Don't be fooled.... it's not as appealing as it looks.

Congratulations Budapest, you did it!

Yes, Budapest, you bested me…. you served me something that I could not only not stomach, but had to politely, and as discreetly as possible, spit into my napkin.

Now, before I describe this offensive spread, which, along with gifelte fish, deserves its own Fear Factor episode, I will proudly state that I am not easily offended in the culinary department. I’ve watched Anthony Bourdain eat a live snakes heart and throught “Damn, I want to DO that!” There are foods I don’t care for, but very little that I can’t or won’t eat. Until this past week, the list was restricted to the aforementioned gefilte fish, but no more….

PT and I slumped into our hotel in Budapest around 10 o’clock at night – hungry, weary, and not particularly picky about our choice of dinner venue. Luckily, there was a bright, cozy, and impressive-looking bistro right next door to our hotel.

We sat down, agreed that we were quite lucky to have had this delightful restaurant so close to our hotel and were instantly impressed with the menu. After ordering appetizers and drinks, our waiter brought us some freshly baked bread and a ramekin filled with an interesting-looking spread that the waiter seemed to take a great deal of pride in and assured us was a Hungarian specialty. It was unidentifiable, but flecked with bits of bacon and parsley… so far, a winner in my book.

I spread a generous amount on a slab of bread, bit down, rolled the bite over in my mouth…. and instantly spit it out into my napkin.

“It’s bacon fat,” I choked out to PT, in between gulps of water.

“What?” he responded, and, in the mysterious ways of boys, ignored the warnings and bit down himself. “Oh God!” he exclaimed.

Yes, we were served solid bacon fat (with some very pretty flecks of parsley) to spread onto our bread, in lieu of butter. The waiter looked a bit crestfallen to see that we had barely made a dent in the generous portion he had given us and hadn’t found his country’s delicacy as delicious as he did. We tried to make amends by being overly-laudatory of our meal, which was, very delicious, but I’m not sure he fully forgave us.

Nonetheless, should you find yourself in an upscale Hungarian bistro and are served an interesting, though unfamiliar spread, best to let it alone and enjoy the bread plain.