Eating at the LARGEST CHRISTMAS MARKET in Budapest | ULTIMATE Traditional FOOD TOUR in Hungary!

Good morning from Budapest. I got a pretty phenomenal food day planned out. But since breakfast is free at the hotel, I'm going to eat something before we eat. It's like a pretty typical breakfast buffet. Waffles, pastries, scrambled eggs. That's a good croissant. I'm starving right now, so I really just need some food to get me to my next food destination. We'll head over after this. I love how the city just has these random chimney kick stands everywhere. Like in New York, that would be a newspaper stand. Here? Chimney kicks. Much better. Oh, no. This is the market I wanted to go to. I think the whole thing's under construction. Well, that's too bad. I was really looking forward to this. Glad this place is open in the morning. Mama's Caffeine Canteen. Wow, it's so modern here. It's beautiful. Oh, it smells good. Something smells really good. And there's no food. It's a bit early, so they're still making the food. I'm just going to sit here and hang out, because this little restaurant is like on the outskirts of the city, I think. But the food that has come out looks great, and they make everything here. I just want to say, this place is amazing. This canteen is so incredible. Look at my amazing breakfast. Every dish at today's conversion is around less than $3. And I got a combo and a soup, like a giant bowl of soup, for around $7. It's all classic Hungarian dishes, and they make their desserts in-house. Look at that. This is a cottage cheesecake with, I think, apricot jam on top. Beautiful. So, obviously, pumpkin is used a lot in Hungarian cuisine. And today, I got some pumpkin soup. Pumpkin with pork, which the lady at the counter said is her favorite dish. I really want to try their fried chicken, because I've seen this everywhere. I had it on the buffet. I wanted to try it fresh. Oh, it's delicious. I didn't know pumpkin soup could taste like this. Savory, with real chunks of pumpkin inside it. Nice and rich, and so much depth in this soup. This does not just taste like typical pumpkin soup. This thing has so much herbs and seasoning inside. It's earthy, satisfying, with a hint of sweetness. At the same time, it's really bright-tasting, too. The herbs they added gives it such a bright flavor. It might be the first time I ever had pumpkin soup, but now I'm going to crave pumpkin soup. I never thought it could be that good. It's so good. So, this is a canteen, right? So, basically, you put all the dishes you want on a tray, and then you check out on the front. So, it is incredibly convenient. And the next dish I want to try, and I want to get to it before it gets cold, is the fried chicken. So, this is the same thing I had at the buffet when I first came here, but fresh. Oh, it's crispy. Oh, it's so light and crispy. What? That was a lot of crunch. Oh, man, it looks juicy inside, too. Oh. I'm glad I waited. How is this so good? It's basically the local version of a schnitzel, and it is marvelous. This is a must-try right here, especially when it's crispy fresh out of the fryer. Look how thin the crunch is. I don't know if you guys can hear this. I'm just going to cut into it. You can barely hear the crunch because it's such a light outer shell. The batter is amazingly light, with just the most perfect crunch. It's like a little cracker. Inside the chicken is tender, it's juicy, and it's seasoned beautifully, too. All right, let's try this. When they gave it to me, they called this chicken in mushroom sauce. It kind of looks like stroganoff, and they put it over rice. Oh, it is saucy, huh? Oh, it's really saucy. This is an amazing restaurant. Everything here is 10 out of 10 for such a ridiculously cheap price. This dish here is like under $5 with the rice. It's earthy. It's got beautiful, tender pieces of chicken. It's seasoned so well. When this rice is sitting in the sauce, it almost tastes like a risotto. That's like the texture of the rice. The mushroom is delicious. The sauce is creamy and rich. Oh, this is freaking magical right here. It tastes like a risotto right now. Just the most rich and balanced flavors. Oh, man. The chicken is so great. Mmm. Wow, food in this country is awesome. There's a lot of very earthy, rustic ingredients, and they just cook it so perfectly, you know? It's never too rich. It's never too heavy. The texture of the rice with the sauce, with the mushroom and chicken, match made in holy food matrimony. Let me try this pumpkin pork before it gets cold. Like I mentioned, this lady said this is her favorite dish. So it's strips of pork covered in rich pumpkin sauce. I'm just gonna eat it with some of the rice. I'm not gonna touch the chicken. No, no. I'm not gonna mix the flavors. Hang on a second. I'm just trying to see if, uh... I was just trying to look for pieces in my mind because it has officially been blown