SF in Budapest - Bars & Clubs

Lánchíd Söröző

nospam@example.com (SF) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:50:00 -0700

Lánchíd Söröző is one of my favorite bars in Budapest. It's a great little spot on the Buda side just off the Széchenyi lánchíd (Chain Bridge). A little red and green neon sign marks the spot; even if you are roaring by in your car trying to make the bridge at rush hour you have to file it in your memory for later, this tiny bar at the foot of Buda Castle Hill.

Run by a jovial fellow named Nágy Robert, the Lánchíd Söröző is lined with black & white photos, instruments, old movie posters and various knick knacks. It has a late-50s or -60s feel to it, like a post-rebellion place to hit after seeing Koncz Zsuzsa and Metró at a student's club.

They have a 3-tap draw behind a bar that looks like a bar you would see in a married guy's "dude lair" basement - just enough room to stand behind, the intimate setting encouraging conversation with the barkeep. No sitting at the bar, though; you have to choose from about 5 booths and a half-dozen tables. Absolutely no place to stand so if you get there at a busy hour you're out of luck.

But "busy" isn't a condition you seek out at the Lánchíd Söröző. It's a place to have a quiet one after work or maybe stake out a table in mid-afternoon then hold court all night with friends who drift in and out until closing.

I love to get there by walking across the Chain Bridge and back again; grooving to the floodlights on the lions' heads above the pedestrian walkway.

Doors Kocsma

nospam@example.com (SF) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:32:00 -0800

The Doors Kocsma is a little hole-in-the-wall basement pub-thing located up in the VII district at Damjanich near Dózsa György út. It is some kind of themed tribute to the band of the same name, which intrigued me. I peered inside from the sidewalk, then slid downstairs and occupied one of the empty tables.

The Doors Kocsma has the usual basement kocsma amenities such as bárpult, koktél, pénznyerő autómaták, csocsó, darts... and TV, should you tire of these other amusements. I did not spend too much time in this place, as regular readers of this blog can imagine given my feelings about TV in restaurants and bars.

Actually, I just ducked my head in and had a quick Soproni. Sipped for a bit and spaced out on the Jim Morrison images that decorate this place. The decor attempts to recreate one of the many subterranean haunts of the Lizard King; though the Doors Kocsma's cold tile floors and flexi-tube Christmas lights suggest the ambiance of a Cincinatti disco circa 1983 than the Whisky a Go Go circa 1966. As I sat in the joint the red and purple mood lighting wrapped around me like the cold, skinny fingers of a coke dealer - one who is trying to conduct business while simultaneously attempting to convince me with speedy certitude that he is something that he isn't.

Draining the Soproni, I turned my head for one last look at the place before trotting up the stairs to the street. Just as I came off my chair, I could have sworn heard Danny Sugerman's voice in my head saying Ladies and Gentlemen - The Doors! just before a Celine Dion song came over the house system.

More Szimpla Kert

nospam@example.com (SF) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:04:00 -0800

Szimpla Kert: Crazy like a Fox

Get ready for a smoky haze of Pall Malls, Golden Gates and Mustangs when you enter the Szimpla sanctum

The graffiti in the Red Room serves as guest book and fresco in permanent evolution

Socialist-era Orion TV repurposed with the omnipresent Szimpla branding

DJ hides in his tropical fortress surveying the action like Robert Vesco in his Caribbean villa

Pedal car placed in a niche on the second floor for no apparent reason.

Rob's smile is his stamp of approval. Szia!

Checking in With Szimpla Kert

nospam@example.com (SF) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:16:00 -0800

First time to Szimpla since I've been back, no urgent reason to go there really as I've been there several times in the last few years. Despite the fact that it's a large presence among clubhoppers in town, a must-visit, it's not much of an exotic treat any more because I know if I go I'll only find a roomful of people speaking English in the various accents of the British Empire. Some affluent Germans and French and Swedish college students too. But!! Szimpla Kert is not bad by any means, it may be a mecca for young international tourists but I can't say it is anything but a good place to go with a group to have a few drinks.

For the uninitiated, I will describe this world-famous bar as best I can. It is two apartment building shells stitched together with what one would assume the most rudimentary construction materials and the resulting space made into a cavernous bar / café / beer garden / snack bar / gift shop / movie house / art gallery / DJ venue. The interior shows the structure of the old apartment house, but only the basic concrete frame. For seating, some old patio furniture or Ikea cheapie chairs will do. For art, an old plastic-framed thrift store painting of Jesus, or whatever is scrawled by customers toting fat markers or other writing implements that can handle a dirty concrete surface. In other rooms, art projects abound and are mounted on the walls. Outside in the old apartment courtyard is a massive beergarden, protected from the elements by a wall of glass doors for use year-round.

