A step off the main drag, Margit Körút style, at the corner of Varsányi Irén and Eröd utca(k), this one’s new to me, but I gather, also to the neighbourhood.
The first thing I noticed was its relative modesty from outside, a chalkboard and a small sign bare indication. If I hadn’t been told of this place I may never have found it – but aren’t such places sometimes the best.
Well let’s see.
On entering: a low table to the left, two small tables to the right, and a bar curving out in front makes it, as the exterior, certainly not boasting swank. A stairwell winding up suggests seating out of sight and this is pleasing considering everything downstairs is full, with one-a-table being a jam.
There’s free WIFI just in case the laptops accompanying nearly every single customer haven’t aleady given the game away, but these days that’s par for the course/to be expected.
I order and settle upstairs. Cosy seats, low tables, not the best for writing on, but it does force me to unwind, and that is what I do, caffeine to hand.
The general atmosphere is subdued, gentle, placid and the staff are suitably laid-back, friendly, and curious. Chalked up on the wall is a food menu but I regard it only as a snap Hungarian lesson, I’ve just come from food…home-cooked…the best:)
But what has me really kicking back and letting go, beyond the confines of my armchair is the music; a mix of Jazz, slow blues, and old R&B (the good stuff when singers had voices not just funky names). To top it all off the sounds are omitting from a record player, the real deal – vinyls, needle caressing, and not a scratch to be heard. What manner of preservation is this! Almost unholy, what with my Hits 5 playing like a seance snippet off of Paranormal Weekly these days, well like it would if I had a record player. I’m not HD me, I’m all for da mood. Like smoke in a dark and dirty Jazz bar, I miss some of the things which are now considered bad for me.
As I finish my coffee I laze, I inhale, and I promise to return. It’s a wee bit on the parsimonious in terms of overall space but just to huddle up to the vinyls and speak about times past, I could offer up my peg leg – again!
Moka…tis no joke!!!
A lunchtime menu attracted me to this place seeing as its reputation precedes it in terms of price. And yes, while the main courses begin in the high 2000s and soar it’s the drink that’ll catch you. The only red in glass is a generous 650huf per “deci” (100ml/10cl) while the water is even pricier. Still, prepared for that, I wanted to enjoy this. Then what of it?
The place is pristine and service implied. The only fault early on was a horrible buzzing made by the air-conditioning. It was turned off on request, if somewhat reluctantly. Silver trays serve as place mats and the whole thing is too Upstairs-Downstairs (or Downton Abbey) for my liking. The cutlery is set up with the intention of being worked through, and the serviettes are folded and propped. Not a place I’d bring my daughter – the bull in the china shop image prevails, though the rebel heart would almost delight.
I imagine regaling her future husband with what may, or may not, be an embarrassing story. If she’s truly my daughter she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Beneath her such finery would be, but not beneath me it would seem.
The waiter was a friendly chap, verging on a professional courtesy, but he engaged, held eye-contact, and played his part unobtrusively. He knew we were there for the menu!
Coming then to the food. On first impressions I saw only average – presentation aside – and in taste I felt that while competitive, it wasn’t high end as the prices would suggest. Okay so I had the menu of minestrone soup, a main course with pork, fried potatoes, and a ragu sauce, which could explain the simplicity, but my partner’s pasta, while certainly tasty, was only that. In fact it was the sauce that saved it. Maybe we were expecting too much, but it seemed overly simple considering the prices. That the ingredients are fresh is a given – this is the stronger selling point, I imagine, and on this note I’d have to conclude that overall it was worth the experience.
Nevertheless I do, with bias, think Andi could have made as good, if not a better, job at home. And perhaps this is not really a criticism as it is in Italian culture to love home-cooking anyway.
Finally, dessert was a caramel cream pudding with an alcohol twist. Tasty but the chocolate sauce was too buttery. Ahh, what the heck! A good destination for the menu but if intent on good Italian food in the city I suspect there could be better.
