Enjoying Communist Cuisine

Location: Budapest, VII District
Date: February 19, 2011
Adventure #46

For a Saturday lunchtime outing, my friends and I opted to head back in time via Kádár Étkezde - a Jewish/Hungarian restaurant in the heart of Budapest's VII District. This eatery has been more or less unchanged since Communist times and still draws a loyal lunch crowd. The cozy restaurant is composed of tightly packed tables with red and white checked table cloths protected by plastic covers.

Its wainscot walls are decorated with mismatched framed pictures of local celebrities, old maps and and hilariously timeworn signs, like this one that barely divides smokers from the non-smokers. (A wise Hungarian friend once told me that non-smoking sections in Budapest restaurants are like having designated non-peeing lanes in a swimming pool.)

Fortunately, I came to lunch with veterans of the establishment, because there are a few rules every patron should know Kadar's dining rituals:
- Each table has a bottle of seltzer water. Pour yourself glasses of water, but be sure to count them, because you are charged Ft 50 per glass (25 cents).
- You must also count how many pieces of bread you consume, because, like the water, you are charged per slice Ft 30 (10 cents).
- At the end of your meal, you must go to the front of the restaurant to pay the owner who is dressed in a white shirt and pants like a sanatorium worker. Precisely recite everything you ate down to the last piece of bread and glass of water, while he adds up the total on a slip of paper. If you seem to be underestimating your consumption, he will interrogate you.

I came to the restaurant specifically to try a traditional Hungarian meal of a goose leg and sólet, a Jewish bean stew. It was every bit as tasty as its reputation promised, and it made me pleased that I finally got to enjoy a Magyar institution. Plus, the fact that the owner didn't question my eating habits was a major boon.

Cooking Hungarian

Location: Budapest
October 3, 2010
Adventure #34

Fine, I'll admit that I did cheat a bit in the culinary department last weekend. When making a time-tested Hungarian meal of homemade dumplings and paprikás csirkét (paprika chicken), I left out a Magyar staple ingredient: lard.


My Gundel recipe book, developed and named after one of Hungary's most famous chefs, assured me that for deeply flavorful dishes, one must use lard in local concoctions. But, boy did I prove him wrong. Just like many kitchens across the country that night, I sliced up chicken, diced spicy green peppers and onions, and added them to a sizzling butter base - all resulting in an amazingly tasty dish (after I added the paprika and sour cream of course) - no lard needed. I also made homemade dumpling dough sans lard, sliced it into peanut-sized balls (it feels like Play-Doh) and dropped it into boiling water to make the satiating hard dumplings of which I am so fond. It could be dangerous knowledge that I know how to make them now, because it will be yet another way to feed my carb-obsessed body.


Michael said it was the best Hungarian food he had eaten in Hungary. Granted, he's not Mr. Objectivity when it comes to my creations, but it was a high compliment. Better yet, the meal did not hurt my stomach, which typically heavy Hungarian food does. In fact, it is such a common occurrence that I get a stomach ache after ingesting any native restaurant food or worse yet, festival food, that instead of saying I feel sick, I just say my stomach is "Hungarian." Yet, after this achievement in the kitchen, I will just have to say my ailing tummy is "lardy."