It’s obvious that McDonalds’s and Tesco’s Greek, French, etc. weeks are as far from the reality as it is possible, but sometimes we have the same feeling in the trendy restaurants of metropolises. Is this the true, traditional fish & chips, waffles, pasta and tapas, or just a dumbed-down version for tourists with exorbitant prices?

We need to tell: it’s quite the same here, in Hungary. Many “traditional” Hungarian restaurants are rather fake-traditional, they are trying to make profit from the marriage of stereotypes, and cheap raw materials, thinking the tourists have no basis for comparison. We have bad news for them: they have. And now we are not (only) talking about TripAdvisor, but we found a small restaurant in Budapest city center, that cook meals that were eaten x years ago in my grandparents' kitchen.

This is Hungarikum Bistro, which has totally different concept from the average Hungarian restaurants. The Bistro's menu is not compiled from Hungarian-perceived restaurant dishes, but the dishes prepared in the Hungarian homes. This is - of course - not update, nor paleo, and absolutely non-fitness. As if you have some basic knowledge about the Hungarian cuisine, then you know: we are boisterous folks. But they designed such welcoming atmosphere in the Bistro, that visiting guests really feel themselves as "guests": they can meet the real home atmosphere and enrich with the experience of Hungarian hospitality.

photo:facebook.com/HungarikumBisztro

After all, the Hungarian gastronomy is one of the outstanding elements of Hungarian culture, with diverse, creative foods and unique, characteristic flavors. The traditional Hungarian cuisine includes recipes from the widest range of food variations from the simplest raw materials. The ingredients of the traditional Hungarian cuisine are meats, fresh vegetables, fruits, fresh bread, dairy products and honey. In all these, the best-known national dishes are stew, goulash, fish soup, stuffed cabbage, chicken (or potato) with paprika, bean soup, noodles with cottage cheese and the pig killing feast.

From the menu, we tasted the Hungarikum menu, which included Goulash soup with noodles, crispy duck leg with onion mashed potatoes, braised cabbage and apple pie with cinnamon-vanilla sauce. And after feeling myself a kid again for a happy hour somewhere on the Great Hungarian Plain, I can tell: if you want to obtain a more authentic picture of the real Hungarian cuisine, visit Hungarikum Bistro, and enjoy the adventure.

photo:facebook.com/HungarikumBisztro