budaveg – vegetarian Hungary your vegetarian home in Hungary

I have some very pleasant news, 3 new vegetarian restaurants have recently opened in Budapest. I haven’t had the good fortune to check them out yet, but I hope I can post some reviews soon!

Ganges

The Ganga Vega Cafe has a big brother now, a restaurant close to Octogon. They offer delicious vegetarian food, Indian menus, and healthy options. They offer home delivery too.
1064 Budapest Vörösmarty utca 31.
gangesetterem@gmail.com
+36.30.5306368; +36.70.6338981
www.ganges.hu
Open M-Saturday 12- 8 pm

Bharata

Bharata Cultural Centre is the new home of Indian culture and cuisine: it offers yoga, ayurvedic medicine, meditation, dance and music courses,  and soon cooking classes! The cafe has special offers at the moment with really friendly prices. All food is lacto vegetarian. There are set menus, special offers for students, lassis and sweets. Can’t wait to try!
Budapest 1074. Almássy tér – Tivadar u. 3.
Open: Monday-Friday:  12:00-8.pm; Saturday 6pm-9pm, Sunday closed

Hummus Bar

There is a new vegetarian hummus bar just a few minutes from the budaveg vegetarian B&B, at  Hollán Ernő utca 6. James had a Falafel plate and was very pleased with it.
Open: Monday-Friday 10-10pm Saturday Sunday: 12-10 pm
Tel: 06 70 932 8284

Mannatural 

This lovely vegan raw food restaurant has moved! Just a few minutes from the previous location to 1054 Budapest, Garibaldi u. 5. They also offer an “all you can eat buffet” lunch for 3000 HUF and dinner for 5000 HUF on weekdays. Please call or email to reserve for dinner: 06-20-776-9843, info@mannatural.hu, just pop in for lunch.

This means we have now 22 vegetarian restaurants and cafes in Budapest, pretty amazing! I have just updated the restaurants page and our ebook accordingly, which you can get by subscribing to our mailing list. We hardly ever send out any emails, and you can safely unsubscribe any time.

Dear Friends,sorry for this long hiatus on the blog. We were bogged down with health issues in the family even considered closing down budaveg and turned down a couple of inqueries. Really sorry about that.

We found out that James’s health problems are caused by heavy metal poisoning from his amalgam fillings so in the past few weeks we spent all our time googling the net and at dentists and health practitioner’s surgery. We went from normal dentists to holistic ones and ended up at a “biological dentist” who is an expert at safe amalgam removal and does a lot of additional therapy. It also costs an arm and a leg (rather a second hand car) but still it is 6 times cheaper than in the UK, so we can actually pay for it without re-mortgaging the house, yupee!

Obviously I am going to blog about dentists now, dental tourism is massive in Hungary, and perhaps others can benefit from my recently gained knowledge. I am not going to link any or do any advertising, unless we have personally tried them.

Also we have been looking into raw food diets and met a couple of expert and committed raw foodist, I am planning on running a series on raw food movements in Hungary starting with no other than Mr Bicsérdy himself, our own frutarian celebrity from 1900, then Gitta and Aniko fronm Raw Food Academy and Agnes from Life Kitchen.

And to finish on a happy note we offer a 10% discount for any bookings made in February (you can book any dates in 2012) if you write “heavy metal” in the booking request- just to raise some money for James’s dentist, lol.

Ah yes, and here is my bottom right wisdom tooth operated out last Friday, cute, right? Our kids love playing with it. The young lady in the picture is also teething like hell by the way. I could also post a picture of my swollen face too, but that is not so pretty.Luckily I didn’t have to take antibiotics and I think homoeopathy really helped in my quick recovery.   One more wisdom tooth to go…

