My 10 favourite dishes from 2015

2015, the year I graduated, I started to work and started to write my blog. I'm really glad knowing how many dishes I've tried during the year. I collected 10 of them, not only from Hungary, as luckily I could taste some appetizing dishes during my trips also. They are maybe not the most exquisite meals, but when I was thinking about them, apart from the food, I thought also about the restaurant, the interior, the city, the view and the atmosphere.

Ratskeller, Munich

In a cold, rainy evening finding the Ratskeller Restaurant and eating a warm potato soup with Franziskaner beer was one of the best moments of our trip in Munich.

Két Szerecsen, Budapest

Moroccan lamb shoulder, couscous with eggplant and mint, honeyed onion and yogurt

Aranysárkány Restaurant, Szentendre

Dragon's Bouillon with marrow medallion on toast

Aroma Restaurant, Ljubljana

Sometimes I look for restaurants before a trip, but other times I just decide to find one in a nice area and give a chance to it without reading any reviews. This totally worked this time in Ljubljana. I ate these baby squids with spinach and they were so soft and delicious.

Akademia Italia, Budapest

Visited the restaurant for the second time and I fell in love with the Spaghetti allo scoglio. That spaghetti.. and those prawns and mussels...yummi

Little bar in Zahara de la Sierra, Andalusia

The best prawns I've ever tried. I will definitely have to go back to this small town once. 

Séf utcája, Budapest

Pastrami at the market of Hold utca.

 Trattoria Gusto, Budapest

Thyme tagliatelle with flap mushrooms and garlic prawns. Still remember the fabulous taste of it.

Gourmet festival, Budapest

Duck burger from Chianti restaurant. Made me curious about this restaurant in Veszprém.

Gourmet festival, Budapest

Some delicious tarts from DesszertNeked. I'm sure I will visit the shop in 2016.:)

Aranysárkány Vendéglő, Szentendre

There is one place I can't skip if I am in Szentendre, in the cosy, little riverside town just 20 kms far from Budapest. And the restaurant (what else it could be..), I'm writing about is the Aranysárkány Vendéglő (Golden Dragon), in the Alkotmány utca. It was founded by Attila Máhr in 1977 and now his son is the chef who is creating the familiar mood of the restaurant beside of the pleasant dishes.

Favourite: Dragon's Bouillon with marrow medallion on toast

Toast, garlic, horseradish and the marrow medallion, as it has to be

Medallon of port "Good Housewife" style

It's a perfect place for a lunch on a daily trip out from Budapest. Besides the wonderful atmosphere of Szentendre, soon you can taste the typical Hungarian Christmas dishes, like the Fish soup and the stuffed cabbage, that are cooked wonderful based on my past experiences from last years.

Moreover, I hope this year also it will be possible to order them. To be honest, it's not that bad to be lazy one day during the holidays when you only have to warm up the stuffed cabbage and enjoy it with the family. :)

Café Panini

If I had to choose which is my favorite neighborhood in Budapest, I would say it's Újlipótváros. It's a calm, little treasure in the 13th district. A typical neighborhood where you can find everything you need without going to a big supermarket. Also, luckily, it's just a superb place for having breakfast on a Sunday morning. If you just decide to get into exploring the streets of it, and look for a nice café, one of the first you will find near to the Danube is the Café Panini. It's a lively coffee shop with a lot of energy. For breakfast you can choose between cold and warm dishes as well. 

French toast stuffed with ham and cheese, served with sour cream and salad

Croissant with ham and cheese

On weekdays apart from breakfasts, drinks and cakes, they are offering lunch menus as well for 1790 Ft.

And after a nice breakfast at Café Panini, you can enjoy a refreshing walk on the Margaret Island or in the neighborhood for discovering some treasures of Budapest.

Két Szerecsen

If you are looking for a nice and cozy restaurant for a cold autumn day, the Két Szerecsen can be a perfect choice. In TripAdvisor's Travelers Choice of 2015 the Két Szerecsen was selected among the first 10 restaurants in Budapest. After the delicious dinner I had, I have to admit I agree with everyone who has voted on this restaurant.

In the interior and in the style of Két Szerecsen, you can find some characteristics of the French Bistros. The menu is more diverse than that: there are Hungarian, French, Moroccan, Italian and Thai dishes as well. What they all have in common are the high-quality ingredients and the traditional tastes with the touch of modern gastronomy.

