Budapest's Great Market Hall - foodie heaven

We chose the Marriott Millennium Court Apartments as our base whilst in Budapest.

Centrally located just around the corner from Váci utca
a lively pedestrianised shopping street

 brimming over with boutiques, souvenir shops, bars, cafes and restaurants.

Budapest's Great Market hall sits at one end of Váci utca, close to the Freedom Bridge 

 and that's where we headed to begin our Cultural Culinary Tour with local tour guide Gabriella.

http://www.privatetoursbudapest.com/foodandwinetasting.html

 I hope you're wearing comfortable walking shoes, we don't want anyone falling over today.

The Great Market Hall was built in the late 1890's,

 sadly neglected since the 1950's
it was completely restored to it's former glory in the '90's.

There are three levels.

The basement is where the butcher shops, fish market

and wonderful spicy, pickled vegetables stalls are located.

The stalls on the ground floor are laden with fruit and vegetables or garlic and paprika.

This is also where you'll discover delicious pastries, Hungarian Pick salami
 and luxurious caviar.
Gabriella introduced us to several stall owners and bought local delicacies for us to taste.

In the photo below Gabriella and I are enjoying a delicious strudel
whilst the man inside the kitchen behind us
stretches and rolls delicate pastry ready for the next batch. 

On the second floor are the souvenir stalls and restaurants offering freshly cooked food

such as Hungarian Goulash soup and Budapest's favourite street food lángos.

 "Lángos is a deep fried flat bread made of a dough with flour, yeast, salt and water Lángos can be made with yoghurt, sour cream or milk instead of water, a dash of sugar along with salt and sometimes with flour and boiled mashed potatoes, which is called potato lángos. It is eaten fresh and warm, topped with sour cream and grated cheese, garlic or garlic butter, or doused with garlic water. Lángos can be cooked at home or bought at markets and street vendors around the country. The name comes from 'láng', the Hungarian word for flame.

 Traditionally, lángos was baked in the front of a brick oven, close to the flames. It was made from bread dough and was served as breakfast on days when new bread was baked. Nowadays, lángos is deep fried in oil."

Thanks to

http://visitbudapest.travel/

for this explanation and recipe for

Lángos

After all that walking, eating, shopping and tasting a small glass of

 Hungary's national drink - Unicum was in order.
Enjoyed (?) as either a digistif or apéritif Unicum is made to a secret formula
and contains more than 40 different herbs.
Like other herbal liquers such as Jägermeister or Underberg it's an acquired taste
and just between you and me I'd be happy never to drink it again!

Michael  Lee @Rattlebridge Farm for
Foodie Friday and Everything Else

and