Farewell to Budapest

We are leaving Budapest after nearly a month in Hungary. So here are a few final observations on the food.
As you can see from the sign this place is a Slovak beer hall. The waiter explained, though, that while they do have some Slovak food they are in no way Slovak. Under communism, when the restaurant opened, new businesses were given their names by the government. A place would be called Vienna Restaurant or New York Coffeehouse, and the managers were stuck with the name but it didn't necessarily relate to what the place served. Something tells me this tradition lives on with names given by clueless owners. We went to a place the other day called Ladino in the Jewish quarter, but the food had nothing to do with Saphardic Jewish cuisine. Here Kendra and I are inside the "Slovak" place.
She claims she makes that face in all the pictures on this blog, not because she drinks too much, but because the flash makes her close her eyes.

The New York Times ran a piece on Budapest just before we got here called "Save or Splurge." Save involved spending $250 a day and splurge $1000 a day. Obviously we would have trouble staying within either budget, but we went to the restaurant they suggested under splurge anyway. Costes, where the chef trained under molecular gastronomist Ferran Adria, does upscale versions of some Hungarian classics. Here is the cold fruit soup made with fresh plums and missing the typical whipped cream.
Here is a subtler version of the common pasta with fresh ewe's milk cheese.
This is nice considering the dish is typically a fatty mess like this one we had a few weeks ago.
The place runs out of Hungarian ideas pretty quickly though and goes Spanish, like with the duck with pumpkin and figs.
We enjoyed everything, perhaps because after two months in Eastern Europe we needed a more refined dining experience. You can see that Kendra and her brother had a great time.
Well, that is all for Hungary. Here I am saying goodbye to my comrades at the airport.