Gastronomical Journeys: Budapest

This story begins along time ago, when I was much younger, had less hair and no husband. It begins when my family and I were wandering the streets of Budapest, well Pest, in search of the ever-elusive guide-book recommended restaurant. June 2002 in Hungary was hot hot hot. All we had had to eat that day was our continental breakfast at the Hotel Fiesta, gased water and finally cold, iced soft drinks from when we stumbled into the Burger King dehydrated. Now that evening was approaching and city was beginning to cool off, we were reminded of our hunger and began our search. We walked up and down Jofez Atilla Utca until we felt thoroughly convinced that this friendly-serviced, authentic-fooded restaraunt with an English menu was in fact myth. Somehow in our starved state we saw just off the main road a happy Hungarian chef chalkboard advertising “Goulash” and “Paprika Chicken”. These were the two dishes we were looking for and the English was an added bonus.
We were seated by a large Hungarian woman who somehow knew to give us the English menus and took our drink orders. When she returned she stood poised ready to take our order. My mother ordered the goulash.
“Would you like a side dish?” the waitress asked.
“I’d like the cucumber salad.” My mothers reply caused the waitress to stop writing on her little pad. She looked at my mother incredulously.
“The cucumber salad?” she asked, as if she hoped she had heard wrong.
“Yes, the cucumber salad,” my mother affirmed, unsure what the problem was.
“If I were in America, I hope you would not let me order french fries with a taco, so I am going to tell you that cucumber salad doesn’t go with goulash. The noodles go with the goulash. I will order the noodles for you.” Her authority on the subject combined with this unexpected kindness took us all aback.
“Uh, well that sounds great then, noodles will be good,” my mother assented.
The rest of us quickly rethought our orders and cautiously offered our orders to her.
“I’ll have the paprika chicken and the noodles” I said, but as I saw her flinch and open her mouth “ or rather the potato salad.” She closed her mouth and nodded as she wrote down my order. This game took its turn through Carolyn and my dad until she was satisfied with our orders and left. My mother then admitted that she had really wanted the cucumber salad more than the goulash!
But the waitress was right and the food was delicious and we ate there every day, trying to discover which dishes went with the cucumber salad. And we still go back there every time one of us is in Budapest.
So it was only natural that for our first meal in Europe was at this restaurant. The waitress of legend was working the bar, but we had an equally insistent waiter who let us know what side dishes went with what. Matt loved the food as much as we did and it was the perfect meat and potatoes with a little spice to fill us up after a day of airplane food. As I remember the first night I had goulash and the second night paprika chicken. Matt had a pork and potato dish the first night and I’m not sure what the second night.
When we phone my mom to tell her we were safe in Budapest and on our way to dinner, she told us to have some cucumber salad for her. So Matt had a little look of triumph when he successfully ordered cucumber salad on his first try.