to tip those delivering products to your home, so I found some money and wanted to give it to the guy who was a real service man, smiled and did a great job… he really deserved it. As I stretched out my hand to give the tip he said that they were not allowed to receive any money, not to carry any money in the car. So, he turned down my tip, gave me the bill and left. I felt kind of sorry for the guy, but hopefully his salary is better than most other delivery boys, making him survive without tip from the customers.

In addition to being nice and polite, the delivery guy explained that two products could not be delivered, so instead they chose to products similar to those we originally ordered.

We were extremely satisfied with the house delivery and in the future we will for sure use it again. 900 HUF for the house delivery isn’t really much, considering that you save time, you save gas, and you do not do lots of extra shopping that you are tempted to do walking around between the shelves in a real Tesco store.

Soupbar – Eat the Street

Posted on by Budablogger

Want to find a great place to eat a lunch in Budapest? Do not look in the Budapest blog, TripAdvisor or other Budapest guides… walk around in Budapest and see where crowds gather to eat lunch! That is how we discovered the Soupbar located between Kalvin square and Fovam square.

I guess at least 20-25 times I have passed by the Soupbar on foot, with tram or with car. Whenever I pass by the place (during its opening times) it is packed with people standing in line to get their soup of the day, or standing outside the little bar eating their selected soup. And the interesting fact is that people draw people, and in the same way that I discovered the place, hundreds and probably thousands of others have learned to know the place wondering what all those happy people are eating standing there on the street between Kalvin square and Fovam square. Well, the answer is soup!

Soup of the Day in the Soupbar

The soupbar is not a restaurant, but the run with the slogan “Eat the Street” and “Str-eat.” It means that people buy their soup and then they eat it by one of the few tables outside the bar or bring it on to their office or a bench nearby. Every day you can choose from five different soups which can be found on the menu, most of them a bit exotic and with cool ingredients giving them a taste that you will make you return again and again. If you are really hungry they offer baguettes in addition to the soup, making sure that you will not leave the place hungry.

The price of the different soups are 450 Hungarian Forint and if you want to add a baguette to the soup the price will be somewhere between 800 and 1000 Hungarian Forint.

Soup of the Day examples

In the soupbar they keep bringing new soups all the time, but here you can find examples of some different soups that have been on the menu recently: Arabic chicken soup, Cold raspberry soup, Potato soup with pesto, Indian chicken soup, Tandoori chicken soup, Tomato and basil soup, Cauliflower soup, Thai cocoa soup and tons of other soups!

Want to eat some soup yourself? Visit the place and write a comment here afterwards and share your thoughts on the soup!

Soupbar Budapest

Address. Vamhaz korut 14
Opening times: 11.00 – 19.00 from Monday – Sunday
Payment: Cash only

Why I don't like to write Budapest reviews

Why I don’t like to write Budapest reviews

Posted on by Budablogger

If you have followed the Budapest blog for a while you may have noticed that there are quite a lot of reviews and thoughts on different subjects here. The truth is, however, that I do not really like to write Budapest reviews, and here is the reason!

In today’s Internet world people keep looking to the Internet for information before coming to a city. Here they will find information about restaurants they consider to visit, hotels they might want to live in and activities they want to check out. This is great and can help the traveler find the best activities, restaurants and hotels, and it is truly for the good of the traveler that it is this way. But, there is another side of the coin.

Budapest reviews

My Budapest review problem

When I visit a restaurant I always plan on writing a review and share my thoughts about the place in the blog later. As long as the food and the service is great I write reviews and share my experience with great joy. But, from time to time I visit places were either the service or the food, or maybe even both are bad, or maybe even worse, terrible… and that is when the problem occurs.

When some tourist ask me about night clubs in Budapest I always tell them that I do not really have a clue and that they should ask Google instead. If they see a night club they might want to enter, type the name into Google first to see if it has a good reputation, or if it is a well known rip-off place (which unfortunately can be said about quite some night clubs in Budapest). Before entering a restaurant to grab something to eat, many people do the same and Google the restaurant to read some reviews before entering. And, if someone Google a restaurant that I have visited and written a poor review about it, the result is that the person will go somewhere else and not visit the given restaurant. Is that a problem?

No… but, maybe yes! There are people working in that restaurant, and some of those people have looked for ages for a job and they do their best to get things going around. A couple of bad reviews on the Internet can in some cases be enough to destroy the total reputation of a restaurant, at least if it is quite new on the market. This will with time result in a restaurant closing down and people losing their job… But, when I wrote that original review it wasn’t my intention for anyone to lose their job, all I wanted to do was to inform people about my experience. But, the consequence of doing so had greater impact than I imagined. (luckily this is hypothetical, so this has not happened and hopefully will never happen).

What is the solution to my review problem?

