Our ongoing curiosity about the world of Hungarian beef was piqued again following a flying visit to high-class sandwich emporium Budapest Lite‘s Andrássy út outlet, where we happened upon the above-pictured “filet mignon” sandwich. Filet mignon? Could it really be – the perfect roast beef sandwich – in Budapest? Well, as you might expect, the answer isn’t a straightforward “yes” or “no.”
At first the answer seemed to be “yes.” Tearing open the nicely-wrapped sandwich, we found an above-average ciabatta filled with several thick slices of pink meat, a generous helping of deliciously tangy horseradish (torma) dressing, and several nubs of dark-brown, fatty meat of the sort you’d find on the outside of a proper beef roast, obviously thrown in for some extra beef taste. But then suddenly the answer seemed to be “no,” because on closer inspection the sliced meat seemed too pink to be beef, and was as smoky as a classic Hungarian pork tarja (rib) ham. And to be truthful, we ate the whole sandwich, and even a slice or two of the meat neat, without being able to say 100% whether it was actually marha (beef) or sertes (the other pink meat).
To get to the bottom of the mystery we went back to Lite where, after prolonged questioning, the staff assured us that the mystery meat was indeed beef, though hátszín (beef sirloin) as opposed to the bélszín (tenderloin) that even most local steak authorities will tell you is the bit of the cow filet mignon comes from. Not that it makes much of a difference, because over at Lite they seem to think a roast beef sandwich needs to be smoked as well as roast. In other words, if you like to pig out on your beef, this is the sandwich for you.
