Category: Restaurants

Last Saturday I went with my wife and son to Danube Palace to listen to what Dr. Robi Sonderegger had to tell about family life and the importance of it. It ended at 13.00 and we then walked to Central Bistro & Bar to grab a quick lunch before we went home (we told the waiter upon arrival that we wanted a quick lunch). Well, seldom has a lunch succeeded as bad as this one!

We sat down and asked for a chair to our soon two year old boy. Unfortunately the restaurant had no such thing, so he had to sit in a mix of our laps, run around and the trolley. Most restaurants at least have the cheap IKEA chairs for children, but these were all missing. We sat down, looked at the menu and decided to go for a steak and a hamburger. But, none were really interested, so we had to wait a long time before the waiter even came over to take our order (remember: quick?!). We placed our order around 13.30. Around 14.00 the waiter finally came with our lunch, or at last what was supposed to be our lunch. My hamburger was very well done, and the hamburger bread was black on both inside and outside. Not totally burned, but you could really feel the taste of coal as you ate it.

My wife ordered a well done steak. After thirty minutes of waiting the steak was served, but not at all well done. Parts of the steak were in fact raw. She was starving, our son was starving and so was I. We therefore ate the over fried hamburger with the burnt hamburger breads, while we sent the steak back to let them do some more work on it. After 10-15 more minutes it was returned, but still not well done at all. So, once again it was returned and after 10-15 more minutes it was served for the third time. This time it was well done, and the taste was in fact good together with the mushroom sauce it was served together with.

During lunch time on a Saturday Central Bistro & Bar was quite well visited. I am not sure if that was the problem, but there were only two waiters working and they might have had a lot to do. But, if a restaurant is not capable of receiving a half full restaurant during lunch time the result will be like with us… unhappy guests who will never return. And then again the next time the restaurant will not even be half full.

The price for the steak was about 3000 Forints while the price of the hamburger was a bit less than 2000 Forints. Our original plan was to eat some desserts as well, but at 14.45 we were so fed up and our boy was so tired that we just hurried and payed the bill and jumped in our car and drove home. Somehow the experience remained as one of our worst Saturday lunches in a very long time…

Central Bistro & Bar

Nador utca 13
Tel: +36 1 328 3460
Open: Monday – Sunday from 11.00-23.00

Not long ago I got the chance to grab some pizzas in Fresco Liszt Cafe located at the Liszt Ferenc tér (Franz Liszt square) in Budapest. This square is one of the most popular places to grab a bite to eat in Budapest and with the Christmas market located at the square at the moment it gets even more crowded.

On a nice summer day Fresco Café has a nice outdoor area where you can sit and enjoy your food while enjoying the beauty of the square, watching people run to their trams, buses and metros, listen to singing birds and maybe feel the smell of some delicious food in the making. As we visited Fresco it was -5 Celsius outside, so we moved on to the inside of Fresco to grab something to eat there. The interior of the restaurant is in fact very big, and it looks and feels good. This is a nice place to drink a hot chocolate and enjoy a chat with your best friend, and this is also a place to fill your stomach with some more serious stuff.

On the menu in Fresco Café you can find traditional Goulash soup (990 HUF), Caesar Salad with Chicken (1890 HUF), Wiener Schnitzel (2390 HUF), Rib Eye steak (5900 HUF), Beef fajitas with four kinds of salsa (3890 HUF), Beef stewed in red wine with butter dumplings (2550 HUF), Brownie with vanillia ice cream (950 HUF) and much more. This is a perfect place for families, because everyone can find something they like and if you long for a pizza they have quite a lot of those on the menu as well varying between 1500-2000 HUF.

We ate two different pizzas as we visited Fresco, one with ham and mushroom and the other one a traditional Hungarian with some spicy paprika, onion, salami and mushroom. The pizzas were large, so if you are not a big eater, then you can safely order one pizza for two persons. They tasted good and we were completely satisfied. I am not sure if this is normal or not, but when we visited Fresco they even had an offer saying that you got the second pizza at half price if you ordered two of them, so that was nice. All in all we paid less than 4000 HUF for two pizzas and two drink, and then the service fee was already included on the bill (they automatically add 12%). Not bad at all 🙂

If you walk around at the Christmas market at the Franz Liszt square, why not make a stop at Fresco? Good food, average prices, smiley service and good location!

