Eastern Europe - Culinary Interlude

I dedicate this post to my various children and the BCD family who would have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this.

This trip has not been a gastronomically oriented trip but Saturday has been an exception. Budapest has a large Central Market and we visited it for lunch. There were numerous stands selling a wide variety of prepared items. We went to one and had the following:

• Roasted Chicken with a sauerkraut cooked with hot Hungarian peppers
• A sausage in sauce concoction on rice
• Just a roasted sausage with bread and mustard
• Cabbage rolls stuffed with a rice/sausage filling and a non-spicy sauerkraut
• A beef stew
• Red cabbage

It was substantially better than what we had for dinner the night before for a fraction of the cost. Very hearty with lots of flavor, eaten standing up and washed down with beer.

Dinner was at a restaurant that I had researched that specialized in goose and in Jewish dishes (Hungary had a substantial Jewish population prior to WWII). The name of the restaurant is Fülemüle, which is Magyar for Nightingale. The menu had over 15 different variations of goose including goose cracklings, cold goose liver in its own fat, Cholent with roasted goose leg, goose soup with matzo balls, etc. Our service was every bit as nice as it had been surly in the main downtown tourist area. Here’s what we had.

We shared communally a number of dishes up front. These included:

• The afore mentioned goose cracklings (think about all that wonderful skin from the roast bird – mmmmmm)
• Home made pickles including cucumber, hot peppers, green tomatoes (sounds like a deli right?)
• Beet salad
• Cabbage salad

For main courses we had the following:

• I had a combo plate of goose that included a wonderful goose liver with fried onions, a roasted leg, and a breast piece with fresh mushrooms (the mushrooms were awesome, kind of like Chinese black mushrooms). Along with it was potatoes fried in (tah dah) goose fat.
• AinA had the Cholent which here was a long-slow cooked bean dish very much like a cassoulet with hard cooked eggs – great flavor
• Sandy also had a goose leg with roasted veggies and millet
• Al had a leg of lamb
• Glo had a pikeperch in a cream sauce with mushrooms

Everything was fabulous. The service was excellent and friendly. We had a very nice bottle of Hungarian wine. Best of all, the total for five people was $163!

Food Counter at the Central Market

Our Group chowing down at Central Market

The various appetizers - Look at the Goose Skin Crackling! Mmmmmmmmmmm

My Goose Combo Plate
Under that pile of brown fried onions was goose liver to die for

Supreme Leader Sandy's Goose Leg with Roasted Vegetables

Al's Leg of Lamb
(or what's left of it)

AinA's Cholent with Eggs
Beans as good as any French Cassoulet

Wife's Fish (my least favorite dish - not enough fat I guess)

Everyone having a good time