Go there, visit it, and see for yourself. For me it is a somewhere in the middle of a nowhere. Kolossy tér, you see, I’m not a fan of, and though there are things which will always tempt me when in the environs, I will never, and could never, recommend this area as an outright party place. Kolossy tér, I mean. It’s all very fabricated…check out Symbol up the street, that raw, mafia-esque, bling bling appeal, type of place, indicative of the decadence as resides within the remnants of this post-communist state (Forget the Puskas Pub appeal. Go Pest side and to the heart of the footballer’s club grounds if you want a sense of the authenticity on that front). The farther East you go in Europe the greater the obvious gap between rich and poor. Note, before you react, how I used the word “obvious”. Just because us in, what people here call, the West have found cynical means of concealing it doesn’t pass us off as saints. Being Irish I’m often left dumbfounded by what all continental Europeans deem as the greatness of England, Britain, the United Kingdom. As far as the bloody colonialist history that is a pan-european involvement (Irish included) goes, Britain remains one of the stalwarts at least in its representation, Queens etc, and this is probably what got the hackles up in the Irish press concerning the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. Why other Europeans didn’t seem to take offence…could it be the hankering for the old order?
Jesus, talk about straying from the point! Cafe 5 around Kolossy tér on the Buda side of the city has plenty to offer. It’s a full day cafe, with an alternating lunch menu, a selection of drinks, cocktails, and all, and if I was stuck for a place to sit down in for a while there could be a lot worse. However, in the way of things, if I was looking for atmosphere in the mid-afternoon I would choose any of the Kocsmas nearby, and only then if I had no means of escaping into Pest, or at least away from here. Why? Go and see!
Well we certainly could hear her but gladly she made this her insistence point and hung up. The idea right now mid-Friday afternoon – just having been to the doctor with Tara, my own chest paining – of having to listen to this woman would have been frightful. Frankly, I needed rest. I’d slept some last night, but rather erratically. Tara being feverish – fighting a throat infection – tossed and turned the whole night through and was tracing buses and trams and trains across the ceiling by the skylight. My first impression had been that she was still dreaming. Now I’m more inclined to believe she was being just a little bit delirious. Nothing like a fever to push the mind to other streams of consciousness…
Arriving into Barcelona all those years ago, 44°C on the roadway sign, me huddled up in a thick blanket shivering with a soul deep chill, I can only reminisce to the comedic concerning my mind’s wanderings.
The gay guy at the petrol station who would have gladly taken me home. No doubt he had a cure for my fever.
The campsite we stayed at where I marked, like a wagon rut, a trail between the tent and toilet, each time a pot to hand in case both ends decided to erupt at once. They didn’t, then, to my knowledge but I’m certain they would have had I forgotten the pot.
What a place to have been. An arse-hole ripped from posterior propulsion, sitting grimacing, looking through tear-filled eyes at a lap full of vomit! Not that I was getting the satisfaction of a projectile puke by then anyway. Bile, and blood vessels bulging – ah, what sweet memories.
As for the city itself, well, I have the occasional figmented memory, flashes, though in all sincerity, beneath the brief returns I have at once an underlying and overwhelming appreciation for the toilets in that city, especially the McDonalds on Las Ramblas!
On the road to the cool valley, temperture-ally speaking…well, on the way there there is here…phew!… and this is the Full House Pizza. As the name suggests it serves all things Italian, relatively, and whereas the pizza is tasty it does have the Hungarian tendency to over-emphasise the fatty, oily, salty.
Other dishes here include traditional Hungarian fare with goulash and other soups to start. A personal favourite is a variety of fish and chips; Trout – baked – served whole (head and all) in a light coating, only enough to hint at golden, the grey scale, however, still visible. This is not beer batter country and for that I am thankful.
In the winter the inside seating booths to the right on entry, tables back and to the left will suffice but on occasion it can get cramped. Somehow the families always choose the tables – space I suppose.
In the summer the outside seating, along wooden benches as well as separate wooden armchair –style seats, is abundant. And here lies the treat for said families; a swing and slide and sandbox. Heaven knows no modesty.
It’s not a central location; it’s a place away but if you’re into exploring beyond the realm of all that tourists do, or find yourself at the end of the Children’s Railway, bottom end – Hűvösvölgy- and feeling peckish on the way back into the city, and therefore much aligned to the spirit of this place, why not give it a try. On a personal note, the staff here are much friendlier than those around Hűvösvölgy…and by that I mean but one place, the garden where the lads would dare to go. Here, they not only smile and treat locals and foreigners the same (that works both ways by the way) but they truly pull out all the stops. Comparitively speaking Híd Cafe has one of the best Margherita’s and good service to boot but out of town and on the way back in if you wish this is one of the honestly homely experiences. Miss it and you miss a piece of the greater jigsaw puzzle which is the infinitely enlarging Budapest.
( Arthur Mayne Pharmacy and Wine Garden, Pembroke St. Cork. 2.45 p.m.)