Is it a familiar feeling for you when you are looking at a menu, and you are sure that anything you will order, it will be perfect? I love it! At Két Szerecsen it happened like this just because of the menu, the interior, the atmosphere and of the things I read about it. As the result of this feeling we tried the following dishes (all of them are perfectly composed and delicious):

Prawns in white wine sauce

Spinach soup with crispy bacon and poached egg

Moroccan lamb shoulder, couscous with eggplant and mint, honeyed onion and yoghurt

Mangalitsa shoulder with vegetables

Unfortunately I haven't visited all the the 10 restaurants from TripAdvisor's Travelers Choice list, so for now I can "only" say that the Két Szerecsen is one of the best restaurants of Budapest where I have been. The wonderful dishes, the atmosphere and the service will bring me back.

Akademia Italia Budapest

It's a restaurant, it's a breakfast place, it's a shop, it's a cooking school and it's Italian. The Academia Italia was opened right next to the St. Stephen's Basilica.The first thing which will probably make you enter and see what else it has in store for you, is the interior of the restaurant.  Every little detail is perfect and designed with the utmost care by an Italian designer, from Turin. Of course, not only the design, but all the furniture came also from Italy.

On the menu you can't find any main course but you can choose between soups, salads, pastas, pizzas, risottos and desserts. It's a culinary paradise where you can come at any time and for sure you will find something ideal. And of course, all the ingredients are coming from Italy, included such a basic but essential products as the flour and sugar.

Breakfast at Akademia Italia:

Cornetto with vanilla cream

Omelette for breakfast

Dinner at Akademia Italia:

Octopus carpaccio with olives and celery

Pizza with speck ham and fontina cheese

Gnocchetto with Charlotte onion, tomato and Parma ham

Coppa golosa: Cream dessert with sponge cake, mascarpone cream and hot chocolate sauce

And if you would like to bring home some Italian delicacies, just go to the basement of the restaurant where you can buy products which are coming directly from Italy.

The cooking classes will be held here

As the atmosphere of the restaurant is so appealing, I am looking forward to go back for visiting a cooking class, for buying some Italian wine or for having a great dinner there. 

Trattoria Gusto - Felicitá on the Liszt Ferenc Square

I love Italy, the Italian food, the Italian wine, the Italian beaches and the Italian atmosphere. If it was possible I would go every week to this spectacular country for a dinner. But unfortunately, it has to stay as a lovely dream. Apart from this sad reality, luckily there are good news also: if you go to the Trattoria Gusto on the Liszt Ferenc Square you can find yourself in at Italian atmosphere with some fabulous Italian food. It can be considered also as an advantage of this trattoria, that you can communicate in English and for sure the waiters will understand you.

Regarding the wine, we trusted the opinion of the waiter, so the pasta and the pizza were accompanied by a glass of Casteltorre Chardonnay from Veneto region. What I like the most with the wines is that feeling, when you try it for the first time and you are thinking it's great. Afterwards it's perfectly matching with the food you ordered, and then you know that the food itself is making it even better. Now it happened exactly on that way.

For the main course my choice felt on the Thyme tagliatelle with flap mushrooms and garlic prawns. One of the best pasta I have ever tried! With the thyme and the mushroom it's a splendid dish for a rainy, cold autumn day of Budapest. 

From a menu of an Italian trattoria usually the pizzas are not left out. Neither in the Trattoria Gusto! The pizza Salsicca e porcini trifolati contains tomato sauce, loin sausage and garlic flap mushrooms. The loin sausage with the mushroom gave an extraordinary taste to this thin, oven-baked pizza.

Dessert: Tiramisu and Home made profiteroles. About the tiramisu there is nothing to criticize: creamy, well-balanced, not too sweet, ideal dessert. Regarding the profiteroles: the chocolate sauce was really tasteful but I would have liked it more and it would have made better combination, if instead of the filling of the whipped cream, it had have a more elegant pastry cream inside. 

In summery, the Trattoria Gusto is an Italian restaurant which stands out with its high quality from the many other which you can find in Budapest. I will definitely return and try some other dishes from the menu, even if it will be really difficult not to order again the thyme tagliatelle with flap mushrooms and prawns.