#centralmarkethall

I went down to the lobby and found a bunch of flyers for pub crawls and decided to take a free one. I had wanted to visit some of the "ruins bars" in Budapest, and I hoped the one I chose would take us there. I also asked the lobby for some recommendations for dinner. I was given a recommendation for near where the pub crawl was supposed to meet. 

Picture of a ruins bar from Google images. Link here. I think the ruins bars were famous because they are bars that were founded in half-finished buildings. Come to look at this picture, I think my third bar of the night might have been a ruins bar. 

I took the metro there, and there was a nice Hungarian woman who helped me buy a metro ticket. It took almost 12 hours for me to meet someone who was helpful, but hey, I was grateful for the help. 

I got to the right metro stop, and after asking a few people who seemed confused and gave conflicting directions, I ended up finding the right direction to start moving. I walked all up the street trying to find the right alleyway to turn down but was unsuccessful. I ended up just giving up and eating at the Black Cab Burger. It was definitely quite delicious! 

I ordered a chicken burger with grilled pineapple, bacon, and barbecue sauce. I was still a little hungry after I had eaten it, but I decided it was time to just go and find the pub crawl. It took some time and the rain was pouring, but the pub crawl started at about 10:30. 

We went to three different bars, and I wish I could say it was awesome, but there wasn't anything special about each bar. There were also about five or six flies in my first drink at my first bar and two flies in my second drink at the bar after I had them remake it. I also ordered a whiskey sour that was whiskey with tonic water and tasted pretty terrible. The three bars all blended together, and I didn't take any pictures because there was not anything special about each of them. 

All in all, we spent about 45 minutes to an hour at each bar and sprinted between the three of them since the rain was pouring down. I did meet a good group of people from Australia, the UK, Sweden, and the U.S. I left after the third bar and before the group moved to a club to dance since I had early morning plans. 

One of the Swedish girls who also stayed at the same hostel came back with me, and we ended up eating shwarma AND a slice of pizza. All in all, the day went from bad to mediocre, so I was moving inn the right direction. 

Second day in Budapest 

Weather-wise, the second day in Budapest wasn't much better. I was supposed to go to a cooking class that included a market tour and breakfast. I was told taking the metro was again the best way to get to the market, so I hopped on it. 

Once again, when I got off the metro, I tried to ask for directions, but people were not very helpful. I also began to wonder if the people were just that unfamiliar with their own city. I never assume someone can speak English, but I also figure a confused look while pointing at a location on a map is pretty universally understood. It took me a few minutes in what felt like a tropical thunderstorm to figure out which direction to spring towards. 

I felt bad since my guide/ instructor, Cecilia, was waiting for me across from the market in the rain. Did I mention it was raining hard? 

But, this morning was probably the highlight of my time in Budapest. I walked into the Central Market Hall and was overwhelmed with all the options. I LOVE cooking, especially cooking with fresh and interesting ingredients. 

First stop was breakfast for me. I was given the option of eating Langos, and looking back I wish I had eaten it for breakfast. But, that was more food than I wanted, so I ended up eating a sausage with bread and drinking a large cup of hot tea. It was actually a pretty perfect breakfast considering the weather outside. 

After breakfast, I was given a little tour of the market starting with all the meats and sausages. It was pretty amazing all the different animals that were available from chicken and pork to duck and rabbit. Apparently beef is eaten much less frequently. We bought a link of dried sausage for the sausage and potato soup. 

Next we walked past a bunch of the fruit and vegetable stalls. I love shopping at markets that only carry things that are in season since everything you get tastes so much better. We bought a Hungarian pepper which is apparently quite similar to a green pepper.We also bought a celery root for the soup which I recognized from my grocery store here in the States. Here's a picture of one of the veggie stalls. 

Picture of one of the stalls in the Central Market Hall. Hungarian peppers (paprika) are the light green pepper in the middle of the picture

We also wandered around the seafood area where they had live fish/ shellfish, etc. Cecilia also bought some pickles for us to try with our lunch. I also stopped for a freshly squeezed orange juice snack break before going to the cooking school, Chefparade. 

Our menu for the day was sausage and potato soup, chicken paprikash with dumplings, and Hungarian pancakes with various fillings. My lovely cooking companions were an American couple from Boston. 

Picture of my cooking station at the cooking school. The station near the front was for dessert and the one in the back left is the one where I made the soup and the chicken. 

Cecilia was great about walking us through all the steps of the cooking process, and I had a lot of fun. I struggled a bit while making the pancakes and burned at least one, but I managed to survive. My only issue was we were told to only salt once near the middle of the cooking process. I prefer to salt sparingly throughout the entire process, which I think helps the food taste better. I also think garlic should be added to just about every dish, and I was disappointed we didn't use it in either the soup or the chicken dish. The noodles were incredibly fun to make though since you used a special contraption and pretty much scraped little pieces of dough to make the dumplings. 

Here are the photos from the class: 

Chicken paprikash being cooked on the stove

Getting ready to make the Hungarian pancakes

My pancakes in the making 

Noodles being boiled

Chicken paprikash after adding the sour cream

First course: sausage and potato soup. The soup and the chicken paprikash gravy tasted very similar, which was quite disappointing. Both relied heavily on paprika and sour cream for taste.

Tasty tasty chicken paprikash. I was very happy with how mine turned out. 

Hungarian pancakes with various fillings including cottage cheese, cottage cheese with raisins and lemon, cinnamon sugar, chocolate powder, and apricot jam. 

Taking this cooking class has actually made me want to take more cooking classes whenever I go traveling. I feel like it's such a great opportunity to learn more about the local culture, and for me, much of traveling is sampling the local cuisine. 

This was definitely when my time in Budapest started getting better.