Amazed at how this place keeps morphing - there are fully THREE more bars now than the last time I was here 18 months ago. Besides the main bar on the lower level, there is an outside bar for the beergarden area, another inside café-style bar for the indoor area off the beergarden, and up a spiral staircase a third bar for the upstairs "lounge". On this night there were also movie loops being projected on the inside near the large bar (a pastiche of Felix the Cat cartoons, abstract experimental clips and silent films spliced together into a 15 minute loop) and outside in the open courtyard (an American Motors promotional film from 1966 showcasing their 1967 lineup of new cars) (not sure how they got that here in Hungary). A DJ spun tracks of all varieties, showing good humour in slotting a couple of dixieland tracks in-between the hip-hop and Euro rock when you least expected them.

Around every corner are strange cultural artifacts like toys and appliances and god knows what-all I'll find next time. Ssimpla - it seems the place fills up no matter how big they expand the square footage. Tables of 3s and 4s smoking and chatting about school, relationships, politics, art, survival. Another round of beers and palinkas and Jaegers and what's the DJ up to now?

In what were the dignified old parlors and bedrooms of the 19th century bourgeoise now, possibly, play the grandchildren of their grandchildren who fled the country during one of the world wars, or in the brief time that the borders were open during the '56 rebellion against the Soviets. Can you feel the ghosts? They'll be back. And so will we!

Drink Soproni. Or... not.

nospam@example.com (SF) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:52:00 -0800

Soproni Beer. That loveable lager.

I've been drinking it ever since I got here only because I thought it was a Hungarian product. A gesture of economic solidarity with my Hungarian baratók. But now I find it's owned by Heineken, who are probably responsible for making it the forgettable draw it is today. You can't win.

Soproni - Hungary's second most popular beer, lagging behind Dreher. But the Soproni folks don't seem to mind. Visit the website and see the "beer friends" (sörbaratok) at play in he corporate headquarters.

Sad, this corporate beer juggernaut sweeping through Europe today. I hear that in the Czech Republic a lot of fine microbreweries are going bust every year. Meanwhile stuff like Soproni gets more and more popular thanks to multinational ownership. The directors of the parent corporation have everything to gain in smoothing over the rough edges and quirky taste notes that can make a brew a tasty quaff. Homogeneity lends itself to more streamlined marketing which translates to big payouts for the boys at the top if they can move a few hundred more truckloads per annum.

Thursday Night and Friday Morning

nospam@example.com (SF) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:26:00 -0800

Just after midnight we buy gyros at one of the Turkish dives on Térez Körut before wandering on. Snow is coming, the air is cold.

The boys need money so we stagger into an Erste branch to get some. When the weather gets like this people tend to withdraw more money. That's because after regular business hours many Budapest ATMs are located inside a foyer accessible only by a card swipe, and these foyer are toasty warm.

We make our way to 6tus for a quick drink or two. To the amusement of the ever-present proprietors Gábor and Marianne, we arrive upside-down. They take this in stride; they've seen it all from their cozy perch behind the bar at this best of B-town expat hangouts.

If it's 6tus, it has to be Unicum. The shot glasses here are kept in a freezer that I think was a cast-off from Lawrence Livermore Labs. They come out cold enough to freeze liquid nitrogen, your fingers sticking to the glass. The only way to do it. I toss back one and immediately push the glass back at Marianne with a look in my eye that only eight Staropramen + one Unicum can create. She serves up another Unicum with the most deapan of expressions. Marianne never breaks character.

We sit beside 6tus regular Péter is at the bar. As always he is thoughtful, intelligent and very zen. I think if the Russians came back with a division of tanks to lay siege to the city again, Péter would still be sitting at the bar like Buddah with a pint glass in front of him offering up sage observations on linguistics or eclectic music as the apartment blocks crumbled around him.

Passing strangers invite us to a party. I ask where it is but they don't know. I imagine an endless walk in circles through the dimly-lit streets of the 8th district looking for a sketchy address in sub-freezing temperatures, and graciously decline. I mean if we're going to drunkenly wander in sub-freezing temperatures, I want to be in charge!

We leave 6tus and head out into the void without a plan. Szimpla is always an option. But though I love Szimpla, this night calls for something different, something new.

