The Liners Abroad: A Trip to Etyek

On Saturday, we visited the village of Etyek, a small village located just northwest of Budapest. It is separated from the neighboring region, the Buda Hills, by the Zsámbék Basin. The village has just 3,500 residents and is known as one of the youngest wine-growing regions in the country.

We ventured out to this small village with the Birnbaums & Lowes for the Etyek Kezes-Lábos (Gastronomic) Festival and an opportunity to taste from traditional Hungarian foods, see the exhibition of manufacturers (shopping), and taste wines from the region. The day was quite chilly and breezy but the rain held off.

Once arriving at the festival, we paid 400 HUF for a wine glass ($2) and purchased a few tickets for tastings and food and off we went. We sampled from various food booths and found that we all (including the kids) loved a Hungarian speciality that was pretty much like a ham/cheese patty melt! This was by far the best fair-type food I've had in Hungary. We also sampled dried strawberries which were sugary and yummy! A favorite treat here are Kürtõskalács, a pastry that is baked on a round spike, wrapped around it in rings and then topped with cocoa, cinnamon, nuts, or coconut and sugar. They are soft, doughy and WONDERFUL warm! Caden loves them (his favorite is cinnamon). We topped off the afternoon with one.

We saw lots of handicrafts (pottery, wood carvings, glass vases), lots of food and a goulash cook-off! It was quite funny to watch the cooks meddle with each others pots, taste the soups (and stick the ladle right back in) and sing & dance as the cooked. Kinda like a chili cook-off I suppose...

The adults also got to sample some of the local wines as well. The first I tried, a Pinot Grigo, was excellent. I should have purchased a bottle. The second, a Pinot Noir was anything but excellent. Oh well, it is all about the adventure.