We had a slightly different Christmas than we planned. A nasty flu thingy swept through the family, first the kids oozed tons of snot, than I got ill, with sore throat, neck pain and general spleen, and once I got better James had a sore throat, but more painful than ever. He couldn’t swallow and hence eat for two days and he was in so much discomfort he even asked for a painkiller. That alarmed me because he once fell through the roof and dislocated his shoulder for the third time and then just walked into the surgery- he is not a complaining type. We had no pain killers at home, apart from the kids teething pain killer which didn’t help him at all. After these days in agony I finally called the emergency GP to look at him, they came a few hours later and the doctor after a brief examination refered him to an otolaryngologists (ear-nose-throat specialist) as she suspected that James might have an abscess in his throat. Luckily she gave him a pain killer that actually worked. The doctor and her helper were very friendly, but they didn’t speak any English so I had to translate for them.  The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) was accepted, so it was free, otherwise a visit like that is 35 000 hufs. They urged us to see a specialist asap either in the surgery or at the hospital.

Our friends kindly took the kids and we decided to be hopeful and went to the surgery instead. We had to wait a good half an hour (there were 4 people waiting) but the receptionist said if he had any difficulty breathing we should just walk in the surgery.  He was seen by a young doctor who spoke very good English. She confirmed the GP’s fear and sent us to the hospital, James wasn’t to keen on going to hospital at all, but she told us that if it is an abscess it can be fatal as the pus can get in the lungs and he needs hospital care asap.

So we went to the hospital in duty which was Szent Janos a short drive from Moszkva/Szell Kalman ter. At the ward we met a young friendly doctor who spoke excellent English, and soon we found out that he was in fact French! I found it deeply ironic that we meet a French doctor working here when so many local doctors are leaving the country. He examined James and later called his colleague, they have decided that even though they were not sure if there was an abscess or not, James need further examinations and perhaps a CT.  They both ensured me that it is a minor thing and the biggest difficulty is to process the EHIC in the system. Since they both spoke excellent English I was of no use and went home to put the kids to bed, who were very mixed up already.

James had further tests and a CT but couldn’t confirm for sure if there was an abscess or not and in the morning a couple more doctors looked at him and in the end they have decided to perform a surgical incision just to play it safe. Also he was put on antibiotics, but since he is allergic to penicillin and a couple of other antibiotics- and had no record of which on him- they had to find a suitable one and watch him closely. The operation was awful as you can imagine- being stabbed in the throat, but after a day he was much better and could eat, talk and after two nights he could come home.

He picked the right time to go to hospital- it was empty he had the whole ward for himself! We were really pleasantly surprised that all doctors spoke English and he could easily communicate with all. Hospitals in Hungary are shabby and understaffed but I have to admit, we only met kind and smiling people there. To our delight most of the meals were vegetarian, so James could actually eat there, once he was given a split pea soup, the next day some bread with cheese spread (körözött), spring onions and a kiwi fruit. Again the EU card worked and he was covered by his UK health insurance.

When we got his medicine from the pharmacy we experienced the first problem with the EHIC, as the first pharmacy we waltzed into just couldn’t process it and wanted us to pay for the medicine. We just went to another pharmacy, where they could process it (having the card on hand really helps as doctors have terrible handwriting in this country!) and James got his medicine on NHS so only needed to pay for part of the sum.

So before you come to Hungary get your EHIC or health insurance and the system actually works!

Tonight all the magyar children will polish their boots and place them on the windowsill, St Nicholas aka Mikulás is coming tonight with sweets and treats!

We spent the afternoon making cinnamon rolls- snails and ladybirds- to leave next to those tiny boots for St. Nicholas and I am certain that he will be delighted!

So will the kids with these red sacks: they contain two raisin-apple muffins, a small packet of chocolate covered currants, a golden walnut, a red apple and a tiny wooden car.

Budapest is also getting ready for the celebrations, the lovely decorations are up, Christmas trees, lights and the Christmas tram started running too! It is the good old number 2 that runs along the river on the Pest side, check out this short video and see the amazing ride with all the sights along the Danube lit up!

And of course don’t forget to check out the Christmas fair at Vörösmarty square! There are quality crafts, hot wine, great toys and gifts, live music and entertainment for all ages.  And Santa from Finland is at the grotto tomorrow.

If you prefer cutting edge design, then the Museum of applied Arts is the place next weekend, on the 10th-11th from 10 am till 8 pm there is a contemporary design market, and guess what! Napfényes patisserie will be there too with vegan delights!

