Hungarian Food — What to Eat and What It Costs
Goulash, langos, and a wine region most visitors have never heard of.
Hungarian food is heartier and more paprika-forward than most visitors expect: goulash (gulyas) is actually a soup, not the stew people picture; langos is deep-fried dough loaded with sour cream and cheese, sold from street stalls everywhere; and chicken paprikash is the other national dish worth ordering. A sit-down meal runs $8-18 per person, and the Tokaj wine region (2.5-3 hours away) makes some of the world's great dessert wines, once served at royal courts across Europe.
Hungarian food gets overshadowed by its neighbors' reputations — nobody flies to Budapest specifically for the food the way they do for Italy or Thailand. That's a genuine mistake. This is rich, comforting, paprika-heavy cooking that punches well above what most travelers expect, and it's cheap by Western European standards.
