Bagels in Budapest

You have not read wrong.

On Bajcsy Zsilinszky, right next to Toldi cinema is a place that sells what look like freshly-made bagels. With cream cheese, if you want. What's weird is that the garish colours in the windows shout "Tacky cheap beer joint!" rather than "Bagels in Budapest!"


Thanks for pic, Bagel Grove

Something new, something old

I often feel the beginning of the year is playing catch-up with all the end-of-the-year lists for music, and it's only in the last couple of weeks that I've emerged from that to rummage about in a more carefree way.

Via multiple clicks, I stumbled upon Adele, one of the many young female sensations coming out of Britain. The album is nothing to shout about, but this tune is pleasingly unexpected:



After a lovely meal last week of couscous, the host lent me his external hard disk, which struck me as incredibly generous, and which I fully took advantage of. One of the random things I copied was a French band, Overhead. They sing in English, and their album Silent Witness is a cross between Koop, The Sundays, Harry Connick Jr., Jeff Buckley, Duncan Sheik and Dave Matthews Band. And there's a bit on one of the tracks that sounds totally out of place - a Deep Purple chorus.

Incredibly, there's nothing on Youtube with them except for an interview with some live excerpts from the album:



Went for a walk along the river today, in the sun, which made the icy wind more bearable. I've resigned myself to February acting like February rather than April, and in consolation, have a new winter coat.

This week in Budapest food

On Tuesday, we went to A La Galette to make the most of pancake day (since we're obviously giving up indulgences till Easter). The last time I had crepes was in Brittany, where they originate, so this place had a lot to live up to. And though they didn't have the same note-perfect buttery, moist yet crispy combination, it didn't disappoint.

I got a savoury crepe with ham, cheese, a fried egg, mushroom and tomato which I struggled to finish. See, you think crepes are really thin, so of course you can inhale 3 or 4, but this was a much mistaken presumption. I think the last time I was this full after a meal it involved fried chicken and mashed potatoes. So no sweet crepes for me, though these were smaller and smelled more buttery. It was novel to have cider in tea cups accompanying the pancakes, and with the marine decor, it felt like a decidedly un-Hungarian meal.

Then yesterday was 'Greedy Thursday', the day in the year when thousands of restaurants in Hungary slash 50% off prices. Popular places are booked far in advance. It just so happens that this year it was also the first day of Chinese New Year, so we went along to Cafe Pierrot, which one of us had read good reports about.

A very romantic ambience, modern yet cosy, and there's a piano player, which is either nice background music or a bit noisy to have conversation over. Service was very friendly (surprise!) until the end when the waiter checked to see if we'd paid enough for the bill at our table. Did we look like we were going to do a runner?

The food was nothing fantastic. Our rib-eyes and tenderloins were decent, but everything else fell flat - overcooked salmon, undercooked pork, bland chocolate cake. That's what happens when you wildly overprice your menu. I was glad we were only paying half price. Blame the menu writers maybe, who obviously knew what they were doing with their evocative compositions of the different items. The emperor's new plate?

Incredible to me that restaurants in KL are far better, both in quality and value. And I'm talking about the non-Asian places.