Hungarikum Bisztro, Budapest

This was another of the really great restaurants James and I were lucky enough to find while interrailing. It is traditionally Hungarian, with really friendly (English speaking!) staff and delicious food. You can find their website here.

It's tucked away down a little side street quite close to the river and also to the Parliamentary buildings, but we discovered it via trusty tripadvisor - it's probably worth booking beforehand if you can, particularly for evenings as it seems to be very popular.

It was James' birthday that day, so that obviously called for a large beer

I loved the checked tablecloths!

We started off the meal with a free appetiser

This was freshly baked with bacon and garlic sour cream - the bread was light and springy and the bacon added a lovely salty flavour to it.

For our starter we opted to share the "Touch of Hungary's Taste" platter, and the appetisingly named "fried dough" with cheese and garlic sour cream.

I loved the red and white theme, and the plates were all lovely with the food presented very attractively!

The platter was a really good choice - it included cottage cheese with paprika (which seems to be a popular spice in Hungarian food) garlic and onions, veal liver pâté, salami, sausage, bacon, camembert and smoked cheese. My favourite was probably the sausage paired with the deliciously soft bread, but the cottage cheese was also a really interesting flavour, as was the pâté, although it did get a little rich if you spread it too thickly! The smoked cheese was also excellent and not something I've had much of before, but is something I would definitely try again.

The fried dough was really good as well, and definitely not as greasy as you might expect! It could have been a little more flavoursome but it is basically exactly what it sounds like - a cheesy, high calorie treat!

For main I went for the beef stew with dumplings, as when we went to Prague last year I loved goulash!

It wasn't the most appetising looking plate of food, although just how well it is possible to present a dish like this is probably a matter of debate. However, it tasted delicious - the beef was soft and tender and the dumpling soaked up the rich, thick sauce very nicely.

James' meal was probably the better choice though - he went for tenderloin of beef with fried potatoes and onion rings

Despite the onion rings not being quite what was expected (literally rings of fried onion rather than battered onion rings!), James loved it. The meat was lovely and rare and the potatoes were excellent too.

Sun cream shiny

For pudding I chose the "cinnamon flavoured sour cherry pie" as I knew it to be a speciality of the area

Cherry flavoured things can sometimes be dodgy in my eyes but this actually tasted of cherries rather than anything artificial (as I often think they do!) and the cakey pastry around it was really sweet and delicious. I love cinnamon flavoured things anyway as they remind me of Christmas!

James chose the homemade chocolate cake with raspberry sauce

I stole some of it (obviously) and it was absolutely delicious - very moist, and the raspberry coulis gave it a sharp kick!

At the end of the meal the waitress came over with some homemade plum schnapps for us

As it was free, and homemade, we felt it would be rude to say no, so bravely did the shots all in one...it was one of the strongest shots I have ever done and my dinner nearly ended up back over the table!!! However, my alcohol tolerance is pathetically low so I'm sure more hardened drinkers would have loved it!

All in all this was a brilliant meal - you really get to experience authentic Hungarian cuisine in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. It was a perfect birthday meal for James - we then rounded the day off by a trip to the thermal baths!

Read More

Le Carbet D'Oc, Toulouse

The finale in my Toulouse restaurant posts (until I go back again which I'm hoping will be soon, as looking through all my photos to find ones for this post has made me miss it loads!).

Le Carbet D'Oc was probably my most frequented place in the whole of Toulouse (maybe even on a par with the uni I was meant to be studying at there - it was so pointless that I stopped going too much towards the end!).

Emma, Fiona and I discovered it in January when we met up for a drink; later in the evening Emma was hungry and had seen that Carbet did tapas, so we went there and never looked back! We probably went an average of once a week, and it was only about 2 mins walk from my house so was brilliant!

On a sunny day in March!

