Eat in Budapest

I’d been complaining a lot about Budapest restaurants not having been keen to offer customers decent meals at affordable prices in these turbulent economic environment. I finally found a couple of good choices in different parts of the town which I now would like to share with you.

Csalogány 26 has probably been offering their daily lunch menu for some time but I never noticed (I paid full price in the evening). I recently tasted their pork medalion which was simply fantastic plus they have a house’s wine which was quite good as well (a  simple but acceptable cuvée  from Malatinszky’s of Villány) for only HUF 200/100 cl. Check out their weekly lunch menu here but note that it’s quite unreliable since items tend to change by when you get there.

In the east bank of river Danube, Borbíróság decided to give a 50% discount for those who download their voucher from their website. Borbíróság may not be the best restaurant in town but it has a cosy atmosphere and a decent wine cellar. It’s also ideally located for those visiting the Vásárcsarnok or work in the neighborhood but they’re tired of the usual suspects of Ráday utca.

Noir et L’Or has a business lunch menu for HUF 990 for 2 courses and that’s quite fair: food is simplistic but well made and fresh and the service is polite. The interior is a bit cheaper answer to Donatella’s Kitchen the opposite side of the road, but the golden putto heads are a little bit over the edge to my taste. But it’s not only the interior design: as Donatella’s getting more and more expensive, Noir et L’Or’s getting to be a more and more viable option to many. They also have some good, rare wines such as Ráspi Irsai Olivér and Máté cuvée for instance.

Their Sunday Gluttonous day with its 50% off offer is a good alternative to Sunday Brunches.

Being a highly ranked restaurant and located in the very center of the city, Onyx restaurant represents a more luxurious option. With their lunch menu however, Onyx targets those who would like to break their daily monotony by a 45 minutes lunch. If 2 courses+coffee wouldn’t be served within that time period, the lunch’s on the house!

Here we are, the restaurant I most frequently visit but never have written about. In fact, I’ve become regular at Gold because of their very affordable lunch menu on weekdays. It’s a bit ironic that I’m thinking about having a break of it. The reason is twofold: first, it’s become very crowded lately and with the opening of new nearby office buildings I predict an increase in demand for table and consequently in price, followed by an inevitable fall of quality. Secondly, there are already signs of decline: the waiters have never been skilled or particularly keen to serve you (I’m told off every time) so I’m almost used to it, but the food’s quality’s become volatile too: it happened to me one weekend that the tuna salad which, according to the waiter was made of sliced fresh tuna during the week, became canned tuna by the end of it. I was also served bread which was dry on one side and fresh on the other. Why did I go back after such disappointments? The answer is simple:

They have a lunch menu which is the best value for the money in Buda, by far. Although the creativity in the kitchen’s a bit over the edge now (mixing Asian with Mediterranean but not in a very good way), their duck specialties are most often than not very good.

Of course I could complain a lot more: from using cheap, salted olive instead of marinated olive and so on, but you know what, it wouldn’t be fair. For HUF 1 500 you get 3 courses and if you’re lucky, at least one of them is way out of the league even of most more expensive places.