We march up Király to have another gyros and think about it. Igen, extra onions, extra tomato, extra sauce, keep that funky red stuff and purple cabbage out of it, that's perfect, köszönöm szépen and here's a nice tip even though you didn't expect one. Together we can build a stronger Hungarian economy. Sziasztok!

We munch while wandering some more. My internal compass doesn't let me down. Mumus - the perfect place! Still open, still hopping with a small crowd and a DJ going at it with a will.

Mumus is most popular in summer where you can sit in the kert (garden) and have a cool lager. But inside is great too, with custom wall art and junk shop furnishings that so many of the best Budapest night spots have that make bargoing such a mystical experience here. So Mumus is good to put on your list of essential bars for the winter months too.

The music is cooking as we belly up to the lumber. Staropramen, kérek! Igen, fekete! Harom, legyen szives! Ah de jó! Jó éstet kivanok, ki vagy, kutya?

Rob and I leave Dave behind and dance with a small circle by the DJ booth. Yes dancing is possible in Georgia boots but always a bit absurd. The key is to not give a damn. One guy who once laughed at me for dancing so equipped is today selling car insurance in Shithole, Wyoming. That's where you end up when you care too much about what other people think about what you do.

After a few more Staropramen we close out the place and go to have more gyros. Someday I will find a late night eatery in this town that serves food from someplace outside the Byzantine Empire. But for a night out with the lads 3 gyros is just fine.

Bar Hopping with Dave & Rob

nospam@example.com (SF) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:00:00 -0800

Around noon Dave called and said that they had landed at Ferihegy, were getting a bus into town and would call when at ground zero. Exactly where ground zero was not specified. When I didn't hear from them after another hour I got concerned.

Then Rob rang me and said they were in fact already reclining in comfort at some downtown restaurant. I tried to pinpoint their location.

S: Hey where are you guys?
R: We're at this place called... what the... I dunno, something called A-R-A-N-Y-B-A-R-A-N-Y.
S: Hmm, don't know it. What corner are you on? Can you go outside and check?
R: Yah, just a sec... it's um... shit. Yah there it is. HAR-MINK-AWED EWT-KA.

I rifled through my memory trying to remember what the Hungarian alphabet looked like to me before I knew how to pronounce it, and tried to reconstruct Rob's street name accordingly. Couldn't do it.

S: Are there any landmarks around you?
R: Well we're on a kind of walking street.
S: Ah, OK. Liszt Ferenc Ter? Do you see a statue of Franz Liszt anywhere?
R: Well, you know. Budapest n' all. Statues everywhere, really.
S: My hunch tells me it's Liszt Ferenc Ter. Hang on and I'll come and have a look around.

They weren't on Liszt Ferenc Tér, or anywhere near it. After much hoofing I found them at a place neatly tucked away off the Vaci Utca called Arany Bárány (The Golden Sheep). The Golden bloody Sheep. You can take the lad out of Wales, etc.

After a warm round of greeting, I sat down with them and asked how they happened upon the place. Seems it was the first restaurant they found near the airport shuttle bus stop, which is near Vaci Utca, a notoriously overpriced pedestrian arcade. I saw the empty pint glasses and asked them if they wanted to have another round. Before they had a chance to answer I fixed them with a merry Cheshire Cat grin and remarked though clenched teeth: "Kinda touristy here, doncha think?"

"Erm, well, yah, definitely. Where to then?"

As they had bags we figured to drop them at the flat before trotting off to adventure. The flat they rented in district VI was a real honey - a completely renovated flat with decent kitchen, spacious main area and three bedrooms for a mere 70 Euro/night low season. And flat rate, no extra charge per person. Definitely the way to go for groups.

Leaving the flat in search of food, we stumbled upon the Café Colombo. Yes, THAT Colombo. Apparently the owners of this little basement bar-restaurant are obsessed with the 70s TV series and have made their place a shrine to Peter Falk's police detective character. There are large images of Peter Falk covering the place inside and out to make sure you pay what they feel is proper tribute.

The cafe is a cozy little spot with a few tables and tiny bar. We had Babgyulás with dark Dreher, which was quite good. The service was not so good, but the Babgyulás was pretty tasty so we're thinking that every time someone orders a bowl the waiters have to go out into the woods and make it from scratch in an iron puszta pot over an open fire.

After another round of Dreher Bak we paid the tab and made our way up the narrow spiral staircase, barely squeezing by Peter Falk as he was coming down to check on his royalties. He's looking great, by the way.

