Our first full day in Budapest concluded with a “Welcome to Hungary” feast at the Vadaspark Étterem (Étterem means “restaurant” in Hungarian – not exactly a cognate, think “eatery”!). The place is hidden in a woodland high in the hills of west Buda hills woodland next to the Budakeszi Wildlife Park. In appearance it is a traditional Hungarian hunting lodge, and it serves traditional Hungarian cuisine. Guests are seating on wooden benches at long wooden tables and the ambience is pleasantly rustic.
Dinner began with an aperitif, attractively served in a little ceramic cup in the form of a mustachioed Hungarian farmer in traditional costume. The little cup was filled with pálinka, a fruit brandy with a rather high alcohol content, between 37% and 86%, typically around 40%, but I think ours was more than 50%. Pálinka can made from plums, apricots, apples, pears, cherries and many other kinds of fruit, but not grapes. Brandy made from grapes is called törkölypálinka. When made entirely from apricots, it is called barackpálinka. One wonders how former President Obama feels about this. (Actually “barack” in Hungarian is pronounced “baratsk”.)
The food was delicious and attractively presented, and the wine flowed freely. But after pálinka and a few glasses of wine (both white and red), my memory ceased to operate effectively and I can’t say for sure which traditional Hungarian dishes we were served. I can say that it was all superb.
After-dinner entertainment consisted of folk dancing and music played by a live mini-orchestra with a superb violinist. But for the fact that the dancers were in traditional Hungarian dress, I would have thought it was a hoedown in the western USA, an impression that the pictures of cowboys and cattle on the walls reinforced.
After dinner, on the way back from the restaurant to the Hotel Corinthia, I shot my only photo of Budapest at night, with my Samsung phone camera – not a very good one, to be sure, but at least I managed to include both banks of the Danube in the frame, with the Parliament building (left, on the Pest side), Buda Castle (center) and Castle Hill with St. Matthew’s Church and Fishermen’s Bastion on the right. Try to ignore the reflections in the windows.
