A few years back there used to be a great little Asian joint down on the little disjointed stretch of Zichy Jenő utca where it terminates at the körút. What made it great was that it served both the büfé-style budget Chinese stuff favored by Budapest office drones, as well as a small selection of favorably-priced Korean dishes. While that place has since fallen off the map (it went 100% büfé) the same Kínai-Koreai experiment is being reenacted a few hundred meters up the same street.
The generically-named Kínai-Koreai Étterem (Chinese-Korean Restaurant) sits in a small storefront in a newish garage building spanning Zichy Jenő and Ó utcas. Despite its name and location (and a prominent büfé filled with pretty generic-looking Chinese grub) it’s a great place to drop in for some bibimbap (rice cooked in a ceramic pot), noodles and other dishes, all naturally served with the classic array of panchan (little plates filled with kimchi and Lord knows what else). At night it actually is quite charming, and is far more central – at least for central Pest-dwellers – than the capital’s best-known Korean spots, HanKukGuan and Seoul House. Meanwhile, being only a couple of blocks from the Korean Development Bank on Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út, our guess is that this time the experiment will be successful.
