What to eat in Budapest
Hungarian cooking built on paprika: goulash as a soup, paprikás, lecsó, lángos at the market, stuffed cabbage, Somlói sponge and Tokaji wine.

[ ] Try gulyásleves
    A beef soup with potato, carrot and paprika, with small pinched csipetke dumplings. A soup rather than a thick stew: this is what goulash actually means in Hungary.
[ ] Order pörkölt
    A thick meat stew with a great deal of onion and paprika and almost no liquid. Served with nokedli, small dumplings scraped into boiling water straight off a board.
[ ] Try chicken paprikás
    Chicken braised in paprika and finished with sour cream, which turns the sauce orange and velvety. It comes with nokedli dumplings, which exist for this sauce.
[ ] Try halászlé
    A fiery red fisherman's soup of carp and catfish with a great deal of paprika, cooked in a cauldron. Genuinely hot, unlike most Hungarian dishes.
[ ] Eat lángos
    A plate-sized fried yeast dough disc rubbed with garlic and buried under sour cream and grated cheese. Market and bathhouse food, eaten hot and by hand.
[ ] Try töltött káposzta
    Cabbage rolls made with sauerkraut leaves, filled with minced meat and rice, stewed with smoked pork and paprika and served with sour cream. Winter and Christmas food.
[ ] Try lecsó
    Sweet peppers and tomatoes stewed with onion and paprika, often with sausage or egg. A summer dish that Hungarians make in bucket quantities during pepper season.
[ ] Try hortobágyi palacsinta
    Thin pancakes rolled around a pörkölt meat filling and covered in a paprika and sour cream sauce. A savoury pancake as a starter is a Hungarian idea, and it works.
[ ] Buy sausage and paprika at the market
    Smoked sausage from Gyula and Csaba, paprika-rubbed pork fat and tins of ground paprika: the reason to visit the Great Market Hall. Tasting before buying is normal.
[ ] Have lunch in a kifőzde
    A canteen with a daily menu: soup, a main and sometimes dessert at a fixed and very low price. They open only at lunch and close by three.
[ ] Eat somlói galuska
    Three kinds of sponge soaked in rum syrup with walnuts, custard, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. A constructed dessert rather than a cake.
[ ] Try Dobos torta
    Five sponge layers with chocolate buttercream under a sheet of hard caramel on top. Invented in the nineteenth century specifically to keep without refrigeration.
[ ] Try kürtőskalács
    A hollow tube of yeast dough wound on a spit and baked over coals in caramel with nuts or cinnamon. Transylvanian baking that became urban street food.
[ ] Drink a fröccs
    White wine with sparkling water in varying proportions, each with its own name. The summer drink taken on terraces here instead of beer.
[ ] Try Tokaji aszú
    A sweet wine made from botrytised grapes: thick, with apricot and honey. Sweetness is measured in puttonyos, and the higher the number the sweeter and denser it is.
[ ] Try pálinka
    A fruit spirit made from plums, apricots, pears or cherries, with no added sugar and usually no wood ageing. Drunk from small glasses before a meal rather than knocked back after.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-budapest