The part of downtown Pest known as the Palace District, which covers an indeterminate tangle of streets behind the National Museum, used to be called "Chicago." While it probably got this handle due to the thuggish atmosphere that still hangs over the quarter, I suspect there may have been another reason. Even today, if you know what door to knock on, you can find a genuine speak-easy that will transport you light-years away from the over-commercialized bar/restaurant culture that has stripped so much of Budapest's gritty mystery over the last 15 years.

On a quiet street near Blaha, behind a rust-red doorway decorated with an empty picture frame, sits a humble, clubby kocsma (pub) that you have to be rung into. Once inside, you will see Keret is filled with empty picture frames (hence the name; keret means "frame" in Hungarian), "found" furniture, and a fairly comprehensive Barbie collection. The dark wood paneling, the blazing furnace makes it feel like a Slovakian ski chalet, Transylvanian grandmother's house, or sly homage to "Twin Peaks."

Started by a former waiter from the nearby Prága Café, Keret is a vastly different world from the calculated haphazardness of venues like Szimpla. There are no Dreher signs, no Unicum-logo emblazoned uniforms. Roland (pictured) imports most of his beer from Slovakia or Romania and spirits tend to be poured from the unmarked plastic bottles of home-owned pálinka stills. He also sells 40-ounce bumpers of dark beer: for just Ft 1,000 (roughly €4) it is very Euro-ghetto-fabulous. If you are hungry there is the "Weber Plate" for Ft 700 (above): carnivorous finger food that includes a few types of home-made sausage, hot apple paprika, fatty ham and crackling: a lusty combination when taken with pálinka.

Did I mention the rat? Is the place's mascot: one night I saw it attempt to nest in the cleavage of a matronly-shaped woman, though mostly it is asleep in its cage above the display of dolls. There is something playful and innocent about Keret. A conversation about Tesla between our party and an adjoining table led to a brief invasion of the kitchen where we all joined hands to let an electric current pass through us as it traveled from the espresso maker's milk foaming wand to the refrigerator.

This is the kind of place I would have expected to find fifteen years ago, when ideas and optimism sprang eternal, and the multi-national companies had yet to market the city's pubs and restaurants into a lifeless collage of logos. But that is just me: you will see what you want in Keret's empty frame. Want to know where to find it? I'm not going to tell you. But if you are prone to walking down certain quiet streets in "old Chicago" late at night, and you hear music and friendly voices coming from behind a translucent glass storefront, ring the bell. Finding it for yourself should be half the fun.