Vegetarian places in Budapest

not always easy to be a vegetarian, especially when you travel in some eastern european countries. actually you are really lucky with budapest, it's not that eastern in the vegetarian line (:

my favourite place is the "Lébár" (juicebar), they offer very cheap and good vegan food and fresh juices here (Múzeum körút). good option for those who can't eat sugar or flour, too, they have very clever cakes and pastries. often you can find the vegetarian version of some hungarian dish like paprikás krumpli (paprika potatoes), gulyásleves (goulash soup) or jókai bableves (bean soup).
they are open every weekday between 10 and 18. it's very small place. next to it you can find the best organic shop in the country (in my opinion), with fresh fruits and vegetables also.

my second favourite place is the hummus bar, they serve delicious israelian veggie food like hummus and falafel. you can buy falafel everywhere in the city, but this is the only place where it's actually good. they have more restaurants. the nicest one is at the Kertész utca 39, here.
the other location serves the same food, but the place is not that lovely (Alkotmány u. 20.).



a nice option can be the belgian fries: the place is called Pár Perc Krumpli (some minutes of potato), they offer nice fries, many kinds of sauces and some vegetarian burgers. they also have more shops:
Ráday u. 1-3
Móricz Zs. körút 2.

at these places you can get filled by 2-3 euros, i don't really go to more expensive restaurants. you can always find something vegetarian at the turkish buffets (we have many). a good one is near the Nyugati train station, called Szeráj. their aubergine and spinach in joghurt is great.

I never tried, but looks nice the biodarshan vegetarian shop and restaurant.


there are some other options as well, but i should test them first. if you want to try something hungarian but veggie, there's the főzelék (made of any kind of vegetable, can't really explain, so check out the pictures). if you want to try the higher class version, the stand bistro is told to be good and cheap (4 eur) at lucnhtime. then there's lecsó (it can contain meat, ask about it before ordering), it's similar to the ratatouille, perfect summer food. and you can try some typical hungarian pastas, like túrós csusza (with cottage cheese, ask without bacon), mákos tészta (with poppy seed, it's sweet), káposztás tészta (with cabbage - it can be sweet and salty as well), etc. you will love túrógombóc, if it's made in a good way. in the restaurants they usually serve it as dessert, but at home you would eat it as a main dish. i prefer with sugar and tejföl (sour creme). and you can't miss lángos of course, but be prepared to something very heavy and oily (or greasy). best with tejföl and cheese, or just simply with some garlic. you can find it quite cheap at the central market. ok, i'll come up with more ideas later. ask anything in the comments.

The gluttony thursday

tomorrow, (06. february) is the day for going to restaurant. before the easter fast you can fill your stomach with delicious dishes for half price. there are 1068 restaurant giving 50% discount from the meals all over hungary. this promotion is valid for the 'a la carte' meals or the special menus composed for this occasion.
here's the list with the places participating. there's also a hompage, but it's only in hungarian.
egészségedre!

A La Galette crèperie

If you are fed up with all these yammy but greasy Hungarian specialities, you might have some French ones. All right, at A La Galette you can't get anything for 130 huf like at the Fakanál, but it's still affordable. Close to the Nyugati trainstation you can find a sweet Breton restaurant mostly with fabulous galettes and crèpes. A very nice French couple runs the place, the husband cooks, the wife serves the food. The most simple courses start at around 600 huf (2,4 eur) and the most complicated ones end up at around 2.500 huf (10 eur). And you can drink cidre, what you rarely find in Hungary.

The colours are blue and white, some kind of marine-style, all this and the perfect lights make a very pleasant atmosphere. We as university students are so used to the fast food restaurants, that for the first moment it was a surprising gesture to get water in nice glasses without asking. You know, everything is different at the Chinese (:

The address: Szondi utca 11, 6th district (map)
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 11pm; Sunday 11am to 3pm
You can get here by: tram #4,6 (stop: Oktogon or Nyugati tér), metro 1 (Oktogon) or metro 3 (Nyugati tér)

For the photo thanks to roboppy on flickr.

eat out: cheap, dirty but typical

i work in a hostel as a recepcionist, and lots of guests ask me about the typical local meals. usually they want to get it from a restaurant and usually (because it's a hostel not a boscolo hotel) they want it for a reasonable price. the answer is fakanál ételbár (the wooden spoon foodbar). i don't want to make false dreams to you, it's a real chop-house. i never saw anybody, who's not a student or a phisical labor as a customer. or sometimes some brave turists with cameras in the corner. plastik chocked covers on the metal tables, almost rusty plates for the soups and a collection of more than a hundred differtent plates for the meals. it's in a cellar and there's semidarkness, steam and hot.
there's a menu on the wall, i hasn't changed i guess since it was opened. also the mom of the canteen is the same with that rusty voice on which she shouts the order to the kitchen.
i'm not a gastroblogger typed, so don't ask me about it. i just can tell, it's one of the only places, where you can eat a meal like they do it at home.
found some prices:
clear soup (130HUF ~ 0,50 euro)
gulyás soup with beans (300HUF ~ 1,20 euro) - yee, the GOULASH!
macaroni (320HUF ~ 1,25 euro )

address: Fakanál ételbár, 1081, Baross utca 15. (map)
opening hours (i think): from 11:00 or 12:00 to 15:00 on every weekday.

i'll try to get some photos, promise.

the market again

maybe you already noticed that i'm in love with our central market. i found a great post about it in english from my favourite gastro-blogger, chili and vanilia. she's an expert, beleive her.