As we have noted before, most of the international-style restaurants you see opening up in the higher-rent sections of Budapest these days tend to be what might be called "Tom-George clones," owing to their at least superficial resemblance to the sleek and very successful restaurant of that name in District V. The Boston Bár Restaurant, which recently opened up just a few blocks south of TG itself, nicely fits the mold, even though its name would suggest its inspiration comes from a city several thousand kilometers to the west. The same might be said about its prices.

The restaurant sits in the premises of the former Mézes Macko ("Honey Bear"), a short-lived and apparently very unsuccessful experiment in high-end "retro cafeteria" dining. While the smallish dining area is more Budapest than Beantown - how many Chichi new places in town sport that same chandelier? - the long bar does seem pretty American.

As for the menu, it it has the unusual distinction of being even briefer than we like, and we like menus that are very compact. (The biggest impediment to building a high-quality kitchen in Hungary always seems to be a menu that throws in the kitchen sink.) As for what's on it, if you eat out a lot in Budapest, you can probably guess. If not, it's sort of standard "international" fare of the sort you'd see in any place with decor like the above.

The two dishes we tried were a baby spinach salad with pears, warm goat cheese and caramelized walnuts (Ft 2,790) and a piece of salmon garnished with Vietnamese "summer" rolls (Ft 3,890). Both were perfectly fine, though the rolls, perhaps on purpose, were not rolled tight enough to pick up an eat, like you usually do with goi cuon. Our waiter was friendly and engaging, and the drinks we ordered (including a Bellini, Ft 1,200, and a nicely tart green apple-spiked lemonade, Ft 790) were also nice, if not on the table as quick as we would have liked.

We normally convert forint prices like those above into euros for the benefit of our foreign readers. But since the restaurant is called "Boston," we'll use dollars instead. A quick look at the Internet for today's exchange revealed that our better-than-so-so-but-not-much salad cost $15 on the nose, and our fish main a few pennies less than $21.

Unfortunately, another look at the Internet revealed that this is probably 20% more than what you'd pay for a similar dining experience in Boston, where the average restaurant patron probably makes 200% more than their Budapest equivalent. Which is why the Boston version of "Boston" would probably have 400% more patrons. (The Budapest Boston was dead empty during most of our Saturday lunch.) Which in turn would make the whole experience at least 100% more enjoyable.

So all in all, not a terrible choice, but also not very compelling - especially if you are visiting Budapest from Boston.