Should I really care? If a bad restaurant is closed down and the people working there lose their job, isn’t that a good thing? At least no more people need to suffer eating their food and paying for bad service and food… Or maybe I should write the review, share it with the owner of the restaurant first, and see if he has any response to it. If he doesn’t care, then it really is his problem, but if he believe this to be a mistake or an unlucky evening, then maybe he will invite me back for a dinner another night to make it good again and show me what the restaurant is really like? But, maybe I will then be treated in a certain way because I am a blogger, while all other guests are treated in the same poor way as I was treated before the owner new that I was a blogger.

Another solution would be to not write anything at all when I feel like writing a negative review. In that way I will not harm anyone, except from other people throwing away their money on the same poor experience I had myself.

Help me guys… anyone got any idea on how to solve this? Should I care, or should I not care? What would you do?

Three great places to go jogging in Budapest

Posted on by Budablogger

Want to keep your body in shape and looking for a place to exercise in Budapest? If you are a tourist you might live in a hotel with a fitness room, but if you’d rather run somewhere open air keep on reading, because here you can find three great places to go jogging in Budapest!

Hungary is known for salami and quite fat food, but if you live healthy and do some jogging you can easily survive the extra calories the Hungarian cuisine offers you. A great way to burn calories is jogging, and it also has a good effect on your heart and makes you sleep better at night. Time to run!

Jogging at the Margaret Island

If you ask any citizen of Budapest about where you should go jogging the Margaret Island it the favorite answer of most people. At this peaceful island in the middle of the Danube you can run along the track going around the entire island. If you run around the entire island you have been running about 4,5km and while doing so, you have been able to see beautiful landscape, monastery ruins, some nice hotels, river boats and lots of other people trying to stay healthy and keep their bodies in good shape. If you live nearby this is a brilliant place to jog, but if not you should either take a shower on the island or walk home, so that you will not poison the people with your sweaty body smell.

Jogging in the Orczy garden

Do not worry, I am not jogging as I write this article, but from where I am sitting I can actually see people running in the Orczy garden. The Orczy garden (Orczy kert) is a park in the eight district of Budapest, not far from the Nagyvarad ter metro station. There are several areas in the park where you can run, but the most popular area is the running track of 400 meter where you run next to the football field (seldom in use). The quality of the track itself is not the best, but for most not to picky runners this is more than enough. The running track is in use from early morning until late evening, but I would be careful running here all by myself late in the evening (at least if I was a girl) since the park doesn’t have the best reputation in the world.

Jogging in the Ox park (Bikas park)

If you live in the eleventh district of Budapest a great place for jogging is the Bikas park. It is located by the Kelenfold Varoskozpont (bus 7, 73, 103 stops here) and in the future metro line four will stop here (if it ever gets finished). They have recently created a great running track in the park which lets you run inside the park in very nice and peaceful environments. They have even made a bonus part next to the track where you will find some equipment which can be used for strengthening your arms, legs and other body parts. If you come here on a Saturday morning you can also visit the market just next to the running track where you can buy fruits, clothes, meat, cheese and lots of other stuff. This is one of those markets where you will find no tourists, only locals.

Wish you all happy jogging! If you have other advises concerning great places to go jogging in Budapest write it in a comment and share your knowledge with other runners coming to this blog for information about where to run in Budapest!

Asparagus cream soup recipe for dummies

Posted on by Budablogger

Some days ago I wrote that it is asparagus season in Budapest at the moment. It truly is, and probably the most popular asparagus meal in Budapest during such seasons is the Asparagus cream soup.

Celebrating the asparagus season I have recently made the cream soup of asparagus several times and here you can find the recipe. It is worth knowing that when I work in the kitchen and whatever I cook is cooked in a „for dummies” way. That means I do everything as easy possible, without loosing to much of quality and taste hopefully. That is why I dare to say that this recipe is so easy that anyone can make an asparagus cream soup following this recipe. If you like the end result or not, that is up to you.

Asparagus cream soup for dummies

Ingredients:

½ kg asparagus (green or white)
1 onion
oil/butter
salt
pepper
1 dl cooking cream (főzőtejszinhab)
1 spoon flour

Making the asparagus cream soup

Start with placing some oil and butter in the pot. Add the onion which should be cut to small pieces. Keep stirring to make sure that the onion does not get burned. After a while add the asparagus which has been cut into small pieces and let them stir together for 1-2 minutes. If there are parts of the asparagus that are very hard, almost like cutting tree, leave them and throw them in the garbage instead.

After this add enough water so that all the ingredients are covered and let them boil for 20 minutes until they are really soft. When you have reached this point you need to find your blender (turmixgep) and pour everything into it. Let the blender work everything for a minute and afterwards it actually starts looking like a soup!