There seem to be a massive boom in cooking classes nowadays, or perhaps just facebook make me more aware of them?

Vegan & Gluten Free Cookery Workshop The Salt’n'Pepper cooking school organizes workshops where the chef of Napfényes Étterem is teaching culinary skills. Unfortunately info is only in Hungarian on their website, but email them for info if you are interested.
saltnpepper@t-online.hu
06 30 950 6422 1055
Budapest, Balassi Bálint utca 19
http://www.saltnpepper.hu/home

Vegan rawfood classes organised by Mannanatural restaurant: 3 hour classes taught at their restaurant in a specially built teaching and dining are upstairs, after “cooking” the students are enjoying a healthy dinner.  For details and times check their website.
 1054 Budapest, Hold u. 13. 
+36-20-7769843 
info@mannatural.hu
http://www.mannatural.net/index.php?oldal=fooldal

Lacto vegetarian classes: are organised by 108.hu which seems to be part of the Hare Krishna church. They offer a big range of classes from Indian to Hungarian vegetarian, special Christmas menus, ginger bread making with children and so on.  Courses are taught by Hémangi dévi dászi populag vegetarian gastro blogger of http://www.vegavarazs.hu. The 108 school is only a short walk from budaveg vegetarian B&B!
info@108.hu
06-30-464 77601137.
Budapest, Szent István krt 6. III/12. 27-es csengő (Jászai Mari tér)
http://108.hu/fozotanfolyam  

Isteni Ízek Főzőtanfolyam/ Divine tastes cooking course also organised by the Hare Krishna Church at the Indian cultural centre. The TV chef Mahadzsan dász is teaching the course, which is planning to start 15th February 2012
Bp.1039 Lehel u. 15.-17
06 30 872 1995
mahadzsan@freemail.hu

Raw vegan gourmand dinners Finally if you don’t want to cook but still want to fill your belly with vegan raw delights than Életkonyha/ Lifekitchen is your place. They offer themed vegan raw gourmand dinners in their home for small groups. These girls also make amazing raw “sweets” and cakes, have a look at Sületlenségek website.
003670-70-28187, or 003630-399-4912
info@eletkonyha.hu

https://www.facebook.com/EletKonyha.LifeKitchen

Are there more? If so let me know happy to add to our blog!

At the moment two lovely Italian girls are staying at the budaveg apartment, one of them, Chiara translated our website to Italian and we are very happy to give her and her friend a week’s stay in return! The are very busy during the day exploring Budapest, the museums and the christmas market, but last night we all went out to Napfényes Étterem, probably the nicest vegan restaurant in town.
The restaurant belong to a Rudolf Steiner inspired movement, and they promote healthy vegan food and lifestyle. They also have a vegan patisserie, organize cooking and lifestyle courses issue beautifully illustrated cook books and have a small health food store at the restaurant.


You’ll find there a fantastic selection of vegan dishes: soup, pizzas, pasta dishes, traditional Hungarian dishes, puddings and cream cakes from their patisserie, salads, and an impressive range of organic juices and teas.

We would have had a lovely time if our children hadn’t run amok in the restaurant; they were running up and down in and out of the kitchen screaming with delight. So much for lethargic veggie kids! Luckily the staff not only put up with it but even gave them some coloured pencils and paper and played with them to give us a breather and a chance to eat our delicious meals. Taking pictures is not my forte especially when I have to run after my kids. This is the only moment they actually sat on their bums.

James chose vegan breaded cheese with rice and peas, and tartar sauce, Lita chose “Fried Pancakes Filled with Vegetable Cream served with Mashed Potatoes and Onions”, Chiara and I went for the vegan Brassói with Lecsó, which is called “Ratatouille Seitan Cutlets” on the menu, and the kids got half portions each of yesterday’s special: Mixed Vegetable Pakora with Mashed Potatoes. The vegan Brassói with Lecsó is my favourite dish: lots of chips and seitan in a great spicy sauce! Here is a close up of the table:

The prices are great, mains are between 1500-2000 Hufs. We had a lovely time, but probably won’t go there (or any other restaurant) till they are at least ten, or go without them. So please it is your turn to dine out in style at a lovely vegan restaurant!
I’d like to thank the staff again for being so super nice!