Situated in an old pharmacy, much of the original display in Arthur Mayne Pharmacy & Wine Garden is still intact. Everything else, everything new, is actually styled to lend to that feel of the original. There has been a bit of money put into the affair and it really lends to the heritage pub feel, ideally from the glass counter at the front, itself sporting cakes as well as Simple cleansing lotion! Beside the counter there is a tall glass cabinet complete with bell jars and ostentatious servings of Lin. Camph. Ammon. (!) from the Cork Chemical & Drug Ltd. Nothing new there!
Opposite the serving counter in the next section wines are displayed from cooling cabinets, above which an impressive selection are lying horizontal (I later discovered that one can serve oneself from these same ‘machines’). Following on from that, and deeper into the interior there is the more pokey, pub-like quarter, more expected, and this leads onto the back and a door to the smoking area which it shares with the Crane Lane, a revamped and certainly more modern feeling pub.
The fact that this is a wine bar means that this is not your commoner gardener environment. People here make Apple Mac jokes – whatever they are!
Food-wise, there are fancy sandwiches, with feta cheese and basil oil drizzled. Soup is also on offer along with the sweets – scones and croissant, However, this is not ‘cukraszda’ country. And I’m not just referring to Mayne’s, or Cork here. Compared to a confectioner’s shop in downtown Budapest things lie a little more sparse on the ground in Ireland as a whole. Be warned.
The atmosphere in the chemist’s is reminiscient of a pub regardless of its pretensions – i.e. wine – and where the decor is old fashioned, quaint, this will be no better, or worse, a few drinks in. The only distinction is that if you step in for a Beamish you’ll be left squeamish! If you choose the wine, you’ll be fine!! So drink up and become European for a while.
Of course, wine and Cork are not, as may first appear, the oddest of bedfellows as indeed there is a history of import and re-export within the region dating back to the middle ages. It is, however, not the first word that rolls off the average Corkonian’s tongue when asked to name their drink of choice but with people trending away from pub-only tippling to the occasional night in with a bottle, the wine (no longer just plonk) is definitely after finding its feet. Having lived in Spain and France, and now Hungary, I have over the years developed a taste for the fruit of the vine and on the occasion that I am back in Cork and looking for something a little out of the ordinary I know I know a place, Arthur Mayne Pharmacy & Wine Garden on Pembroke street, in the heart of the city.
“Naw, I wouldn’t eat those things. They only make me hungry!”
(Cronin’s Pub, Crosshaven. 5.35 p.m.)
On our way to anywhere we stumbled across this place and allowed this town and its surrounds to enter into the legend that our lives would write. Teenagers at the time and curious as to our boundaries we set cycle along the highways and bi-ways that led us out through Rochestown, Passage West and on until we finally met Crosshaven. Being from Cork City this wasn’t exactly unfamiliar territory but we’d never taken it seriously before. It was sailing country and needless to say we were not sailors. Shur, we’d only just become cyclists!
Well moving out beyond the town towards Fennell’s Bay we hopped a ditch, bikes and all, and wound our way down towards the shoreline. Just above the rocks we found a patch of grass suitable to our requirements. Ten minutes later, tent pitched, we considered the possibilities, over a cigarette; this being the best of times. A weekend followed where we just moped about the rocky beach, wondered about the mystery of things –girls, and set ourselves to believing in the dream, whatever that may be. Otis Redding became a kind of theme tune, evenings whiled away down on the stones, facing skywards – were they satellites or UFOs?
On the occasion that our smokes became depleted we duly hopped the bikes and pedalled the short journey into the town to get some more. We were underage in every way back then so, not yet being drinkers, buying fags was the nearest thing to criminal that we could muster. It worked. We rarely sparked up in plain view of adults knowing that they must all know our parents.
On those visits we were left unimpressed by Crosshaven itself. It was coastal, it was boaty, and beyond the shop there were some pubs. Altogether, nothing. Not back then at least. Back then the adventure was about being away from it all. The tent, the rocks; they were our thing.
As an adult, and with more expendable income, this place has taken on a whole other perspective, though admittedly I’ve often been tempted to run through the town and up to Fennell’s Bay. I never have though. I’ve never seen that field, that place since. I’m a drinker now and I rarely let sentiment get in the way of a good pint – and these days too around these parts that includes good coffee.
Friday afternoon, teaching done for the day, I traipsed home knowing that the brother was keen to do something. Apart from being back in Cork to teach I, too, was up for a bit of craic. Life’s not all about slog after all so into the car and off we went. The original plan was to head out Gougane Barra way but time constraints (I needed to be back to Skype my loves in Budapest) kept us closer to the city.