It's situated in Carmes which is probably the nicest area of town, on a lovely street with beautifully shuttered, typically French buildings. They do a wide selection of cocktails, wines and beers, and in the evening they do a tapas menu. At lunchtimes they do platters which are really good value and are made up of the tapas they do in the evening but for cheaper!

Our first lunchtime platters!

The absolute best thing they used to do there were the "Nuggets de poisson" (fish nuggets) with tartare sauce - they were like fishfingers but even better, but sadly they aren't on the menu any more!! The platters also used to come with a pudding and they used to do nutella milkshakes which were amazing but have also been taken off now - obviously the French people who were eating there after we left just didn't have the good taste we do! My and Fiona's platter here was the fish nuggets and also came with some cheese and grilled vegetables on toast which was great.

The first time I ever tried the cocktails was on Tanya's visit in March - it was a 35 degree day and we sat outside for lunch then cocktails and played cards, and it felt like we were on a summer holiday (which I guess my whole year basically was, in hindsight)! Thankfully they haven't taken our favourites off the menu - here I am drinking a Bora Bora, which is a non alcoholic one, with pineapple juice and lychee syrup and it tastes like summer in a glass. The other best one is the "soleil levant" which is probably the most delicious drink I have ever had

Again, it is so summery and fruity, and I think it tastes really fragrant and a bit like roses! It is delicious! When I went back to Toulouse I took James and my dad here, and I obviously went back with Fiona and Agapé friends too!

On the first night we didn't have any tapas (as it was just after the veggie restaurant!) but the second time we decided to go for it!
We had 1 and a half portions of chips each, "boeuf mariné" (marinated beef), a chicken dish which was like chicken korma, and duck hearts!
The chips here are, I think, the best I have ever had. They are cooked in duck fat and are so soft and salty that I could eat them all day. The beef was amazingly tender and well flavoured and the chicken was actually in one of the best curry sauces I've had! The duck hearts were also great although not quite as good as those at Le Picotin.

Gabriel just loves food photos!

I can't recommend Carbet D'Oc highly enough and I miss it so much - I think it was the location of some of my favourite times in Toulouse, and the amazing food and drinks definitely helped contribute to that!

A few photos from other times there:

Another chips picture from one of my and Emma's visits!

On Fiona's birthday

Alex!

When Alex tricked Fiona into drinking some wine that other people had left behind! Hahaha

I've made myself miss Toulouse so much now I might just have to go and book some flights....Sorry work....

Read More

L'Aubrac, Toulouse

The penultimate instalment in my Toulouse posts, L'Aubrac is a really cool restaurant filled with rugby memorabilia, and serving huge amounts of classic southern French food.

I was first attracted to it by the promise of an all you can eat starter if you get the "formule" - and it definitely didn't disappoint.

You get brought a huge basket of meat

Pretty much a brick sized slab of pâté

Butter and pickles (I LOVE pickles so that is an amazing addition)

And a basket of freshly baked bread

And you're free to cut, spread and eat to your heart's content! They even keep topping up the basket of bread - I think we went through three this time!

The pâté is one of the best I've had (sadly I have never thought to ask what it is, but I think it's probably "Pâté de Campagne) and all of the meats are delicious (I think the big one in the middle was my favourite); I probably could have carried on eating them all night. However, having learnt from past errors (I was so full after my first time here that I could barely walk and had to get a taxi home) I decided to pace myself.  

After you've finished this, you might have thought it was time for the main course, but no. They bring out more (coarse) pâté and different ham!

Me and my dad both think the coarse pâté looks a bit like cat food but he was brave and tried some and said it was good!

Now, after eating more than I probably would in a typical day just from the starter, the mains come out

Toulouse sausage and chips

The chips aren't the best, but the Toulouse sausage (an appropriate choice) is garlicky, herby and flavoursome. And after the starter I didn't even feel like I needed the main to be amazing - it's not cordon bleu food, it's just homely and filling which was perfect.

