Tag: burger | Peter O Regan

What’s in when going out?

Posted on December 3, 2014 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

If you mention Móricz Zsigmond körtér it often evokes a feeling of nostalgia, and this for a place I have but a recent memory of. I’ve thought and taught here and drunk but a bit and yet I feel it’s somewhere I’ve been before, a place of greater memories, even if it isn’t.
There is a certain atmosphere in the area what with the tram rushing through as well as the 6 and 61 finishing up here. The schools, bookshops, fastfood places, all a step off make it a vibrant hub and now with development of the Metro 4 complete this area has come into its own. It owns the night scene Buda side, even if Lövõház is challenging to the north, and with the restaurants, bars, and general nuisances fanning out in all directions from the square, it’s certainly a pin to put in your google, or mental, map. Bartók Béla út, which dissects the square, is the main source of attraction and distraction with Szatyor, Nevada Pub*, Moha*, to name but a few offering up in terms of not only food and drink but other forms of spiritual nourishment. Nevada with its Cowboyish Wild West look, swinging doors to boot, has live music from the middle of the stairs on your way up: a live set-up in such a confined space?…interesting! (Sometimes a DJ may take over.) Booking a table is almost a prerequisite especially if you’re a group, or come looking for the perfect seat. The winter sees activities contained indoors while the sun shine draws forth a smattering of chairs making it a perfect beer and leer environment, even if your lungs and ears have to compete with the slight inconvenience of pollution from the ever busy Bártok Béla út…
Szatyor across the street has a sprawling ground floor with tables all ariot, while upstairs the seating is shared with a space for performances, exhibitions, and all the rest. As with Nevada it can get tricky to find seating around the weekend so be warned.
Whereas Nevada is a pub with grub on offer, Szatyor is a cafe with its own culinary aspirations. An offer of garlic soup followed by a Lángos was one of the lunchtime treats when I was visiting , and I tried it (poor students that afternoon), so while many may judge that as its downfall, it was most certainly for me its selling point. Like Nevada service in Szatyor never breeches the barrier between polite and friendly with smiles being somewhat a rare commodity.Maybe it’s the pressure, maybe it’s me, but especially in Szatyor’s case it seemed to be a little off-putting.
Another place worth mentioning is Moha which can be found farther down the street towards Gellért tér, and which is also inclined to entertainment beyond the food and drink on offer. As a place for breakfast it works, with ham and eggs amongst the choices, and there is an atmosphere which suggests something greater bubbling just beneath the surface. The grand piano in the corner may have something to do with it; my interest peaked. Of all the places I’ve mentioned it is the one place which I have not had the chance to sample evening time, so as to what to expect I can only fictionalise. A sign indicating a movie theatre hidden somewhere out of the morning’s grasp leads me to conclude that this place is aspiring to something bigger. As to whether it will achieve this, well, that remains to be seen, or will perhaps remain forever relative, because afterall, what is success? How can it be…blah blah blah.
That there are plenty more places to choose from goes without saying but to a man who has now got two children and too little time, such voyages of exploration are somewhat staggered, at least in comparison with what has gone before. These days memory must serve in place of accuracy, perhaps, and so I leave you to ponder and, if you wish, to contradict my words, for afterall, and in the end, there is no right nor wrong, just subjective truths:)

http://szatyorbar.blog.hu/
https://www.facebook.com/MohaCafe?fref=ts

*UPDATE: Since writing this review I have been down that way again and found two changes, not to the locations but to the names.

Nevada is now Osztrák Söröző: https://www.facebook.com/osztrak

and Moha is The Rabbit and the Duck bar, with a great logo to boot.

http://rndbar.com/

https://www.facebook.com/rabbitandtheduckbar/info

©TheHairyTeacher2014

Back for Seconds (Cafe 5 revisited)

Posted on July 18, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Cafe Five, Kolossy tér, lunchtime.
A busy affair.
They mean business.
And these days even early evenings have their appeal.
Landing this side of town it’s definitely a recommendation.
Friendly staff, who speak English, and a bevy of buses, a tram line running by the window, and the urban railway (HÉV) a two minute walk away, makes this is not only comfortable but convenient.