Address: Rózsa u 39, District VII Tram: 4/6 at Király utca and walk, or 76 trolley bus.
Open: every day 9am-10pm
Vegan, non smoking, no alcohol, sells health food too
English menu, English spoken.
http://www.napfenyesetterem.hu/

A few weeks ago on a sunny Saturday morning we were again driving up north to the “Biokert” organic farm where we get our vegetables from in a CSA scheme. We had enjoyed the harvest festival so much we were really looking forward to be back on the farm where our kids and dog can roam free and we can meet and greet the other members.

We were invited to help with the spice paprika harvest- which we did for 10 minutes before we realized that our kids and bouncy dog were more trouble than they were worth and retreated from the paprika field. We walked around to see how the vegetables were doing in the poly tunnels, and collected sunflower seeds from the drying flower heads for the bird feeder. Oliver was delighted when Dora, farmer Áron’s golden retriever mix, joined him and they happily romped around and made a mess.

Everybody bought cakes and snacks and it was hard to leave the picnic table with all those delights. A friendly couple made a delicious vegan curry on the open fire.

But the real treat -at least for the kids- came when we all piled on the trailer of the tractor and Áron drove us over to a neighbouring pony farm! The trip was the bumpiest ever which meant that all those little kids were screaming with delight. They all could go horse riding on the ponies  including our 1,5 year old girl who hasn’t been near a horse before. Since than she keeps saying “horsie horsie” non stop. There was a flock of sheep and a very friendly pussycat as well to entertain the kids while they were waiting for their ride. There was also a real double decker tram from a bygone era.

Then we jumped on the tractor and bumped back to the farm for lunch- but unfortunately our kids were absolutely knackered by then (they get up at 6 am), so we had to say goodbye and pile them into the car. We were heartbroken to miss the vegan curry but Renáta filled our Tupperware box to take away. Yum!

The CSA season is almost over and we are looking forward to next year. It was brilliant to get all those lovely organic veg, fruit, flour, paprika spice and sun-dried tomatoes from the farm. It definitely reformed our eating habits, as we had to use the veg we were given- and started eating beetroot, mangold, turnips -and learnt a handful of new recipes. Meeting like minded people from our quarters was an added bonus, and it seems many other families will join next year.
Do you live around Szentendre? You might want to join too!

We got a tiny garden- even by British standards but I try to squeeze in everything we need: a play area for the kids and the dog, flowers and a vegetable garden. I was a bit reluctant at first, since there was a septic tank at the bottom of the garden for a good 30 years and I was afraid that the soil might be contaminated so for the first few years we were living here I only grew flowers and herbs.

One day browsing the net I came across a brilliant way of container gardening called an “earthbox”  and found a great tutorial on how to build your own and James kindly built a couple for us.

I was very excited about starting to produce our own food and got a lot of potting soil- but made the first mistake of buying “general flower potting soil” (általános virágföld in magyar) which is really not suitable for growing vegetables and can be toxic as I learnt later from Áron the organic farmer. I also bought far too many plants at the market- got carried away- and planted cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers and courgettes. I covered the top with the black plastic bag of the potting compost and filled up the containers with water- and checked the plants every day!

And gosh they grew! The peppers were doing really well even though they were a bit crammed, one cucumber went mental and grew all over the lawn and the tomatoes looked very promising too.

The courgette/ zuccini plants looked great and had a couple of baby fruits, then started rotting one day, still don’t know why- and it happened this year too.

The cucumber produced plenty of delicious fruit and we found it extremely exciting and satisfying to pick a fresh cucumber when were making sandwiches. The tomatoes soon had bright red fruit which caught the attention of our naughty dog, and he kept picking the tomatoes- and destroying the plants with his gentle 35 kg body. Why on earth did we raise him vegetarian? So not many tomatoes for us. James built an impressive fence around the plants but soon Oli demolished that too and gulped down the rest. Ah well, at least the peppers did well.

