Food and Drink
Goulash
The best-known Hungarian meals are pörkölt, or goulash (gulyás), and other meals properly spiced with paprika. A true Hungarian goulash should be made of beef roasted with onion, paprika, tomatoes and green pepper.
Hungarian sausages
The best kind of Hungarian sausages is Pick made from pork and a secret mixture of spices. The Pick sausage together with the Hungarian paprika has its own museum in the town of Szeged.
The Tokaji wine
The Tokaji wine comes from a Hungarian region of the same name. Here, wines are made of Furmint, Sárg, Muskotály adn Hárslevelü varieties. Every supermarket in Budapest offers a wide variety of Tokaji wine of different kinds and vintages. Therefore, you do not have to go to a special wine-shop. A little store at a street corner will do the job.
Hungarian spirits
Apart from the Tokaji wine do not forget to taste one of the Hungarian spirits. Kecskeméti barackpálinka made of apricots is the best one. You can also find a plum or pear spirit. A truly good quality one will cost you 2000 forints.
Restaurants in Budapest
It is said that there are more than 1000 restaurants in Budapest. Among them is a lot of international, exotic, Japanese, vegetarian and often even Indian ones. Do not be afraid of going even to a cheaper restaurant, because the food is truly delicious almost everywhere in Budapest. Even in a cheap place your taste buds will have their own back.
In the restaurants’ menus you will often find goose liver, goulash soup, fish soup or cherry soup, goulash, cabbage leaves stuffed with meat... As a dessert, restaurants in Budapest offer pancakes or a strudel filled with all possible ingredients (poppy, cherries, cord, apricots, cabbage, apples...).
Hungary is not exactly the right country for vegetarians, but even here you can eat well. Local vegetable salads are always fresh, and slices of barbecued sheep cheese are an often-offered titbit.
Cheap restaurants in Budapest
Greek-Hungarian restaurant El Greco, Hungary Görög-Magyar Étterem, situated at the address
More tips for cheap restaurants can be found for example on the Budapest Tourist Guide web.
An unusual experience in a Budapest brasserie
In case you want to visit a true Hungarian brasserie with live music, visit the Karpatia restaurant. The restaurant’s historic interior is perfected with assiduous personnel and live gypsy music. You will find The Karpatia restaurant at the address Ferenciek tere 7 – 8, which means not very far from the Ferenciek tere subway station. It is among the best rated restaurants in Budapest.
Sweetshops
If you like not only good food, but also desserts in the form of a strudel, do not forget to stop by at the First Strudel House in Budapest, where you can enjoy a good lunch, after which comes nothing less than a delicious roll. You can choose a strudel with cord, apples, cherries, plums, cabbage and of course poppy.
Lovers of desserts, ice cream and, above all, marzipan, should not forget to stop by at the Szamos Marzipan sweetshop . One of them can be found in the Parisi street n. 3. It is open from 10:00 to 19:00 (to 20:00 in summer). While sitting on a summer terrace in a calm street in the otherwise busy town centre, you can enjoy desserts you will dream about in the night.