Special Lunch Specials: World's Most Tender Chicken Versus World's Most Elegant Főzelek @ Csalogány 26
Our last check-in with Csalogány 26 (follow link for contact details and user feedback) occurred after someone had trashed the restaurant's service at lunch. Back then we found the service just fine, and the specials on offer just delicious. And on a more recent visit the service was still fine, and the lunch specials even better.
As with my post last week about a very special lunch special at the Central Kávéház, Csalogány 26's current two-course specials are available for a very friendly Ft 1,200 (with a third course costing just Ft 200 more).
Rather than a quick look at everything eaten on this visit to C26, I'll stick with the two mains I got my teeth into. Up top is a plate of csirkemell kinaikellel (chicken breast with Chinese cabbage), and below that a serving of sertéssült tökfőzelékkel (roast pork with pumpkin/squash stew.
As the headline above suggests, both were very, very good. Truly, the chicken was about the juiciest I have ever eaten in my life - and I've probably eaten an entire chicken koop of chicken breast over the years - and the cabbage and sauce and little potatoes perfect complements. Likewise, the alarmingly pink but safely-cooked slab of pork (tarja, I assume) was tops in both texture and flavor. But the real shocker was the főzelék, which, instead of being the traditional mash or purée, was a wonderfully fresh and toothsome sauté. Served with a semi-rich sauce and a couple of tiny spuds, it was, well, shocking.
Also enjoyed were a couple of great soups, highlighted by a featherweight hagymaleves (onion soup), and some interesting but maybe not perfect desserts (even if you like caramel and foam, caramel foam may not be for you). But who's counting, when you have mains like this, and after all the counting is done, six courses together barely break €10.
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The food is not bad here but the service is always lacking in my opinion.
Why has no one on this site ever done a review on restaurant Mascalzone Latino its just a few blocks away from Csalogany 26!
I think it deserves a mention as I have often enjoyed the food there and the service is not bad.
Great to finally have you back writing about food. Can you explain, what's with all this foam nonsense? How does foam make anything look better?
It's not tökfőzelék.
This is the real thing:
http://flat-cat.hu/wp-content/pb100022-1024x768.jpg
totally frightening: second time i'm agreeing with godot!!
it may be "elegant" but i would never touch that tokfozelek. it simply too "in your face" that you are eating vegetables. i prefer my veggies better disguised, so grate mine, please.
fair question from c'est moi: what's with the foam? it simply looks as though someone spit on it. yuck!
@klara, godot: well, if you really hate veggies that much - or are a total slave to tradition - I suppose it wouldn't be your thing. But trust me, it was fantastic.
@CM: I believe the foam craze just happened because they invented a very high-speed hand mixer capable of doing this... sort of a classic solution in search of a problem story. But I acutally sort of like it, within reason.
@All: The foam thing may be mortal chefs' attempt at bringing a highstreet version of Heston Blumenthal's (The Fat Duck) 'molecular gastronomy' to the great unwashed, no?
Erik,
I have no problems with vegetables, that's not the point. If I order "tökfőzelék" from the menu, that's what I expect to get. What you have on the picture might be delicious, but it sure ain't no tökfőzelék.
@godot: Well, I'd say that if I really wanted traditional, starchy-gooey tökfőzelék, I wouldn't have been happy. Anyway, they called it "tökfőzelék" right there on the menu, so your beef is with them, not me. But really, don't be such a stick in the mud, or stick in the főzelék, as it were.
I'm sure it was tender, but that chicken looks horrible, look at the cuts and the whole plate, the chef can't use that foam either. Fôzelék was "shocking"? No wander...if i sit down for a tökfőzelék, that's what I want to get. Funny, they must have a new fancy french or spanish chef, who doesn't know what tökfőzelék is. I just don't know what is about this place? The food... and the service all the time lousy. (Low summer prices are good...restaurants are struggling, the city is empty.)
Yep, I've eaten here in the past and found the food second-to-
none in local terms. Pity I live in Pest!! The whole idea of the lunch
menu which has taken off in Budapest restaurants benefits
everyone!