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

ping with onions, leaving my soup and greens on the table. The pensioners keep my place for me, keep an eye on my soup. Many years ago an old man of seventy who wore trousers made of checked cloth used to blaze away with a squirt-gun saying “1 am investigating this case.”

This is my favourite pub in Hunyadi tér. I love going down into the Gödör almost as much as strolling among the stalls selling cabbages, flowers, onions, jam and trashy second-hand books on market day, which is Thursday.

The open-air market is actually part of the market-hall. It is one of the last, genuine, market-halls that has not yet been converted into a supermarket.

Koccintó Büfé Toüch Glasses Snack-Bar

VI. Hunyadi tér 1

In the market-hall block, on the side of the square, with beer on tap and its own regulars. Someone says: I am Lajos Tichy, d’you know who 1 was?

Hunyadi Bisztró Hunyadi Snack-Bar

VI. Eötvös utca 6/A

Crossing the market-hall, we come to a snack-bar that is also one of the last of its kind. (I always walk in hoping to see Manyika, Cincié Aladár’s widow from the Izabella sitting there.)

tCairo Bisztró Cairo Bistro

VI. Király utca 112

Now a Chinese restaurant. About five years ago a waiter used to work there who was a poet. When 1 asked him to read me some of his poems, he blushed. He was a hefty fellow and at first I was a bit worried there’d be trouble, that perhaps I’d been had. But his flushed cheeks reassured me.

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