Saturday, May 5
I have a friend back in NYC named Peter, a native Hungarian, who has been enthusiastically making suggestions and finding all sorts of interesting things for us to do. He found some notices on a food truck festival at Kincsem Parkban – a nearby track that hosts dog and horse racing. It sounded like lots of fun. Our plan was to take the free shuttle bus service, have an amazing lunch and watch some racing. What a great way to spend the day.
(Peter is also an amazingly good tennis coach. If anyone in the New York City area is interested in improving their game please let me know and I will give you his contact information. You won’t be sorry.)
We walked down to Déak Ferenc tér to get the shuttle bus. The notice didn’t say anything about where in the square it would be nor did it list any sort of schedule. All it said was that they would be using a yellow school bus. We figured there would be a sign or perhaps we’d see a group of people waiting. As we’ve said before, figuring was never our strong suit. We waited in the square for about 30 minutes before we saw a yellow school bus loading people across the street. We tried to make a dash for it but the lights were against us and the bus left without us. We waited at the new location for over an hour and never saw another bus. By now it was after 1:00 pm and, after having stood waiting in the hot sun for over an hour and a half, we decided to make a new plan. We headed over to Vörösmarty tér for lunch. We went to Café Gerbeaud.
Café Gerbeaud is one of those storied places that you have to visit when in Budapest. It’s history started in 1858 as a coffee house and it later achieved even greater fame as a confectionary. It’s decorated in the Gründerzeit style from the mid 1800s. We chose to sit outdoors at a table with a large umbrella overlooking the square. The menu had an extensive list of alcoholic beverages, a large list of specialty coffees and soft drinks and a small list of breakfast and lunch items. The desserts looked particularly interesting. We were warm from having stood on the street corner for so long and so were tempted to just order some of the ice cream. At our age aren’t you supposed to eat dessert first?
Deborah ordered a smoked salmon salad and a sour cherry lemonade while I ordered a smoked salmon sandwich and an iced coffee made with ice cream and caramel sauce. I’ve only just begun drinking coffee since we started this trip and one thing I’ve discovered is that sugar and coffee are a bad combination but, since the drink looked so interesting, I decided to give it a try. OMG! Pick your favorite superlative. It was unbelievably good. I asked Deborah if the coffee drinks at Starbucks were like that and she said that they were similar but not nearly as good. I’ve discovered another thing: coffee in Europe is really good. American coffee, which I have tasted and rejected many times, is awful.
Our main courses were also quite good. My sandwich came on a house made, seeded whole wheat bread. I generally don’t care for whole wheat bread but when that’s your only choice you go with the flow. It was absolutely delicious and may have been the best part of the sandwich. Unlike most whole wheat breads which, to me, have no taste and the consistency of cardboard, this had a delicate flavor and a soft texture. The seeds had also been toasted which really brought out their flavor. We decided to get dessert elsewhere. At around $50.00 the cost of our feast was way more that we would normally spend for lunch but this restaurant was one of our bucket list items. We’ll just have economize on toilet tissue this week.
(Smoked Salmon Salad and Sandwich)
We decided to walk back to our apartment through the Jewish quarter. Since it was Saturday we knew that the synagogues would be closed but the area is reputed to be one of the livelier sections of Town and is known for some interesting restaurants. Along the way we found several long alleys where food stands had been setup, street musicians were playing and crafts were being sold. The area felt festive. We were dying to try some of the delicacies that we saw but just couldn’t manage another bite. We did find a shop that was selling flódni and we bought some to take home and try later. We told ourselves that we would go back to the apartment, rest for a while, and go out again later that evening after the sun had set. It was something we wanted to do but we both knew it was never going to happen.
(Street Musicians)
Later that evening, after dinner, we tried the flódni. Flódni is an Eastern European Jewish dessert that was mainly served at Chanukah. Today you can only find it in Hungary. It’s a layered pastry containing poppyseed, walnut, apple and plum jam. Given the apple and nut mixture the taste and consistency reminded us a lot of the charoset that’s eaten at the passover seder. The pastry was rather filling too. If you want to see a picture check out the link above (we ate it before remembering to take a picture).
After dinner we finally went online and bought some opera tickets. They were reasonably priced. Two tickets for a single performance cost about $37.00. For one performance we’re sitting in the middle orchestra and in the other we’re in the first section balcony. We’ll be seeing Rigoletto and Die Fledermaus. Other interesting choices included the Barber of Seville and Ernani. They were also doing The Magic Flute.
Distance walked: 5.6 miles