Now the journey there these days, and directly, was nothing like that first cycle but it wasn’t about health and fitness that had us heading there this time. Funnily enough it wasn’t the first time round either!
Entering the town I always get the rush, passing the old yacht club wall. Beyond its claims to being the oldest yacht club in the world it has always represented for me the final stage, Crosshaven town just around the corner. The old shop site still stands, though closed down, where we purchased our first box of cigarettes, and moving into the square you see the extent to which change has come to this place over the last 10 – 20 years. The car park among them.
Car parked we took ourselves to heading in the direction of Camden Fort only to be shanghaied by the River’s End Cafe. Situated on the square with spectacular views to the water the notion to stop up was too much for us. A coffee before continuing up to the fort was agreed upon. After the coffees, with fruit tart and cream, we assumed we’d be fort bound, though the inkling to a pint to help us on our way was growing. What took us by surprise, however, was the food dished out before our eyes to two of the female clientele. My heart missed a beat and you may be inclined to allow that I was all a flutter on account of the ladies (pretty as they were) but in truth it was the plates of food set before them that tickled my fancy this time. A sizeable burger with baby potatoes on the one hand, something Panini-ish served with a generous salad on the other. It didn’t take much but we were hooked. Sitting there salivating we resigned ourselves to our fate and brought upon us the menu as a means to peruse. Being accosted at this point by the lady of the establishment, my camera phone clumsily in hand trying to hijack the menu’s soul, we had no choice but to commit. Which we did though to be honest I wish I had been brave enough to go for more. Writing this I still have the hankering for the burger which originally lampooned me and try as I may I think but a return to the place will suffice to cure me of what ails.
Our choices came down to a Goat’s Cross and a Funghi. The former, my brother’s choice, was a Panini filled with goat’s cheese, wild rocket, homemade basil pesto, and roasted peppers. I had a warm ciabatta filled with garlic mushrooms, crispy bacon, and Dubliner cheese. Both came well presented and indeed they were tasty treats. However, as mentioned, the burger had stimulated in me an appetite which if I had listened to my inner murmurings I would have understood as to mean…more! The baby potatoes which had me convinced earlier that the burger would have been an excessive choice now began to seem quite reasonable.
Virtually inconsolable I was shepherded across the road to Cronin’s pub as a means to alleviating some of my woe and let me tell you – this place can do that. Cronin’s has been standing for time immemorial, well at least since that first cycle trip down here all those years ago and from the outside nothing much has changed. The interior too spells of old, authentic. With the usual array of trappings that Irish pubs can be guilty of – old gadgets, old telephones, old everythings adorning the shelf space behind the bar – Cronin’s has atmosphere in abundance, and whereas at times I have been critical of the twee aspect prevalent in some of the County Cork bars, De Barra’s of Clonakilty comes to mind, I’m also a sucker for it. And I will remain so as long as said atmosphere can be maintained. Sometimes that is what’s lacking in the Irish pubs in Budapest. They too have all the dilly dally trinkets, pictures of Joyce and Beckett, G.A.A. jerseys etc. but they have found it difficult to capture any degree of character. Friday afternoon, 4:30 p.m. (16:30 CET!), and Cronin’s is buzzing. And the Beamish is flowing!
Perching ourselves at the bar, pints at the ready, a glance over my shoulder has me witnessing a downpour outside. Good timing, I think, as I draw the pint closer for that first protracted kiss. Hmmm, creamy. All around people are immersed in a sense of conversation which I find truly home. Everyone talks to anyone and the pub as an entity draws a breath and exhales reverberating with energy of the universe!
Serving us well as it did last summer I’m back, alone, and sitting, waiting for a pint, listening to a blend of music and chatter. It is definitely more a place for the aspiring classes – accents on the verge of posh, and people’s demeanours suggesting similar. If I were to make comparisons with Budapest, The Bodega would be to the trendy pub what the Vicarstown* would be to the kocsmas. One difference I’d like to note is that in Ireland old and young blend better and in more locations, be they trendy or not; the super-pub pre-club atmosphere excepted, which is the same everywhere.
The Bodega, itself, is situated on Corn Market Street but the market itself, now face-lifted – probably from local government coffers – tells a tale that goes back hundreds of years. To Corkonians this area is the Coal Quay, pronounced Kay, or Coal Quay Market, alluding as much to a time when the river would come in as far as here. “The Venice of the North” or so some people say, referring to the many waterways which once riddled this city. They still do, mind you, but all beneath asphalt and concrete.
