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

Szent Jüpát

II. (Retek utca) Dékán utca 3

This is a rebuilt, tunnel-shaped cellar adjoining the rear of the Trombitás restaurant. It is relatively cheap and famous for the enormous helpings it serves. Twelve giant mushrooms on one plate!

Marxim

II. Kisrókus utca 23

One of the grimmest, gloomiest streets in Budapest is to be found beside the Ganz Power Supply Company (otherwise known as the Ansaldo). Pipes criss-cross the sky, coming from behind grey walls crowned with barbed wire, above rusty freight cars falling to pieces on weed-infested tracks. There are only two sources of light in all the horror. One is a blueish spotlight on the corner of the barbed wire factory fence, the other the red light of the letter A distorted into a large red star that signals the Marxim from afar. The Marxim is a post-communist joke, crowded with photographs of János Kádár, Mátyás Rákosi and Nikita Sergievitch Kruschev, dummies in uniform and grubby white plastic doves caught in wire netting. The Marximissimo pie is very good. There is beer on tap. The boss is from the south, so there are a lot of people from Zenta, Magyarkanizsa, Szabadka and Újvidék among his regulars.

Négy Szürke Four Greys

II. Margit körút 60

The most famous place in Margit körút, jampacked every night. Not so long ago it was practically the only place anywhere in Buda where you could get a hot meal at night.

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