everywhere. What in the world is this culinary delight that I've been missing in my life? Oh, a pumpkin! I've always thought of pumpkin as something, you know, you carve for Halloween. And sometimes, you know, Chinese people will make like a sweet dessert cake out of it. We don't eat that much pumpkin. The use of pumpkin in the local cuisine here is just a stroke of genius. This dish is magnificent. Tender pork in this rich pumpkin gravy. As you chew, the richness of the pork mixes in with that thick, slightly just a hint of sweetness pumpkin flavor, creating some sort of like mystery umami that is just intoxicating. That's better than the chicken. I love the chicken. Beautiful storybook magic. And you can definitely taste the pumpkin. There's so many herbs and spices here. It's smoky. A tiny, tiny, tiny kick. Everything I've had so far is marvelous. And really made me appreciate pumpkin now. Yeah, come to think of it, I used to just carve that thing and just let it rot. Wow, this is good. One final thing to try. This is such a beautiful dessert. Look at this. Apricot jam on top. So this is cottage cheese filling with a tiny cake crust on the bottom. Whoa. When I bite into a dish at this place, I feel some dish you're gonna be just, you know, I might say it's not bad. It's okay. It's ridiculous. It's so good. I mean, I haven't tried a lot of restaurants in Budapest, but you gotta come here. This is where the locals go. Like, I'm the only tourist here. Every person who's come in has been a local. Coming in to buy their food and take it home. I would, too. If I lived in Budapest, come here, as soon as they open, buy their dishes. It's so affordable, too. Take it home, eat it over rice. It's such a hearty meal because their dishes are so saucy. It goes so well with rice. And oh my gosh, this is, this is ridiculous. You can definitely taste the apricot, right? 100% taste the apricot. The cottage cheese filling is light and creamy. Little nutty. The most perfect little cake crust on the bottom. It's so good. It's nothing is too much. Sometimes apricot, a little too sour. Perfect. These guys are absolute food geniuses. I mean, every single dish I've had has been amazing. Yeah, seriously. Like, I see locals come in, they bring these, looks like thermal containers, right? And they just buy a bunch of food and put it in a thermal container and get home and eat it. I mean, I would, too. Why even cook? For this price? Come here. A bunch of food is already made and it's delicious. Take it home and eat it. If I was staying at an Airbnb right now, that's what I'd be doing. Wow. This place is a high, high recommend. One of the best foods I've had on this trip so far. Like, just completely unexpected because, I mean, I never had Hungarian food before, but this has absolutely opened my eyes to local Hungarian cuisines. All right, after this, I definitely need to take a little break and go for a walk or something. And then I'm going for a very classic local street food. Here it is. This is probably the most iconic dish in this country, langos, and that's all this place sells. Wow, this looks and smells incredible. So apparently this dish was not always fried. This used to be like the breakfast of bakers and they would cook this in the oven. And people only started frying this in the 20th century, but I gotta say, this fried looks beautiful. Look at this. Look at these little crispy edges, like translucent little crispy air bubbles. The crust is nice and crispy and airy. And the toppings on top is basically whatever you want, but it usually comes with the holy trinity of toppings, the garlic oil, sour cream, and cheese, and this is just loaded with it. I also got onions and sausage because they told me this is one of the most popular ways to eat it. I'm not exactly sure how to eat this. It looks like something that would be very difficult to pick up and eat, but they do give you a knife and fork and I see people just cutting it into slices and eating it that way. So let's do that. So I'm just kind of cutting this like a pizza. Wow. This is definitely a hearty, hearty dish. It's basically a golden crispy size cloud of fried dough with super crispy edges. And it's soft in the middle. It's very puffy and airy. And when you take a bite, it's basically like a warm handshake from the carb gods. I'm so glad I got the onions. This is a rich, rich dish. The fried dough is delicious. Like I said, crispy on the outer edges, nice and chewy and soft in the middle. And they just added like a blizzard of cheese on top of the steak. That's so much cheese. Also, you can tell there's so much garlic in here, basically a pool of sour cream. It's a really, really hefty, rich dish. And the sausage they put on top is toasty and very smoky. The reason I said I'm really glad I got the onions is the onions really does a lot to cut down the richness of this thing, which I think makes it