Set in an old stone building, the high ceilings and fine decoration of The Bodega’s interior may be off-putting but with a fine selection of food as well as drink one must remember that this is not just a pub – it’s a fine food establishment. With barbeques on weekends and a full smoking area this is definitely one of the gems. The walls abound with local artistic talent and though it may be above the pockets of the artistic equivalents in Budapest it is the class in which both countries’ artistic elite flourishes. The patrons come aplenty, but abegging, in the gutter! I’ve sometimes accused Budapest and Hungary of artistic snobbery, but nevertheless it seems somewhat more affordable than hereabouts. Folk – now that’s a different story.
Sitting here, 1p.m. –ish, there is a healthy lunchtime crowd with 50% of the floor’s tables full. For a place with a reputation to higher prices this is quite good, and with the turnover lunchtime a steady flow this is no money losing enterprise. You’d hope!
Evenings and weekends do find this place brimming with revellers because it’s then that it forsakes its eatery for full-on pub/club potential. But again this is evening-till-late so come in afternoon time and you can have the best of both worlds. In the back there is a restaurant area which allows one to recline in the intimacy of an evening romantic meal, if that’s one’s wish.
On the whole a spacious environment full of the clatter and bang of a busy establishment. If I were to imagine a comparison I would say the coffee houses of Vienna and Budapest turn of the 20th century, but with the savoury and beer that gives it its Irish twist.
Lunch menu:
Potato and Leek soup 4.90 euro;
Beef and Mi Daza** stew 10.90euro;
Pan-fried sea bass, crushed baby potatoes, dill and butter 13.50 euro
Opened just over 2 years ago I’ve personally witnessed this establishment’s progress from an oasis in a sea of construction to a flourishing business.
Where it lies, at the foot of Margit’s Bridge, Buda side, sets it off from the traffic that daily passes above.
A tram stop nearby means there is always a movement of people and with a generous outdoor area it must be one of the most promising places to settle back between here and there.
A selection of pastas and pizzas are on offer with the Margherita hitting all the marks and if this is anything to go by then the pizza here is most recommendable.
Perfect pizza outside of Italy! Well you could be pushed and pushed in the right direction you could end up here in Budapest, and this is definitely one to behold. Other places offer pizza and most sin on the side of greasy when it comes to the simple Margherita. Also some more local practitioners tend to the Trappista* cheese, which boasts a history but has been lost to the taste of mass production. Here at Híd Bistro there is still Mozzarella, and this has made all the difference.
Where there is Pest there is Buda and vice versa and well let me explain. Recently I posted an article and a bit on the Best Burger place near Nyugati and on my Facebook page even chose to tempt people into suggesting alternatives. I knew only this place and of course it was dear to my heart, not least because it opened up next to a bar I used to frequent.
Well since moving to Buda I have had my work cut out for me cos like many other things Pest v Buda related burger places too were not jumping out to greet me. I say this but you must take into account that having lived in the 6th district where every corner offers promise, from pubs to shops to bakeries to gyros places, I was feeling all at sea to begin with out in the 2nd. A nice area for a family but as a young father still struggling with the idea of that other life and a realisation that fatherhood is only a word not a sentence(!) I was in need of local entertainment of occasion, even if it was only to catch a Premiership game the odd weekend.
My exploration I must admit has been wavering, not on all cylinders as it once was. Maybe it can be accounted for by the lack of sleep or maybe it’s just because I don’t get the same thrills out of little pokey places as much as I used to. There was a period in my life when the dirtier the better was my basic selection criteria. I know that that flies in the face of quality at times but beer from a bottle tastes the same everywhere, even if the draught beer can have its inconveniences. Perhaps in this lies a clue because in recent times I’ve made the daring transition from beer to wine, half out of support for my girlfriend as she went about her paleolithic diet (my reasoning was that where others had to give up bread and potatoes and all things carbohydrate-y I would improvise in the alcohol department) and half out of a need to change some of my habits. I had become somewhat disconcerted by the continuous feeling of being bloated which is the drawback of any normal dietary intake coupled with beer, and given Hungarian portions this is multiplied.
But…what about a decent burger? I’m sure that in the wings there are people crying out (can you hear them?) that their restaurant has just that but I’m not looking for a fancy place to take the mother-in-law, to sit and peruse a menu, to order a bottle of wine! God no! That’s only Sundays and then only rarely! I’m looking for the basic fare but tasty. I’m talking speed but not overdone. I’m talking price and not losing quality. Could there be such a place?
