Cafés and other lovely things

So I have a thing for coffee and the places that serve it - cafés. Not to mention pastries. And it turns out that a lot of the cities I'm visiting have a thriving café culture. Vienna was chock full of them, and I enjoyed my fair share. Budapest was another great café city.

The first was Café Callas, which we visited right before seeing Snow White at the opera house. It was right next door, and I like to think it was name for Maria Callas, a wonderful singer. But I have no real idea. The interior was beautiful - Art Nouveau, apparently.

If what I've seen of this style is a good indicator, I like it very much. It reminds me a bit of steam-punk style, but decidedly more elegant. The decor was the main attraction of this café, but the pastry was delicious as well. We ordered a hazelnut cake

and the classic Viennese (yes, wrong city, but ok) Sacher Torte.

They were both quite nice, although the coffee I ordered out of curiosity was far to sweet to be a good pairing. Observe:

You're looking at equal parts espresso and honey, with heaps of whipped cream on top. Delicious? Certainly. Dessert worthy on its own? Absolutely.

Next up was the New York Café. Before I describe this place to you, let me say that I love words, and finding new adjectives to adequately describe things. I like to use the kinds of words you don't hear every day for the kind of things you don't see every day. But in this case, I am forced to abandon any attempt at eloquence and just say this: it was super fancy. The bathrooms smelled like strawberries. That's how Fancy this place was. It's touted as the most beautiful café in the world, and I can't argue.

I got a Hungarian pastry sampler, which was beyond amazing - although I'm not sure what it all was. The two cakes on the right were my favorites.

My friend got a nutty cake of some kind, which was the most delicious of all - not to mention beautiful.

But, this was not the kind of café where you sit and soak in the comfortable, living-room atmosphere. This was the kind of place where you buy something so you can take pictures without them kicking you out.

Spinoza, the next place we went, had more of a living-room feel. There were cute little tables with yellow cloths on them, a tiny second floor that hung over the small main room, and a pleasant piano player squeeze between the tables, bar and door. Vintage advertisements and old photos of the neighborhood and people. It was the kind of place I would frequent, were I a local. And the chestnut cream dessert was delightful, especially on a hot day.

Last but not least, Céntral Kávéház, which had the best pastries by far, and also a nice, slightly grand but not overwhelming interior. It was here that i finally tried Dobos Torte, the quintessential Budapest pastry, and it was absolutely fantastic. Layers of cake and chocolate, topped with burnt caramel. We also tried flódni here, a delicious and traditionally Jewish dessert featuring apple and raisins between layers of pastry.

All this decadence seemed very apropos, simply because Budapest is such a gorgeous city. I doesn't take fancy gilded interiors for you to appreciate that beauty.