would like to share my experience in detail about the Halaszbastya Etterem.
We arrived. Originally, we wanted to sit inside because of the insanely hot weather, but they said we would need to wait a lot for that, so we ended up being seated outside. At this point everything was fine. However, after we needed to wait a massive amount of time until a waiter came to us. All right, it could happen.
I have to pinpoint that as my girlfriend doesn’t speak Hungarian, so I decided to speak in English the entire time. However, the waiter did not understand what I was saying at all. I could not properly explain what we want to order, my girlfriend had to point fingers to each food like ‘this, this, this and this) I was like all right, could happen as we are not in England, we are in Hungary (even though this is one of the most touristic area of the whole city). What is however not okay is that the waiter was quite rude, he was impatiently repeating that he doesn’t understand me not even providing a chance to explain again what I was meaning. Anyway, we solved it, still nothing of a big issue at this point of time.
Bit later, the same waiter next to our table yawned as huge one that we could see his breakfast. :D Again, a bit later some of the waiters were next to our table using the word ‘bazdmeg’ to each other (meaning fuck you) several time which was less disturbing, but not really expected in a high-end restaurant. Not my main concern though. Once we tried to ask another waiter who is the football team eating at the other corner of the restaurant and he listed four teams and told us ‘sok’ (meaning ‘a lot’ in Hungarian), so clearly did not get our basic-English question.
Finally, the food arrived after forever and not so long after we finished the main course my girlfriend started to feel extremely bad. (Stomachache mainly.) (Here, I would like to point out that she was&is absolutely healthy, no sickness or any issue was in the picture, e.g.: 2 hours before she was happily walking around in the National Gallery and was everything fine. Yet, I still cannot accuse this place in regards it was food poisoning as how could I prove it. However, I was quite suspicious). Nevertheless, she felt like she needs to rush to the toilets. We asked where it is. The obvious path was blockaded by them earlier, and they started to explain how to get there. But my girlfriend didn’t really understand it and she was quite much in hurry and in panic, feeling very sick so she asked me to go with her. And here is the most messed up part: EVEN THOUGH WE MENTIONED SHE URGENTLY NEED TO VOMIT, THEY SAID THEY WILL NOT LET NEITHER OF US GOING TO THE TOILET, STATING WE NEED TO PAY BEFORE (LIKE OTHERWISE WE WOULD SNEAK AWAY WITHOUT PAYING OR SOMETHING). They were rudely insisting. I very quickly paid, and we literally ran down to the toilet. My girlfriend (of course) vomited (again, I suspect the food, but I can’t say for 100%).
After this she sat down for a bit, and I went up to get my jacket and then the dessert which was previously ordered and paid was there, so I quickly ate that too.
Afterwards, when I was walking out, I went through of at least 6 staff members NOONE said goodbye. I said a ‘bye’ to one of them, did not even answer back. Obviously, as I expected NOONE even asked whether everything is okay with my girlfriend or what happened.
Terrible, almost traumatic experience and I would never recommend this place to anyone, even though there is a nice view, as this place operates in one of the historical attractions of Budapest.
5 years ago 5 years ago
- Thursday 22/05/2025
