Kocsis Irma: A tour of our Locals. (A very quick one) - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

complicated ground-plan, a bat carved in wood, now stolen, a bar counter, and partitioned-off boxes. It is by far the best place in the neighbourhood. The entrance is conspicuous, a man-sized barrel built into the wall, visible from Rákóczi út.

Mező Imre úti Pince Büfé Cellar Snack-Bar, Mező Imre út

Vili. Fiumei út 8

End-of-the-world atmosphere. The cellar is flanked on the one side by the police barracks of Mosonyi utca (armoured cars, police horse dung, depressing brick- masoned fences, camera mirrors), on the other by the cemetery and a glazier (with a picture of Gagarin cut out from Women’s Magazine between the shaving-mirrors in the window-display). On one corner of the block that houses the cellar, one of the tenants has reinforced his balcony with thirty-centimetre steel rivets and steel-plate. On the other corner, in the Tulipán Eszpresszó, the window-display once announced Dr. Harmath Arisztid Sándor, the pianist with the most poetic name in the city, in letters cut out of adhesive tape. 1 recently came across the name in Cash flow magazine, the gentleman in question being occupied in drawing up genealogical trees. Could he be identical with the old pianist of the Tulipán?

Halmaji Borozó Halmaji Wine-Tavern

IX. Pipa utca 6

A tavern stained dark with time beside the Nagyvásárcsarnok (Great Market Hall) in Pipa utca. It has individuality, can be classed neither as a wine-cellar nor as a run-down snack-bar. It does not try to swank. It is like a self-respecting widower who wears a waistcoat, tie and dressing gown even when alone reading at home, sitting in the subdued light of his standard lamp.

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