Marvelous Hungary

Gluttonous Thursday

This week I thought that I will do something new on my blog. I gave you five recipes in the past month still my blog is alive, but now I would like to provide my personal experience for you. If somebody has a connection with Hungary, and especially with the Hungarian kitchen, then it is a must to mention Torkos Csütörtök (Gluttonous Thursday). This event is pretty popular here, because most of Hungary's restaurants and pubs offer their drinks and food for 50% of the original price. It is worth to look for a great place to eat on this day, which was on the 10th March this year. However, you need to book a place in the chosen restaurant months before the event. It is possible that you are lucky and find a good place two days before Torkos Csütörtök, but don't be naive and expect that if you go to a restaurant then you will have a perfect seat. These restaurants are always full, and sometimes you have to wait for long hours to actually sit down and get your food, but this depends on the place you go. And how do you know if your favorite restaurant is among those, which take part in this event? It is easy, because you only need to click on the event's site, and search for those restaurants, which are close to you: http://www.torkoscsutortok.hu/

Gekko Pub

Unfortunately, I made a mistake and I did not book a place in a restaurant months ago, so I could not attend this event on Thursday. However, as I'm living in Szombathely, Vas County, I came home for the weekend from Budapest to see my parents. There are many good restaurants in Szombathely, which are not expensive, but there is one place which is special for my heart because of several reasons. This place is called Gekko Pub. As its name shows, it is a pub style restaurant. So, my boyfriend Dani and I chose this place to visit as we usually do if we intend to eat out. Why do I love this place is, because of its name: Gekko (Gecko). When I first visited this place, I thought that some crazy guy gave this name to his pub, because he didn't find a better name. However, it turned out that the boss is actually fond of geckos: you can see little gecko figures on the wall, and there are many living geckos in terrariums, too. It's funny to eat your dinner while a little monster is watching you behind your shoulder. It is worth to mention that this pub is a great place if someone is searching for a romantic place for a date...really! The place is full of warm colors (brown and red), and also the waiter is coming to light the candle on your table to provide the best dating atmosphere for couples. 

This time, I chose a very simple dish from the menu. It was chicken breast with tomato and melted cheese on the top. The whole dish was prepared in a furnace, which gave a very special taste to my chicken. I loved it. It was so simple, but even the simplest dishes can provide a great experience. After all, we are in Hungary and if you put a little pepper or tomato in your food, the result will be priceless. Dani had pasta with broccoli, grilled chicken, and blue cheese on the top. As the only vegetable that I don't eat is broccoli, I only tasted the part where it was chicken and cheese. The taste was still marvelous. The food was good, the company was good, the waitress was super kind, and I could even watch the Manchester United-Arsenal soccer game on a widesreen TV, which added to the atmosphere, because I prefer Man. Utd., while Dani's favorite team is Arsenal. So, everything was in the right place to have a great Saturday afternoon. And how much did we pay at the end? Including the tip for our waitress, we paid about HUF 3800, which is not much if we consider the fact that we actually couldn't stand up after dinner for a while, because we were full. 

I forgot my camera at home, so I can't show you the dishes we tasted, but I have a picture from this summer. My uncle from the U.S. was here to visit us, and we went to Gekko. I chose a dish, which was for two persons, so Dani happily shared it with me. Look at this awesome Hungarian specialty on the right side. If you don't want to eat at Gekko, you still can taste something unique here. This is the place, where a person who lives in Szombathely stops for a hot chocolate at a cold, winter night. Gekko offers around 20-25 types of hot chocolate. You can taste the simple strawberry hot chocolate, or a more special one: the hot chocolate with spearmint and dark chocolate in it. Whatever is the reason why you are in Szombathely, the place where you need to go to get something unique without going bust is Gekko Pub! Even if their site is not trasnlated to English yet, check their site to get the feeling I mentioned: http://www.gekkopub.hu/start3.html