Back to Restaurant Reviews
362 Bridge Road, Richmond, 0421 993 132
My score: 3/5
I had a Hungarian grandmother who taught me funny songs, card games and 100 ways with pancakes. She would have found plenty to like at The Hungarian. The restaurant is a small and homely mom-and-pop operation with folk artifacts, zillions of photos and a menu full of chatty jokes that wore me down, groan by groan. One dish is called ‘Meat with Meat’, capital letters are used with ABANDON, garlic cream is ‘obnoxious’ and dieting is pooh-poohed with delight. I arrived hard-bitten critic, I was soon jelly-kneed victim of humour.
Hungarian food is big on slow-cooked meat, grills, preserved vegetables such as cabbage and cucumber, and carb-loading with potato, rice, noodles and dumplings. The langos (billed as Hungarian naan) were a crisp and tasty rendition of the garlicky fried bread snack, sold on Budapest street corners and wept over by Hungarians worldwide. Goulash, the iconic Hungarian stew, is available with lamb, venison and traditional beef. It made all the right moves: the slow-cooked fillet collapsed into thick gravy with back-of-throat paprika hit. Partnered with nokedli (egg-pasta squiggles) it’s perfect winter fodder. The pork, bacon and sausage-stuffed cabbage was an intense, smoky endurance test; doggy bags are not a problem. Not every dish was up to grandmother’s standards. The chicken schnitzel was massive and crisp but the meat was dry and there was a lack of herbage or seasoning to elevate it from merely filling. The beef cevapcici were dry meaty bullets. Hungarian isn’t a feted cuisine in vegetarian circles but there are quite a few meat-free (and vegan, and gluten-free) dishes.
The restaurant is popular with a misty-eyed Hungarian diaspora and stodge-lovers from everywhere. Unfortunately, service didn’t keep up with custom when I visited. When the ‘No Dieting in this Zone’ sign failed to make me giggle, I knew I’d been waiting too long. However, seen with a glass-of-fruity-shiraz-half-full perspective, a digestion break makes dessert more likely. Crepes are stuffed with traditional ingredients like plum jam and sweet cheese, and fusion flavours such as ‘Bounty’. Old school wins. Frozen, flaked chestnut cream was deliciously creamy but also light due to its snow-shower consistency. I would go back to The Hungarian, hungry and in hope that the exuberant, sure-footed tone of the menu was a consistent part of the dining experience too.
See their website.
More pancakes:
Common Ground L.E.S, 298 Carlisle Street, Balaclava, 9973 3215
There are Russian inflections to the food offering at this new coffee-focused cafe. Try Bubba’s blintz with beef or chicken.
Soolzip, 179-181 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 9328 2388
You want me to listen? Start a sentence with ‘Korean pancake’. At Soolzip choose from spicy kimchi, seafood, and shrimp and pork versions.
Roule Galette, Scott Alley, 241 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, 9639 0307
Thin, lacy, large French crepes are the deal here. Ham, cheese and spinach are popular but consider the super Frenchy snails or scallops. Also at Rebecca Walk (on the Yarra).
First published in The Age, August 4, 2013
Leave A Comment