Though I must have passed Archívum a thousand times on the way to Kálvin tér, there was never a good enough reason to go in: nearby APA Cuka has a more tempting menu for food, and Prága Café, two storefronts away, is one of the best cafés in town for coffee and atmosphere. But the name of the place inspired the literary appetite in me to eventually descend into the cellar space of Archívum a few months back, where I was instantly confronted with one more reason not to visit: a large flat screen television mounted on the wall.

The only kind of a restaurant that should have a big TV in it is one with a dozen screens all showing sports - i.e. a sports bar - but lately they seem to be sprouting from restaurant walls like water stains from bad plumbing. Don't even get me started. Anyway, the menu at Archívum, like its name, has literary pretensions, opening with a József Attila poem and closing with special "Archívum Dishes," named after famous turn of the century artists and writers, including a Petőfi Steak (Ft 1,990/€7.50), and traditional Jókai Bableves (bean soup with smoked ham, Ft 850).

Most of the menu, however, is Mediterranean themed, with various pastas and salads, though they do also serve bagel sandwiches in the mornings. Immediately catching my eye was African catfish baked in foil with a butter ginger sauce (above) for Ft 1,990. Baking in parchment, or in this case foil, is one of the healthiest methods to cook fish, and the sealing resurrects juices from even frozen fish as, presumably, a piece of catfish imported from Africa is. Adorned by mushroom, carrots, red onion and seasonings, it was a winning dish. The salty, barely gingery sauce that came alongside was better left there, though it made good dipping for the hot, crispy potato fritters.

If Archívum already seems schizophrenic, a glance at the tea list left me feeling like I had wandered into a Haitian witch doctor's office. The hársfa (lime-blossom) tea was described as a "cough mixture, curative for blood-stream and nervous system," and the csipke-bogyó hibiszkusz (rose/hibiscus hip) as a "curative for pyrexia and flagrancy, general corroborant." Meanwhile, the "Active Man" tea is made with "pink and locust" while the "Energetic Woman" tea contains lion's mouth root. All teas are Ft 490. The translations: priceless.