taste better. I love these little crispy air bubbles on the bottom. Oh, those are really, really crispy. This thing is basically crispy, creamy, chewy. That's good. There's nothing I don't love about this. The fried dough is actually awesome. It's chewy in some bites, really crispy in others. This whole thing is basically crispy, chewy, creamy, garlicky, tangy, rich, and messy in all the best ways. There's so much of everything. This is the ultimate comfort food right here. Yeah, this thing is just very unapologetically indulgent. This is not something I can eat every single day. But even though I say that, I feel like this would be something I would crave at like, you know, like 2 a.m. when I'm starving. I would crave this. It does have a very addictive quality to it. Like, it's so heavy. And that's not from the dough. That's all ingredients. It's absolutely chaotic and delicious at the same time. Oh man, after that breakfast, and then that hefty fried dough, ooh, I feel like I could be done for today. But right around the corner is another restaurant I wanted to try. My only full day here, so let's keep going. Yeah, this is it right here. So this place is just traditional Hungarian cuisine, and some of this stuff looks really, really good. Like, there's this thing called the Heavy Hungarian that comes with goose fat and pork chips. There's also another breakfast dish that's called Duck Tales, awesome cartoon, that's made with smoked duck breast. Definitely not your typical breakfast. I love really unique breakfast items. You know what? I gotta go for the Hungry Hungarian. They told me that's a very traditional breakfast here. Goose fat, pork chips, I'm up for that. Definitely needed some tea. Here it is, the Hungry Hungarian. This is a beautifully crafted toast, chilies on top. Okay, this is the pork chips right here, basically little chicharrones, sausage, smoked paprika, pickled onions, tomatoes. So that's the goose fat right there. The goose fat is spread over the bread, and it's definitely soaked in like butter. So let me try a piece with some pickles, some pork, and another thing that this country is known for is the paprika. I think this is my first time actually trying it. It's so good. Who knew this much flavor can be sitting on a piece of toast? First of all, that fat in the toast, amazing. So rich and filled with umami. Crispy chicharrones, of course, adds to that richness. So does the smoky sausage. Grab some of this chili too. But there's so many ingredients that balances out the richness as well, like the chilies, the tomatoes, the onions, making this such a flavorful and vibrant breakfast. Need more heat? A little more from the chili on top. Mmm, there's a lot of heat there. Wow, you can definitely taste the goose fat. That thing is soaked into the toast, along with the crispy chicharrones, it's like a fat double whammy. Look at that. That's all delicious goose fat. There's so much flavors in this. Also, they really do taste the awesome smokiness from the paprika. Wow, everything about this, rich, savory, so much umami. Man, I love how that crispy chicharrones just melts. As soon as you crunch down on it, pork fat and goose fat, why choose one or the other? Add them both. I love the food in this country. It's totally my kind of food. Hearty, rich, incredibly satisfying. Wow, that goose fat is such a nice touch. I'm so glad I ordered hot tea. Anytime you're eating something rich, or greasy, or oily, or anything, hot tea. I was just walking by and look at this, this is like a giant moon in this little courtyard here. Wow. This thing is humongous. And the good thing about being here around Christmas time, being able to go to a Christmas market and there is so much food going on here. Sausages, burgers, there's roasted potatoes. Oh, look at this. What? What are they frying up here? Looks like potato pancakes is being fried up here. All sorts of meats and dishes. There's chimney cake. Look at these ginormous cauldrons of food. Whoa, chicken paprika, deer stew. There's beef stew, some goulash, if you're into that. You can have it all in a bread bowl. Freshly fried potato pancakes with all sorts of topping on top. There's ribs, pork, sausages, giant pots of hot wine. Wow. They make their sausages right here. Are you kidding me? I got sauerkraut and cheese sauce. Oh, and look at the size of this thing. Wow. This is crazy looking. And there's tables you can sit at. Well, they're all occupied right now. Let's find a place to maybe stand and eat. How gnarly is this? This is more than a foot. And I can't believe they made the sausages. They're making it in the booth right now. So just so freaking good. This is a juicy spiced up sausage with such a snappy casing. The bread is good. Nice and toasty. I am really glad I got the cabbage and pickles on top. And like I mentioned, a nice kick from the sausage. That thing is so snappy. This is