Sziget Csarda – not quite goulash

Today, I’m pleased to feature a guest post by none other than Daddy Swindian, who is an avid traveller and foodie. He previously shared his experience of spicy Sichuan hotpot (read more about that here), and this time, it was a recent trip to Hungary that inspired him to write the below post. 

Yours truly is on the road often enough, and this trip somehow took the cake, or was it the fish…?

A four AM wake up call took me last week to a town called Tiszaújváros (and if you can say it correctly, I will buy you a drink!). The trip involved two flights and a 175 km car ride through the lovely Hungarian countryside with manic driving keeping me awake.

After a short meeting, our host invited us to lunch by the river Tisza on which this town is located and which is well known for being the main Hungarian river (965 km long) as well as for the fish it serves up.

We drove to the restaurant Sziget Csarda, which is a very picturesque location, but what blew our mind away was the decor inside. Neatly laid out tables with colourful place settings (yes, there was paprika everywhere) and a bar that was so crowded with things hanging from the ceiling (a LOT of paprika!) that a picture cannot really do it justice. Real fish heads were mounted on the wall, and we were assured that all that fish was caught in the river and served at the restaurant.

We started with a mouth watering fish soup based on paprika broth (why change a winning combination?), which was followed by fish in a cream sauce (light on paprika) and Hungarian pasta which was a cross between Italian pasta and Swiss Spaetzli.

Dessert was the same bread that had been soaked in something and then sprinkled with powdered sugar and some kind of black seeds. Mmh – delicious!

And all that for 10 Euros per person …

I don’t know if any of you will find your way there ever, but four flights in a day plus 350 km of driving (making for an 18 hour day) was almost worth it for this simple meal.

Daddy Swindian also has his own blog, where he writes about various musings on life – you can find it here!