A year later when we were back in England I was flipping through a gardening catalogue and the “upside down tomatoes” caught my eyes. I was a bit sceptical but willing to try; if it worked we’d have tomatoes growing out of the dog’s range! If you google it you will find plenty of video tutorials  on how to make your own. I just got a couple of builder’s buckets, James drilled a hole in the bottom and voila. I put in the tomato plant and planted flowers on the top. To be honest the flowers did a lot better than the tomatoes, the did produce some fruit but none of them did great. I experimented with strawberries and cucumbers this year and the strawberry did ok, the cucumber did really well, till we forgot to water it once- which ruined the plant. The moral of the story is that cucumbers should go in Earthboxes, they need so much water (and they are safe from the dog). For more images click the photos or the flickr button in the side bar.


Next time I'll write about container gardening and pergolas.
Are you also growing vegetables at home?

Hummus bar is a franchise with 3 restaurants in Budapest, all very conveniently located in downtown and all offering a wide range of vegan food. The bar in Alkotmány utca is vegetarian, and the one in Kecskeméti and Október 6 utca are “normal” as they say on their website, which is probably not “normal” to us but they also offer a very good veggie selection.

They have hummus dishes, sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts and different hot and cold drinks. I had lunch at the Kecskeméti utca Hummus Bar the other day, I had a falafel plate with mint tea, the service was a bit on the slow side but the stuff was excellent. It has both indoor and outdoor seating and since Kecskeméti utca has restricted traffic it was very pleasant and metropolitan to eat on the pavement area and enjoy the city.

Hummus bar 
Middle Eastern vegan friendly cafes, (but only one is exclusively vegetarian) now at three locations.
English menu, English spoken.
www.hummusbar.hu


Address: V. ker. Október 6. str. 19 Vegetarian friendly
Open: Monday-Friday 11.30-10pm Saturday Sunday: 12-10 pm
Tel: 3540108

Address: V. ker. Kecskeméti str. 1 Vegetarian friendly
Open: Monday-Friday 10-10pm Saturday Sunday: 12-10 pm
Tel+36 (70) 932-8284

Address:1054 Budapest, Alkotmány utca 20 Metro Arany János utca (blue) Vegetarian
Open: Monday-Friday 10-10 pm, Saturday-Sunday 12-10 pm
Tel: 302-13-85

Few month ago we joined a community supported agricultural scheme and since then we got our vegetables from Farmer Áron Pető from Szigetmonostor. We have been delighted with the deal, the vegetables are lovely, fresh and there is always too much! Apart from the vegetables we  have also received wholemeal flour, white flour, paprika spice, and water and honeydew melons.

Last weekend they invited all the members for a harvest celebration and we all had a lovely time. I was pretty curious to see the farm and the production methods, especially since a week earlier I visited a non-organic tomato farm and was appalled by the amount of fertilizer and the techniques they used. Look at the white bags, all fertilizer, the tomato plants are roughly 15 meters high, they are not in the soil but in tiny grow bags, as they grow they lower the plant and the non producing stem is lying down. The tomatoes are picked in the “growing area”, red and green ones as well, and they “ripen” on the shelves of the supermarket. Yuck.

factory farming: look at all those bags of fertilizer!

Organic tomatoes are a totally different kettle of fish; the plant is in the soil and there is not an ounce of artificial fertilizer in sight, the tomatoes are picked when they are ripe and we get them fresh and warm straight off the stem. If you never had the good fortune to eat warm ripened tomatoes off the plant than rush to Hungary, they are so tasty and sweet!

We ran around the farm, our dog and children were delighted, Oli made friends with the farmer’s dog and a stray puppy who is not so stray any more, and our kids ran in the poly tunnels, chased the puppy and stuffed their faces at the picnic table. The pumpkin soup was delicious and surprisingly all treats were vegetarian!

The members ate and chatted and some helped the farmer take the seeds out of these pumpkins; and now we can look forward to pumpkin seed oil which has an impressive list of benefits.