Fehérvári Piac, Budapest: The Holy Grail of Market Lunch

Quince Jelly

I used to work writing about Budapest for travel guides. All of them, pretty much - American, British., Swiss, and even Japanese. Magazines, guide books, airline in-flight mags all helped pay the bills. The pay was usually miserable, but it went a long way in the weird east European economies of twenty years ago - not that the situation is less weird now, but there isn't much that you can now label as "cheap." You can eat lunch cheaper in Berlin these days than you can in Budapest. Another drawback of writing travel guides is that you don't get author credit, if you are listed at all, and the books tend to go out of print after two years. Its as if you'd never worked on a published book at all. And then came social media and the magical days of the travel guide book were no more. 

Now tourists are seen wandering the streets with their faces glued downward onto their phones, following GPS maps to those same "best rated" lunch spots that all the other travel influencers have featured in their previous video spots on Tiktok and YouTube. I love how somebody who has just arrived in a new and unfamiliar place, who doesn't know the language or culture, and has never tasted the local food is suddenly the expert to guide you though your first visit. Where to find good Hungarian food? Just ask somebody who got off the train six hours ago. And thus: the tourist lángos, the goulash in a bread bowl, and the ice-cream filled "Transylvanian" funnel cake. 

When I wrote about Budapest I always suggested a trip to one of the city's outer district markets to sample some of "the real Hungary." The Instagram guides will invariably suggest visiting the downtown Vámház Market, where the eateries specialize in serving overpriced tourist food - particularly the lángos sellers who probably bank their daily earnings in Zurich. 

Vámház is a pretty good market for produce and especially for meat - its butchers supply a lot of the downtown restaurant biz and so the quality is high and the prices are low for the retail customer. But if you want to eat... get on a bus or tram and head away from the city center. My suggestions are either take the #7E (express) east into Pest to the end of the line to Bosnyák ter, my old favorite market. Or even closer to downtown, The Fehérvári utcai Piac, located next to the old Skala department store, probably offers the best food court experience in Budapest for traditional heart clogging Hungarian food. Take the M4 Metro or the 4 or 6 tram to Ujbuda Kőzpont and you're there. Enter the nondescript grey building marked Vásárcsarnok". Trundle past the wonderfully affordable vegetable sellers and the home made sausage stands and take the escalator to the third level. You are home, Pilgrim. Home.

First impressions: not a single tourist. At least a dozen different food vendors offering Hungarian cooking and a mere hint of "Other" (Ukrainian pierogi, Chinese steam table, Pizza-oid carbohydrates.) A lot of the tables are taken up by gaggles of retired folks knocking back flasks laughably cheap wine and chowing down on the kind of old time Magyar lunch dishes that seem to have disappeared around the time we stopped calling each other "comrade". 

The prices tend to be about a half of what you would pay in a "nice" restaurant, and you are guaranteed to get more fat, cholesterol, carcinogens and carbs in every bite. I'm sure that any EU inspector would faint at some of the stuff you can find up here. I found it hard to choose: when I see tripe in one pot and pig feet paprikás in the other, I go into panic mode. We went with two of my favorite home style lunch dishes, ones that I dare you to find in any restaurant that features a tablecloth: Rakott Krumpli (baked stacked potatoes) 

Rakott Krumpli is a standard in families where Mom can't really cook. It is like the instant ramen noodles of Magyar cuisine. You slice spuds, chop up some hard boiled eggs and csabái kolbász sausage, which will bleed orange paprika grease as it bakes, empty some sour cream on top of it, and stick it in the oven. Presto! Everybody happy! It sounds like it should be repulsive, but this is Eastern Europe, so somehow the disparate parts come together in a harmonious symphony of Sunday lunch. Sour cream, lard and paprika are the essential Staff of Life staples here. They make anything taste good.

My choice for lunch was káposztás tészta, cabbage noodles. This is a peasant dish that evokes the end of winter, when all other food has run out. It almost screams "Famine ahead! Eat while you can! Famine coming'" It takes hours to slowly sauté and caramelize the cabbage into a soft brown edible stage, oddly sweet and peppery and with a distinctive whiff of cabbage farts. It is one of the dishes I crave but don't have the patience to make at home. It was one of those old farmhouse dinners that disappeared with the rise of the microwave oven. Again - it doesn't sound like it should taste good but somehow it is.

The real reason to go to the market is to bring stuff home with you, which doesn't seem so urgent after you have eaten two or three plates of concentrated carbo-lard energy loaf. But don't miss the strudel seller on the first floor: decide how much you want and then order double that amount to bring home. You will thank me.

There's nothing more I like to do when I first arrive in a new country than drop into a market to see what's on offer: there is a lot more history and tradition to an open market than a Tescos. The Fehérvári market used to be a sprawling open tiered market, rebuilt around twenty years ago to stand the weather in all season. I used to work up the street when Budapest Week had its offices in the old Sopianae Tobacco factory. After work I used to hang out at the snack kiosks in front where the Transylvanian Roma used to hang out while sojourning in Budapest: That is where I learned a lot of Romani language over beer and sausages. You wont find the kiosks out front anymore, but head inside to the third level  and don't worry about reserved seating. There's room for everyone.