For pudding you can choose from either unlimited cheeses (so pretty much like the starter but with cheese), or sorbet or ice cream. Seeing as strong cheeses are the one thing I can't tolerate, and also after unlimited meats and a main anyone who can do more unlimited food must have a stomach of steel (or not be making the most of all you can eat), we both went for sorbet (lemon and raspberry) it was delicious and a refreshing end to a meat heavy meal!

Shiny and happy

I'd recommend this restaurant to anyone who can make the most of all you can eat, who wants to try typical southern French food and/or who likes rubgy, as it's so rugby themed!

A couple of photos from our first visit there:

If only I was still this tanned..

Read More

Loch Fyne, Reading

My first post about a restaurant in Reading! One of my least favourite things about Reading is that most of the restaurants are chains - I don't have anything against chains per se, but it can get really boring. It's just more fun to go somewhere a bit quirky which you wouldn't find anywhere else, which was why I loved Toulouse so much as almost all the restaurants were completely individual!

Anyway, there are a few chain restaurants in Reading that I do love, Loch Fyne being one of them (Bill's and Las Iguanas being another two, for anyone interested!), so when I got an email from Loch Fyne saying that they were doing a preview night of their new menu, I was quick to book a table.

The menu was only £19.95 for three courses (a bargain by Loch Fyne price standards!), and featured a small selection of dishes which will be on their new menu.

A menu that I took home and now has pride of place on my menu wall (also featuring Dinner by Heston, Meat Liquor and any other paper menus I have managed to steal)

For starter both James and I went for the tempura battered soft shell crab:

It was really good, non greasy, batter and every now and again you got a burst of coriander which is my absolute favourite herb, so it was delicious! I wasn't overly keen on the marmalade though (it was a bit too sour and sticky) so I might have preferred a sweet chilli sauce.

My dad had the chicken liver parfait...

...which was very rich and creamy just as you'd expect! And my mum had the Pan fried bream fillet:

I had to look up what brandade was - apparently it's a mix of salt cod and olive oil and is usually eaten with bread, hence the bread base here. My mum really enjoyed it and said the bream was lovely.

For main, James and I chose the same again (my dad was saying it was a smart move of James' as he then didn't have to wait for me to take a picture of his meal before he could eat!!) - the chorizo and monkfish risotto:

I think chorizo is one of my favourite ingredients as it can liven up any meal (although Christopher would disagree and thinks it is overused!!) and it was no exception here. It was beautifully spicy and matched the meaty monkfish really well. Also they weren't stingy with either the monkfish or the chorizo, which was something I had been worried about! Lovely soft and creamy risotto too.

My dad went for duck (as you do in a fish restaurant)

Again, he got lucky with the side of creamy mash (I really must have some soon!), and also said the duck was delicious - although he did have it well done which I would not have had!!

My mum went for the tuna, which would have been my second choice after the risotto:

The tuna was very rare which my mum said scared her a bit at first, but she actually really liked it in the end (another convert!). It seemed like a really light and well balanced and flavoured dish.

Now onto pudding, which sadly we weren't quite as pleased with....

My mum and I both went for sticky toffee which was the best of the bunch

I actually thought it was great, and the only complaint my mum had was that there wasn't enough sauce, which I can sort of see but also she is obsessed with sauce and would probably just drink it out of a glass!

The more negative comments came from James' chocolate tart and my dad's rhubarb and custard cheesecake.

Despite looking pretty (in the tart's case, not quite sure if the cheesecake deserves that accolade), my dad said the cheesecake was bland and hardly tasted of rhubarb, and James' tart really was not good. Both me and my mum tried a bit and the chocolate filling was a foam like texture, and was really bitter - it wasn't great at all.

However, overall the meal was very nice and good value for money, the interior of the restaurant is lovely, and the service was very good. Loch Fyne in Reading is situated just next to the river but away from the main group of restaurants on the riverside, and is an absolutely lovely building.

Blurry photos but look how nice it looks at night!

Read More