Good Food

In my opinion if one wants to eat good in New York they must go to other than American cuisine. I have been living here in the states for over fifty years but still in love with Hungarian food. Unfortunately there are no Hungarian restaurants wirth mentioning so I have to be satisfied with restaurants of neghboring countries. Like Slovakia or Austria.

Monday I was meeting two of my dearest and oldest (for duration not age!) friends and their lovely wives. Since we are Hungarians we wanted to eat something good. Lacking Hungarian eateries we chose a German restaurant. This was getting as close as possible to our own kind of food. Well, in short we all ate very well to say the least.

I am sorry to admit but after living here in the US for over fifty years I still could not fall in love with American cooking. I'm not saying that I don't desire a good steak once in a while or a good cheeseburger. But I would very happily exchange them for a good goulash soup or for a good chicken paprikash. I'm not even listing the other good Hungarian foods because it would just make me hungry and fat just by thinking about them.

Back to restaurants. Years ago there were several Hungarian restaurants in Manhattan. One could pick where to eat. The last good one closed up about ten years ago and a little half ass eatery opened up. Today even that place is not serving food anymore only pastries. It is a crying shame that in a big city like New York where one can find a particular restaurant for any nationality, from Mongolian to Lebanese there is no Hungarian restaurant.

The bottom line is if one wants to eat good Hungarian food he must go to Hungary. And that is not an easy process anymore. Years ago there were direct flights between New York and Budapest but now there are none. The Hungarian airline Malev went bankrupt and ceased to exist and all other airlines stopped direct service between North America and Hungary. So, by the time one gets there he is so tired from the long travel he loses the urge for the food!

But one of these days I'll just bite the bullet and go there and eat my soulfood.