Fresco Liszt Café & Lounge

1061 Budapest, Liszt Ferenc tér 10.
Tel: (+36) 1 411-0915
Open: Monday – Sunday from 12.00-24.00

Yesterday I was out walking together with a group of tourists. Our walk together ended in Szimpla Budapest and since I had some spare time before my next program I though I’d grab something to eat. I kept walking in Kacinzcy utca, and suddenly on my right side I saw something that woke my interest… Bors GasztroBár. As I looked in the window it looked interesting and luckily there were quite empty as I went inside to check out this restaurant/bistro or whatever you’d call it.

I went inside Bors GasztroBár, looked at the menu and got a bit insecure. I am not so much of a gourmet (see: Mak Bistro and LaciPecsenye) so I normally prefer my food to be very straight forward with no special spices and ingredients added to them. Still, my curiosity for new tastes have grown recently, so I thought I’d grab the chance to taste something new. On the inside a smiling guys shouts out welcome (later I realised that the person saying hello is one of the two master chefs in the GasztroBár named György Rethling). I looked at the different dishes on the menu and without taking any big risk I ordered a Hungarian Dream sandwich with salami, pepper (paprika), smoked cheese and tomato on the inside. I accompanied my order with a celery cream soup and a ginger sambucus (elderberry) “juice” to drink. The soup was finished in 1 minute so I had barely found my seat before György shouted my name and told me that the soup was finished.

Inside the restaurant you will find different articles about the restaurant and some gastro magazines. In one of the articles the writer said that the quality of the soups are so high that you would gladly pay 2000 HUF for them in a normal Budapest restaurant. I think I agree. The celery cream soup was a perfect starter and I almost felt sad that I did not order a taste of all the soups, just to check them out. But, I will have to return some other time to do that.

The sandwich was served a few minutes after I finished my soup and it tasted just the way it was supposed to. After eating the soup and the sandwich I was kind of full, but since they had some deserts available on the menu I simply had to try at least one of them. I decided to go for a cheese cake with blueberry jam. Since this is a gourmet place they added some black pepper to bring forth the sweetness of the cake. The cheese cake was a success as well, though I would probably try something else if I returned as this did not become my new favorite.

Still, the atmosphere, the kindness and great service, the “fantastic choice” comments as I ordered the different things from the menu, and not to forget the prices, makes this a place I already look forward to return to sometime in the near future. I ate a delicious soup, a large sandwich, ate a large cheese cake and drank 0,4 liter of homemade soft drink for only 1750 HUF… that is nothing. If I had skipped the dessert the price would have been only 1240 HUF which is cheaper than a Whopper menu in Burger King, and ten times better!

It might be that many people who visit Szimpla Kert somehow drop by Bors GasztroBar for a bite of food before or after the ruin pub, but making the ruin pub the main attraction. In the near future I somehow predict that people will go to Kacinczy utca because of Bors GasztroBar, and as a bonus to the program they will pay a visit to Szimpla afterwards.

Go visit Bors GasztroBár and meet the enthusiastic chef and owners Tamas Lipher and György Rethling and enjoy a meal in one of the most promising and trendy places in Budapest at the moment!

Ps: Sorry about the bad quality of the photos. Somehow I did not expect ending up in such a great place, so I only had my middle class mobile phone to make pictures with!

Bors GasztroBar information:

Opening times: Monday-Saturday from 11.30-21.00
Address: Kazinczy utca 10, 1075 Budapest
Telephone: +36/ 70 935 3263, +36/70 701 3656

A couple of days ago I visited the most central Pizza Eataliano in Budapest, located only a few hundred metres from the Christmas market at Vörösmarty square. We decided to eat our lunch there with my wife and son and entered the restaurant and enjoyed our meal in total peace as there were nearly no other guests around.

I have been to other Pizza Eataliano restaurant before in Budapest, and I also visited quite a lot of them before they turned into Pizza Eataliano (earlier this Italian restaurant chain in Budapest was named Pizza Marzano). In the Pizza Marzano days this chain was not at all a favorite, and I rather avoided the place.

I am not sure what happened to the chain with the name change, but something have taken place, because the quality is for sure better now than before. With my wife we ate pizza and she had some grilled pork with mushroom sauce as a main course. For dessert we had chocolate cake, panna cotta and some vanilla ice.

My remembrance told me that the pizza in Pizza Eataliano is a bit better than in most other Italian restaurants in Budapest. It was true. The tomato sauce used has a better taste, and that serves as the basic for a good pizza. The ingredients worked out fine and I enjoyed my pizza. If I take into the consideration that my 27cm pizza cost 2000 HUF that is quite expensive compared to most place in Budapest, but still with such a central location, nice interior and good quality, the price is not to bad after all. My wife truly enjoyed her main course, and as she has a crush on everything that has to do with mushrooms at the moment, she really enjoyed the mushroom sauce served next to the grilled pork fillets. Her main course cost 2800 HUF. The dessert was a mixture of chocolate cake, panna cotta and a vanilia ice. This costed 1000 HUF. All in all, without drinks, the price was 5800 HUF.

