Part I: The Bonfire of the Mediocre
Worst pizza in Budapest costing more than Ft 1,000
San Marzano (Pizza Express)
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Most jinxed restaurant location within 100 meters of a major downtown tourist attraction
Hercegprimas utca 18, home of the
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Worst place for a romantic dinner in Budapest
The Pacal Vendéglő (Tripe Restaurant), District XIV
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Worst place for a drink before a romantic dinner in Budapest
The borbarát borozó, next to the toilets
in the Nyugati metro station underpass
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Most unimaginative name for a café 100 meters
from a bar called "Picasso Point"
Café Chagall
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Regrettably standard Budapest restaurant management technique (I)
If you put one or more life-size fiberglass statues outside your restaurant, you don't have to worry about the food
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Regrettably standard Budapest restaurant management technique (II)
If you give your restaurant a clever name or theme, you don't have to worry about the food
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Regrettably standard Budapest restaurant management technique (III)
If you keep the right people sweet,
you don't have to worry about the food
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Most expensive Thai restaurant with portion sizes so small it makes you understand why the Thais are so damn scrawny
Sala Thai Rim Naam
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Worst steakhouse
The Fehér Bölény (White Buffalo)
(Recently closed)
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Minimalist vegetarian restaurant that makes us
dizzy with hunger
Wabisabi
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Worst hotel view
The side of the Sofitel (former Hyatt), from the back of the InterContinental
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Most worrisome recent convenience innovation
in Hungarian culinary life (I)
Microwavable, pre-packaged ready-to-eat frozen meals
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Most worrisome recent convenience innovation
in Hungarian culinary life (II)
American fast food chain restaurants
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Most worrisome recent convenience innovation
in Hungarian culinary life (III)
Kínai gyorsbüfé
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Restaurant we've never gone in because it looks like it's run by the Russian mob
Nosztalgia
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Just kidding
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Really.
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Otherwise pleasant terrace we avoid because of the surly people waiting to collect Ft 600 for a view that is not all it's cracked up to be
Fisherman's Bastion
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Otherwise pleasant terrace we avoid because of the surly people waiting to collect Ft 6,000 for food that is not all it's cracked up to be
Articsóka
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Baffling high-concept downtown eatery in desperate need of a restaurant consultant
Wall Street
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Baffling high-concept downtown eatery in desperate need of a psychiatrist
Mokka Café
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Most pathetic tourist trap café that forces its employees to wear humiliating period costumes and doesn't even draw all that many tourists, anyway
Café Mozart, Erzsébet körút
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Company store that probably shouldn't go next door to Ralph Lauren in the new Budapest factory outlet mall
The Globus canned meat márkabolt
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Worst dry cleaner in Budapest
Crystal Vegytisztító
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Fight to the death we'd love to see in a town that only needs one medieval-themed restaurant
Sir Lancelot vs. King Arthur
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Intentional Hungarian-English double-entendre restaurant name that seemed funny until we actually ate there
Fatál
("wooden plate")
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Unintentional Hungarian-English double-entendre restaurant name that didn't seem funny until our friend from Liverpool said it out loud
Fakanál ("wooden spoon")
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Saddest doomed-from-the-start retail concept
The Scottish Corner
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Budapest club with the most overenthusiastic bouncers
Buddha Beach
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Least discreet place for an adulterous rendezvous
with multiple sex partners
The Hotel Swing City, Ferenc körút
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Skankiest sex shop
The Kukkoló (peeping tom) Szexbolt,
next door to the Hotel Swing City
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Least successful internationally-recognized clothing store
Marks & Spencer
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Most humiliating way to see Budapest
The Queeny B tour bus
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Most dead-empty shopping mall
The Millennium Center
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Worst place to take your sensitive black foreigner
friends in Budapest for a cocktail
Negro
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Worst place to take your sensitive black foreigner friends to help them recover from the trauma of seeing a bar full of rowdy white people called "Negro"
Két Szerecsen ("The Two Blackamoors")
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Worst place to take your sensitive black foreigner friends to help them recover from the trauma of eating in a restaurant full of racist brick-a-brack called "The Two Blackamoors"
The countryside
CONTINUED
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