MEAL TICKET. Hungary pangs

It was 8pm on a beautiful summer day in Budapest. The setting sun glinted off the Danube and streamed over (west-bank) Buda and (east-bank) Pest’s endearing muddle of architectures: neo-Gothic, baroque, and art nouveau buildings squashed up against Communist-era offices with tinted windows à la Nehru Place. But I wasn’t going to be distracted.

Our first day here, coincidentally Hungary’s national day, had been a write-off. The only restaurant open late at night, after the St Stephen’s Day fireworks by the river, had been a pad Thai bar. And we’d missed the national birthday cake, made by the National Guild of Hungarian Confectioners, this year a Milotai honey brittle, praline cream and walnut torte. (Contrary to insinuations made by my co-travellers, I had not timed this holiday to sample a country-sized birthday cake.) Now, feeling like my culinary tourist credentials would be revoked if anyone found out I’d been eating Thai food on a Hungarian holiday, I was determined that our next meal involve goulash.

In Lizst Ferenc Square, an elegant jumble of organic burger kitchens, wine bars, martini glasses and fedoras, we wandered fortuitously into the hip Menza. Ironically named after a Soviet-era canteen, it teeters between nostalgic chic and pure kitsch: retro Bauhaus-style furniture, avocado-green and diner-orange walls, Formica tables, young yuppie couples, elderflower prosecco cocktails. No leathery meat or soggy desserts here, though. I took one look at the menu — bone marrow toast, blackberry cream soup, roasted duck liver in sour cherry sauce — and forgot all about goulash for the moment. “It’s all very light,” the waiter assured us. “Hungarian food is rich, but we try to refine it, make it modern.”

Perhaps “light” means something else when translated into Magyar. The goulash was a savoury red broth of beef and carrots, but it was the only light thing around. The heavy garlic cream soup sported a cap of langos, fried bread with cheese and sour cream sealing the steam in. Our chilli mustard pork medallions with cottage cheese noodles was a huge serving, crowned by a flaky roasted pepper, and a dahlia-sized floret of garlic. “Cottage cheese?” I squawked, imagining some kind of Punjabi paneer pasta, but the quark-like cheese crumbled over the noodles was perfect with the pork. Marvelling at the capacity of Hungarian stomachs, we left feeling satiated and happy, if not quite convinced about that anorexic goulash.

At lunch in the stately Buda side, at a traditional etterem (restaurant), the menu was a roll-call of classics: pork, potatoes, beef, dumplings, cabbage. Still, I thought goulash deserved another shot.

Our elderly waiter explained, however, that goulash (or gulyás) is a thin beef soup, made with paprika, as Menza’s had been. Gulyás means “herdsman” in Magyar, and the classic peasant broth was invented by Hungarian shepherds on the open plain. What we think of as goulash is actually its thicker relative, pörkölt. And the etterem’s pörkölt did, in fact, fulfil all my goulash longings: it was a hearty, garlicky, huddled-around-the-fireplace kind of stew, bright red and dotted with chunks of beef, potatoes, carrots, peppers and caraway seeds.

After a weekend of sour cherry strudel, tiny open salami-and-gherkin sandwiches, pickled cucumbers in dill-and-yoghurt sauce, dumplings and some deadly palinka cocktails, we ended our Budapest holiday with a celebratory meal at the very trendy Bock Bisztro. Bock, run by a chef and a sommelier, serves inventive Magyar cuisine, and boasts a very well-thought-out wine list that shows off Hungary’s best.

Our waiter suggested a Furmint, a crisp minerally white for me, and a darker red for my friend. No longer haunted by the spectre of state-run co-operative vineyards, Hungary’s wine industry is now a thriving mix of small producers. Sweet Tokaji, or tokay, is still the most famous Hungarian wine, but it’s facing stiff competition from new wineries and young producers.

“Do not over-order,” said my friend, watching the feverish menu-scanning glint in my eye. She ought to have known better. We ate luscious, cone-like calamari stuffed with herby cottage cheese, cabbage leaves stuffed with pike perch tartare, and fresh bread with black salt butter and salami. Using some clever reverse psychology, I persuaded my companion to share the paprika peppers stuffed with goat cheese (spectacular), the chicken in a creamy orange paprika sauce (passable) and a sour cherry torte. Goulash, schmoulash; there was so much more to Hungary. By the end of the meal, I was already plotting how to come back for next year’s birthday cake.

( Naintara Maya Oberoi is a food writer based in Paris; >@naintaramaya )

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