Since we faced some cold weather while in Budapest, we needed some good comfort food to warm us up in between our treks around the city. Budapest did not disappoint. The first day we arrived in Budapest happened to be St. Patrick's Day so we all wanted to go to an Irish pub and have some corned beef and cabbage to celebrate the day. However, when we arrived at the pub-- surprise, surprise we weren't the only ones celebrating St. Patty's Day-- it was incredibly busy and we realized we weren't going to be able to eat there. This ended up being a blessing though because we were able to find a traditional Hungarian restaurant and have some authentic food.
The food in the picture above is Töltött káposzta (Stuffed Cabbage). This signature Hungarian dish is basically a cooked cabbage "burrito". In the middle of this burrito was pork and rice which was then rolled in cooked cabbage and topped with a sauce had a tomato-y taste and sour cream. This dish was the best food I got to experience in Budapest. It seemed like a weird combination of ingredients, but somehow they all complimented each other and were very much present in the dish. Eating this was the best of both worlds because I got some cabbage for St. Patty's day after all and also got my first taste of Hungarian food.
I don't remember the name of this dish, but it was basically fancy mac and cheese. This dish consisted of noodles, melted cheese, ham, scrambled eggs, paprika, and sour cream. This again was a weird combination of food-- scrambled eggs in mac and cheese?!-- but I was really missing mac and cheese so anything that was remotely close to it would have satisfied me.
A spice that is used a lot in Budapest is paprika. Its in a lot of their cuisine and in virtually every gift shop, so of course I had to try paprika chicken! I also was noticing by this point that they really like sour cream here as well. But anyways, this dish was basically chunks of chicken covered in a paprika heavy sauce with sour cream on top of it. It was also served with a noodle-like/mini-dumpling-like side. The paprika chicken was amazing and I quickly understood why they love it so much here! The "noodles" had a unique texture and tasted very good mixed in with the sauce.
Finally I get to talk about these amazing creations. Chimney cakes!! So far every country we have gone to in Europe have sold these deserts. Europe is obsessed with them and I can completely understand why. They are basically churros in the shape of a cone covered in sugar, cinnamon, etc. with either nutella or ice-cream and whipped cream in the middle. Your mouth watering yet? They are as good as they sound. I've already had three of these things and I can predict there will be many more in my future.