Off to Pot Kulcs, to open up the joint and continue to embrace the dark (beer).

Pot Kulcs is nice early in the evening, before 8 p.m. when there are actually things called chairs and tables available for use. The only drawback about Pot Kulcs is that it can be cold in the winter. With the temperature falling in the back room we drank with coats and scarves on, looking like a trio of Polish steelworkers having a few at the Gdansk union hall.

After a few more Staropramen we shed the coats and found ourselves locked in mortal combat in foosball with two young Hungarian lads. Actually one Hungarian lad and a German lad who is a Hungarian police officer - or so we assumed from the looks of the badge he was flashing around every 5 minutes. A German guy in a Hungarian police force who speaks no Hungarian? We thought this a mite funny.

But not nearly as funny as my performance on the foosball table, my technique was so fey and anemic that the wait staff at Pot Kulcs are laughing about it still. My real contribution to the foosball tournament was in arranging teams that resembled the national makeup of World Cup Finals past. Like: The German cop and Rob against me and the Hungarian kid in a re-enactment of the 1954 West Germany-Hungary classic. And just like in '54, it ended in the Hungarian kid pounding his fist in despair á la Puskás as the German team held on for a one-point victory.

I went back to the bar for another round to find an interesting band playing in the main room. Their name was Swing Manouche, a 6-piece combo fronted by 4 guitarists playing some rather jaunty music that had the room echoing with jumping sounds that conjured up the ghost of Django Reinhardt.

When I returned to our table 3 new people had joined the party and somehow I got into a conversation with the young lads, drunken Hungarian in my left ear, stoned German in my right and trying to translate both at once. A bemused Rob looked on while rolling another cigarette with Drum, which he obtained from a kind soul after a few puffs of the crap tobacco he picked up at the CBA around the corner.

With that the clock struck 12. Which means it's now Friday, and time to go to the next post...

Reggae Queen Night @ Corvintetö

nospam@example.com (SF) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:22:27 -0800

Big super reggae blast this night at Corvintetö, everybody's favorite socialist-era shopping center-turned-pick-up joint.

The show was A Reggae Kiralynöje Magyarországon. The line-up was one of those byzantine stacks of underground DJ heroes that you have to be a full-time promoter to be familiar with:

Dawn Penn (Jamaika)
Kings Hi-Fi (UK)
Captain Midnite (Jafa Mafia)
Sun (Memo Rec.)
utána Deck Attack (Infragandhi & Cyborg Templar)

Corvintetö has a small dark lounge area in the entryway corridor with its own small bar, a main bar area with booth seating and a small stage, and an upstairs outdoor beer garden area, now closed for the season. The main bar is decorated in funky velveteen-ish wall coverings and melty plastic mini-chandeliers.

The booze selection ranges from average to pretty good. Some good Polish vodka, Some different American bourbon. If whiskey drinkers find anything other than Jack Daniels here in B-town it's a miracle on ice.

When it comes to varieties of beer on tap, the bars of Budapest have some catching up to do with the rest of the civilized world. The usual selections here: Dreher, Gösser and Soproni.

But I was pleased to find Soproni Fekete Demon on tap here. I thought this might be a glimmer of hope for us stout and ale drinkers in town, but unfortunately this breed of Soproni isn't much more tasty than their lager. Ah but progress requires patience.

And drinking Soproni Demon gave me the chance to toast this week's Barack Obama victory with my friends in this way:
"Szeretem én sört mint szeretem én preszidentek - FEKETE!"

The music was damn good. Some remixes of old Trojan classics and lots of good new stuff. Not the sleepy complacent Deadhead variety, but a lot of urban grooves that got rumps out on the floor. As to which DJ megastar was spinning what, that is known only to God and the video crew.

OK, so about the social atmosphere. Yes, among other things the Corvintetö is a pick-up joint. If you doubt this, check the website and promo cards for this place which are not subtle. They underscore the meat market aspect of the Corvintetö experience by listing their attractions over a very lifelike image of a raw sirloin steak.

This is truth in advertising. Beginning at 9 the patrons filtered in and cast long lingering looks at each other as they queued up to order a round of the bar's many binge drinking cocktail offerings. By 10 p.m. the music was cranked up to levels where only Neanderthal grunts and primitive hand signs could pass for communication. And the games began in earnest.