(As for starters: http://thehairyteacher.com/cafe5/ )

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Inn for one or two

Posted on July 12, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

The Star Inn, Bridge Street, Bishops Stortford, claims hostelry back almost 400 years, and like a lot of this quaint town 9 minutes out of Stansted on the track to London, it is kitted out in the flavour of authenticity. Not that there is any need to doubt its credentials and yet I’m drawn to Trigger’s brush in Only Fools and Horses*. That said I have managed as is the norm to get a rickety table, indoors this time, and while there is a spacious beer garden, a tired child and an overdose of sun down by the paddling pool, have us nestling in a shadey recess: though in truth pressed up to the street facing window, and while Tara snoozes I have time to take in the people and the accents, not all of which are local.
Lunchtime deal of 1 meal for 6.95 but 2 of the same for 8 is hooking some. I for my part have been pressed to request strawberries from the barmaid, and while only for cocktails, she bends over backwards ( I wish;)) to supply us with a bowl.
Having done Cambridge last week I must say I’m much more impressed as, with child in tow, I can traverse the town in short distances. There is a paddling pool in the park, and a kickass playground all within a lazy stone-thrower’s toss away. How I’m going to tell Tara we can’t return to the playground when she awakes I’m still pondering but for now, here, a John Smith’s to hand, chatter hidden away from me, a bit of mellow music, and sunshine abounding, I am L’Homme Heureux! Essentiellement!

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1VNNbSYdt0 (forgive the editting!)

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Breakfast or not

Posted on April 6, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

TIFFANY’S in the Batthyány tér market hall offers airiness and comfort without the hustle and bustle of the Plaza cafes. It’s set off from the rest of the shops on the first floor and, if standing, there is a view which carries one across to the parliament buildings on the Pest bank opposite. In fact, for many tourists, a photo of said building at river level is best obtained from here, by here I mean the bank wall on Bem rákpart.

Through the window another photo is possible, made perhaps more atmospheric through the dusty glass, but with the foreground that includes the comings and goings of this Buda-side public transport hub. Buses run to and fro around the square while a tram at the bank takes one south on what can be at ponits a very picturesque tram ride.

NOW as for the cafe itself there are seats leading in from the pedestrian way around the floor, islands in their way extending out from the area, itself a stylised island, three quarters open with the part nearest the windows closed off to counter service,instead alllowing for a gallery area providing more seating.

Staff are friendly with one particular chap, though a tad stern-faced, quite welcoming of my mashed Hungarian. A smile on such a frown is almost unsettling as it is relieving.

Prices are to the level of the square it located in with coffees starting at 350huf while teas of flighty pretensions starting at 590huf. A bottled beer, Soproni, is 390huf and this is for the 500ml which is the price list’s most positive surprise.

In a nutshell, a place for an intimate chat away from the congestion of other cafes nearby, and a step off escape routes up and down , as well as, across river if required.

Tiffany’s

Best Burger in the West

Posted on May 25, 2012 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

best-burger-west-station — The Best in the West

There is burger joint on the steps that lead down from Nyugati Square, Skala side, to the underpass. You are by all accounts required to ignore the temptation of a homogenised Subway (brand placement nonetheless) and move one flight farther down to the Best Burger. It’s a Gyors Étterem, not to be mistaken for Győr or Gyros as once I did! Let’s be honest. I may again depending on my mental state.

Well to cut a short story long in my earlier days here in Budapest this landing, if this is what one would call it, was home, and still is, to a small bar. In the winter you sat inside and suffocated in the fumes of blazing cigarettes. The only way to counter it was to add your own to the equation, and certainly when strapped for cash a cheap beer and a dirty rollie coupled with the ci-mog, while rarely fulfilling the former at least allowed for higher levels of nicotine to pass into your body. Nowadays with the smoking ban all that fun’s gone but it does lend to a smell of freshness rarely before encountered. This holds especially true when considering to venture a lunchtime beer where before one would have come away smelling like an ashtray.

Concerning burgers, that’s next door and while being introduced earlier in this piece, chronologically it was a later addition to the steps, and most welcome. Sitting with a beer and a ravenous ensuing, one was now offered choice, real choice. A retro burger from the Best Burger at Nyugati does not taste like one in Beijing, Tokyo, Vladivostok or even Cork (where’s that?)! It’s home grown, Magyar Termék maybe, at least in concept and composition and it’s a taste sensation. To put it mildly it’s delicious and not just for those post beer experiences, or other munchie inducing activities. You see, if like me, you get the notion to have a burger, perhaps influenced by a billboard, but not yet ready to compromise your dignity to yellow arches and royalty ( inebriation and geographical disadvantage excepted), then this is the place to be.

It shares its terrace with the bar next door so if the mood prevails one can have the best of both worlds. Shoppers weary of the load they are lugging may find time for respite from the chore, the drudgery, of being dragged around to look at every handbag, gladrag and high-heel. Those whom the heat has oppressed may fall to countering it in a two tier motion, lending hand to energy inducing feeding while at the same time thirst quenching. And if you find yourself inclined to vegetarianism and teetotalling there is still room for a veggie burger and soft drinks. This place, but dare I say places, lends to the all-inclusive, not the exclusive. Give it a try. Don’t be shy

https://www.facebook.com/westbestburger

https://foursquare.com/v/best-burger/4e275e0d62e17c33019388ea

For further thoughts on this:

http://thehairyteacher.com/?p=482

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