probably their equivalent of a giant turkey leg. But this thing has no gimmick. The sausage is good. The bread is good. The topping is good. It's actually something that's really tasty to eat. All right, let me work on this before it gets cold. See you in a bit. All right, this is something I really wanted to try. The potato pancakes. Freshly made potato pancakes. And you can have pretty much whatever you want on top of it. And I got the stew. So it looks like beef stew on top of my potato pancakes. Oh, this is super nice and crispy. It's like extremely crispy golden hash browns. Oh man, I think this is going to be an amazing vehicle for my stew. Or correction, my cheesy stew. My very cheesy stew. It's so, so good. If you love potatoes. First of all, I've had a lot of potato pancakes in my day. This is by far the best one. Not even close. It's so crispy on the outside. Like so crispy. It's basically like a thin sheet of crispy hash browns. I think anything with this potato pancake would taste good. But I gotta say, this stew is awesome. This is really tender chunks of beef mixing the cheese so it becomes nice and melty. Oh, this pancake is legit. What's up, bird? Not only is this pancake crispy, this thing tastes really good even on its own. I think this place is really known for their potato pancakes because that's what everybody's getting over here. I think this place, all the pancake they give you is freshly fried. Like this tastes like it just came out of the fryer. Who knew? Potato pancakes and beef stew. What a combo. Oh my gosh. There's like three birds here now. I mean, I know the potato pancake is good, but I'm not sharing with you guys. Sorry. I might be done after this. There's literally a whole roast pig sitting over here. Oh, also my mic somehow stopped working. So I think maybe this is a sign I had enough food. One more chimney cake for the road. So I found a chimney cake maker that cooks this with charcoal, fresh charcoal. And look at this, pistachio chimney cake. With the charcoal, you're definitely getting more of a smoky flavor. I think if you're not going to get ice cream, pistachio is definitely the way to go. Also, look how big these chimney cakes are. You could almost use them as a chimney. It's not a big Christmas market. There is a much bigger one, but I think I'm going to go home, maybe go for a run. And then check that out later tonight. Back out again. And this is the largest Christmas market in this area. I think in the whole city. And it's right in front of St. Stephen's Basilica. And this one's got tons of souvenirs. There's ornaments. And of course, food. Look at this. Whoa. Roasting salmon over here. Beautiful. So this market is a lot bigger, but a lot less place to stand and eat. And it seems like there's no Christmas market that's really ginormous. This is the biggest one I've seen. But there's a bunch of them. Just like what I saw in Berlin. Whoa. This is definitely a really, really juicy piece of salmon. This thing is juicy beyond words. Juicy and rich. Nice and fatty. Especially around the belly parts. Nice bit of smoky flavor as well. This is a really juicy salmon. All it really needs is a little splash of lemon juice. Some salt. Oh man, this is absolutely perfect. You can see all the juice from the salmon basically forming a pool at the bottom. I mean, I've had a lot of salmon in Seattle, Alaska. But I'll tell you, this is a beautiful piece of salmon. In this market, tons of candy. Like I said, there's souvenirs. There's handmade chocolates. Look at that. Wow. And I think my last bite of food for today is this little Christmas cake. A lot of different layers. One, two, three, four. Four layers of what looks like jam and apple and more jam. That is a dense, dense fruitcake. Yeah, this is a fruitcake. There's apple cinnamon. There's fig jam. There's nuts. It's pretty much a Hungarian fruitcake. But it tastes way better than any fruitcake I've had before. It's like eating a fruitcake and an apple pie at the same time. So today, I felt like I tried a lot of local dishes. And this is really a cuisine I never really tried before. I think my favorite is still the meal at the canteen this morning. Like, everything was so hearty and nice. Actually, pretty much all the traditional food throughout the day. Crispy potato pancake. Like, I thought everything tasted really good. But I think at this point, my stomach has tapped out. And with this final dense fruitcake, I think this will be my last bite of food here in Budapest. But it's so fun to be able to walk around, looking at all the beautiful historic structures, like castles, the parliament building, being able to run along the river. This is really a storybook kind of place. Glad I was able to finally come and see it for myself. As always, all the places I've been to are down below for you. Thank you all so much for watching. Until we eat again, see you later.