As I mentioned earlier the interior of the restaurant is very nice and modern. The toilets are clean and nice and this is for sure a safe place to come with family and friends to eat some Italian food while walking around in the center of Budapest. One of the challenges of the restaurant is though the location. It is good, but still the normal tourist never walk by this place as it is a bit hidden away behind two corners. Most tourists who look for Italian food while walking in downtown Budapest normally drop by La Cucina instead, and this is a very popular place. Which is the best?

La Cucina has a great cuisine and a much more authentic Italian atmosphere. The decorations, the table clothes and atmosphere is better. The prices are quite similar, so if I had to choose as a tourist, I would probably dine in La Cucina instead of Pizza Eataliano. But, if you want to try something else and maybe eat your lunch or dinner in a more peaceful environment, or maybe have a business meeting with something to eat, then Pizza Eataliano is more suited for such activities than La Cucina.

What about the other Pizza Eataliano restaurants?
I have not eaten in all Pizza Eataliano restaurant in Budapest (there are 4 or 5 of them), but in general the menues are very much the same, prices are the same and the ingredients are the same. Therefore if you see a Pizza Eataliano sign that is a safe haven for those wanting to eat some pizza, a salad or some typical easy main course. You can eat lasagne as well in Pizza Eataliano, but a general problem in most restaurants is that they are totally unable to make good and tasty lasagne, and the same is the problem in Pizza Eatliano (meaning: skip that).

Pizza Eataliano restaurants in Budapest

Budapest, V. Vécsey utca 5.
Budapest, VI. Andrássy út 41.
Budapest, I. Batthyány tér 6.
Budapest, V. Dorottya utca 6.

Paprika Vendéglő, or Paprika, is a cozy and nice Hungarian restaurant located not far from the Heroes Square and the City Park in Budapest. The restaurant does not look to special from the outside, but on the inside they have a very nice and traditional Hungarian interior. During the warmer months of the year the restaurant also has a nice terrace outside the main entrance where you can sit and enjoy the meals while viewing cars passing by (quite amusing in fact).

Paprika is well known among both locals and internationals, and here you can get traditional Hungarian extreme portions, meaning that you will in most cases not be in need of starter, main course and dessert… the main course is more than enough by itself. On the menu you can find Hungarian goulash soup, fish soup, grilled goose liver, wiener schnitzel and lots of other courses, which will give you a good introduction to the Hungarian kitchen. They also have some fish dishes and dishes specially prepared for vegetarians, so everyone should be able to find something after their taste as they visit Paprika restaurant in Budapest.

Prices at Paprika

The price level at Paprika is not bad at all, and almost all courses cost less than 4000 HUF. A dinner for two, of course depending on the amount of drinks you order, should cost somewhere between 6000-10,000 HUF. Here comes some price examples from the menu at Paprika:

Goulash soup: 1050 HUF
Spicy chicken slices with pasta: 1850 HUF
Wiener Schnitzel with french fries: 2200 HUF
Grilled rumpsteak Lyon style with French fries: 2900 HUF
Creamy Mushroom tagliatelle: 1700 HUF
Cottage cheese dumplings: 790 HUF
Coca Cola (0,2L): 310 HUF
Dréher 0.5l (draught beer): 600 HUF

It might be a bonus and it might be a minus in Paprika, but it is a reality that most Hungarian restaurants trying to create an authentic atmosphere also includes live gipsy music. This is not the fact in Paprika, and you are here able to enjoy your meal in peaceful quietness, only disturbed by your own and the voices of the other guests. After visiting quite some restaurants with gipsy music this is in the eyes of Budablogger a big PLUS!

Do not expect gourmet food as you come to Paprika, because then you will be disappointed. Expect instead traditional Hungarian food, large portions, good service and nice prices… and hopefully you will be satisfied! Feel free to share your own thoughts on the restaurants using the comments field at the bottom of this page.

To get to Paprika you can travel with the yellow metro to the stop Heroes square. As you look towards the Heroes square and have Andrassy ut behind you, start walking to the right and follow Dozsa Gyorgy ut for a while, until you finally reach Paprika after 3-4 minutes.

Paprika restaurant information

Dozsa Gyorgy ut 72, Budapest 1071
Tlf: +36-20-294-79-44
Opening times: 12.00-23.00