Our group was not completely aloof from this activity. A female friend of ours, single and growing tired of it, continually scanned the crowd for likely male prospects. Unfortunately her taste doesn't run towards the dreadlocked Sziget Fesztival type, so this evening found her pickings pretty slim. But she's an upbeat, positive thinker, so in an attempt to broaden her horizons she switched from white wine to Bacardi Breezers.

I sighed and cast a dubious eye. "If you have to start pounding those things at Corvintetö on a Friday night to find a guy," I said, "you might as well just climb on the table, hike up your skirt and point at it".

By 1 a.m. Dawn Penn, the "undisputed Reggae-Queen of Jamaica", had still not appeared so we gave up on her and followed many others to the taxi-go-round.

One more thing - I'm happy to note that Pinball is still alive at Corvintetö. Creature From The Black Lagoon and the incomparable Funhouse are found adjacent to the cloakroom and await all true fans of the chromium orb. I amazed all in attendance by serving up ace after ace on Funhouse, leaving the boys of the backroom in shock and awe of the American left-hand technique, and five sweet credits to fight over.

Wing Ding @ 6tus with the Usual Suspects

nospam@example.com (SF) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:40:00 -0700

Big whoop-de-do at 6tus with all the regulars Wednesday night was captured by a photog from National Geographic with a pre-war Leica. I found these pix on his website and stole them for your viewing pleasure.

Unicum @ 6tus

nospam@example.com (SF) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:58:00 -0700

Spent a day of writing and wrestling with this blog, pounding it into shape. Then after a man's day of work sitting at my favorite cafe, Sirály, and working on this, I floated out around half-past six and made a sharp left down NagyDiófa utca towards my favorite bar, 6tus. Ordered a Unicum and pulled up at one of the cute Singer sewing machine tables to relax for a bit and have 4dl of Hungary's finest.

6tus is the best place in town for a Unicum. There they keep the little glasses arctic-cold, which is the best vessel for this Hungarian fekete arany.

Unicum is the most confounding beverage. As a drink, is a perfect mirror of Hungarian people and their culture. It is, by turns: dark, murky, strangely bittersweet, edgy, doesn't mix with anything, hard to describe, and unlike anything else in Europe.

In fact, when I think of these bizarre complications of flavors and how it assaults your palate, I often wonder why the hell I ever drink the stuff.

But every time I find myself in a kocsma and I see that little round black bottle (the perfect packaging - it's definitely the 8-ball of the alcoholic pool table), I instantly order another one. And goddamn if I don't order up a second as soon as the last of the first hits my belly, happily licking the glass clean in front of the waiter as he waits to collect it. Hello again, Budapest!

Marxim

nospam@example.com (SF) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:00:00 -0700

Marxim is a pub on the Buda side that celebrates the old days of socialist rule in Hungary. A tiny place that has a small bar and crusty tables and dirty floors. It's as lovable as an old sweatshirt.

Lots of places like this have sprung up in Budapest since the wall came down in '89, and they are all pretty cool. Despite the proliferation of them, they are still rarities and much appreciated.

One thing that American urban sophisticates have to appreciate is that it takes A LOT to get a Hungarian to feel ironic about ANYTHING. The folks behind Marxim aren't the first people here to open up a hole in the wall, throw some rickety old furniture inside, paint grafitti and retro commie slogans on all the surfaces and call it a club/pub/restaurant... but it's refreshing when compared to the sterile bars and eateries that spring up in Pest weekly.

To most of the night owls in this city, nothing quite makes a night out on the town like ordering drinks from a backlit bar shelf full of flavored vodkas, overpaying for them, toting them back to a futuristic Scandinavian piece of furniture sitting 10 centimeters high and sucking them down through your knees as you scream to your date over 135db of bad Croatian techno.

So when I see a place like this here - an establishment that would seem familiar if not downright ordinary if found in a hipster neighborhood in a large American city - I instantly have a high regard for the proprietor.

Marxim has a menu of drinks, pizzas, the usual suspects on tap and a mural of V. I. Lenin in his Calvin Kleins. Gets wild here on weekends, or whenever there's a big mob at a nearby hostel on a Tuesday night looking to get out of the common area and away from that creepy looking Swedish guy who keeps trying to tag on.

I took a couple of chicks there the other night, with predictable results...

A little Dreher Bock ...

... a little grooving to Yonderboi on the house sound system ...

... a little emboldened by the drink and the music, one appears as a witness in an impromptu show trial and accuses the other of subversive activities against the party ...

... but the party cannot be stopped!