At this point there is something very important that needs to be done. Find a sifter (szürő) and before pouring the soup from the blender back into the clean pot pour it into the sifter. Use a wooden spoon to push the soup through the sifter. In the end you will have a small portion left in the sifter which you can throw away and not use. It feels tragic to throw it, but the reason why you need to do this is the fact that it contain parts almost like fish-bones which can be really annoying if they end up in your soup, and they are capable of destroying the joy of soup eating (been there, done that).

Once the soup is back in the pot you can add the remaining water (if there is anything left). Take the cream and pour it into an empty bowl. Add 1 spoon of flour and mix them together and then pour it slowly into the soup. The cream gives the cream soup a much more creamy feeling, but if you are on a diet and want to skip extra calories, you can skip the cream.

If you have white pepper use that, but if not black pepper can also be used. I would add ½ teaspoon of pepper and probably around 3 teaspoons of salt, but since this is very different from person to person and amount of salt also depends on the quality of salt, you should taste yourself to give the soup a taste the way you like it!

In the end let the soup boil for 3-4 minutes and your asparagus cream soup masterpiece has now been finished.

Enjoy your meal and please write a comment and write whether you liked the end result or not. If you have further advices or any modifications you would like to add to the recipe, write a comment as well!

The first trolley bus coming to Budapest after Second World War

The first trolley bus coming to Budapest after Second World War

Posted on by Budablogger

I do love historical Budapest pictures, so I thought I’d share a great picture I found on Fortepan earlier today.

On this picture you can see the first trolley bus coming to Budapest after Second World War, of course providing by the communists, bringing honor and glory to their leader.

Communist bus in Budapest

[stextbox id=”info” caption=”What I find interesting”]What is interesting is that the bus in itself doesn’t look that old fashioned at all, at least not if you compare it with the trolley buses traveling around in Budapest today…[/stextbox]

How to watch Netflix in Budapest?

Posted on by Budablogger

If you feel like watching some films in the beautiful English language, instead of the dubbed stuff you normally meet in Budapest cinemas and on all Hungarian TV channels, then Netflix might be the solution you are looking for. But, if you try to visit the Netflix website from Hungary you will get an error message telling you that it is not possible.

There are quite a lot of articles out there on the Internet about Netflix and how to watch it from abroad, so this article will not give you any information so special and secret that you can not find it elsewhere on the Internet. But, for those who are readers of the Budapest blog this information might be very useful and new to them, and if so I am glad that I could be at help!

What is Netflix?

Netflix is a big online library packed with films of all kinds (children films, romantic films, horror films, comedies, thrillers, action films and much more). Netflix also has tv series in their register, in addition to quite some documentaries and for example popular talks from the annual TED conferences. Unfortunately Netflix is only available in some specific nations in the world, and if you are located outside one of these nations, you will not be able to enjoy any of the blessings Netflix has to share. At the moment Netflix is not available in Hungary and Budapest (and it will probably not come in the near future either), so how can you can watch Netflix?

Watch UK Netflix or US Netflix from Hungary

The best solutions for those who want to watch Netflix from Hungary is probably to watch the UK Netflix or the US Netflix. To be able to visit any of the sites at all you will need an IP address in the nation you are interested in. This can best be fixed using a VPN service. If you want the best possible speeds, then the UK Netflix might be a better solution (which require a British IP address), but if you for some reason would rather watch the US Netflix, then you need an American IP address.

If you want such an IP address there are several VPN providers on the market waiting to help you get one. Almost all VPN providers have IP addresses available in both the United Kingdom and in the United States, so that should be no problem. When I tried this myself I used a VPN provider named PureVPN (read PureVPN review here). They have servers in 20 other nations in addition to the UK and in the USA, for example in Hungary, meaning that it can be an ideal solution if you use an open WiFi in for example a Starbucks in Budapest and want to secure your data so none steal them as you use open/insecure wifis, and then a connection to a VPN server in Hungary can help you (as it will not slow down your Internet, but encrypt and secure your connection). They also have an application for Android and iOS, meaning that it can easily be used on portable devices, and not only home computers.

How to watch Netflix then from Hungary and Europe?

To watch Netflix you can visit the website of PureVPN and sign up for a subscription with them. Their prices are very good, especially if you sign up for one year. Once signed in and signed up you can download the application to the device with which you want to use the VPN connection. Connect to a server in the UK if you want to use the UK Netflix, or connect to the server in the USA if you want to use the USA Netflix. The website is now working and you can sign up for the 1 month free period, which will automatically renew itself if you do not cancel it. This is a short process which only takes a few minutes, so in not long you can enjoy watching Netflix from Hungary and Budapest.

Worth knowing:
If you live somewhere else in Europe the principles are the same, but since this is a Budapest blog we have focused on how people residing in Hungary can watch Netflix from abroad.

Thank for the inspiration to the Watch Netflix from abroad page! 🙂