Sushi in Budapest!

Last night we went out to dinner and I had sushi! And, much to my surprise, it was delicious! After much fanfare and hullaballoo we landed ourselves a table in the very small nonsmoking section, thank goodness! People smoke like chimneys here, further proof to me that they are in some sort of collective national funk.

I did see something quite strange, though. A couple at the next table over from us ordered a bottle of wine. When the waiter brought the wine over he brought with him a small dish and an extra glass. I figured the extra glass was to pour the taste of wine so that if they didn't like it, their glasses weren't spoiled. So he opens the bottle, pours a not small (though not large) amount of wine into the taster cup and I am thinking, "Now that's clever." But, and I was quite surprised by this I must say, rather than bring that taster cup over to the table, HE DRANK IT HIMSELF! What's up with that? I have never seen anything like that before, have you? Was the guy not the waiter but rather the sommelier and does he go around tasting all the wine before he pours it to make sure it's good? Is he completely drunk by the end of the night (because for sure he didn't spit the wine out after tasting it)? This is the most pretentious thing I have ever seen in a restaurant and seemed quite out of place here in down-to-earth Budapest. Seems much more of a hoity-toity Manhattan or San Francisco or LA move to me. Oh, by the way, the little dish was for the cork, which he brought over to the table before they got to taste their own wine. I don't know...I think I would be kind of put off if I ordered an expensive bottle of wine and the waiter got the first sip.

THE LUNCHTIME SUPERMARKET EXPERIENCE
So, here goes another complaint about the service here in Budapest. And lest you think I don't like anything about this place, stay tuned for my Friday (and final) posting, in which I will extol the many pleasures of this beautiful river city. But first, my customer service observation.

So I am in the supermarket today at lunch. Other than the Turkish restaurant on the other side of the bridge, this is where I get my lunch every day. Usually a little "salad" from the "salad bar" - I use this phrase lightly, as salad in this supermarket usually consists of cabbage (green and purple), overcooked cauliflower, carrots cut into teensy little cubes, green beans and cucumbers. Occasionally there are tomatoes but not today - a whole wheat roll, some cottage cheese (not the szendvics-turo but the regular, tasteless dry stuff) and, when the salad bar doesn't have any, a tomato. So, this is what is in my basket today (along with a can of Peter's favorite soup that they only seem to sell at this market!) and I get in line. Mind you, it's around 1:15pm, the busy lunch hour. There are three registers in the market but only one is actually operating. One is beeping for no good reason and at the third, an employee stands leisurely shuffling and organizing the greeting cards that go in the rack next to her conveyer belt. The line is long. Getting longer. The customer at the front of the line is paying with a credit card, which is a rare occurrence here in Budapest and therefore fills the cashier with some apprehension. She calls for help but then waves it off as she figures it out on her own. The second register is still beeping. And the clerk is still shuffling envelopes at the third register. But the line keeps growing. Now it extends back into the soup aisle and is starting to snake around. Finally, the cashier dealing with the credit card asks the cashier dealing with the greeting cards to help. Well, I think that's what she asked, anyway. And I am not sure the response but I got the gist. I have seen it before at many a supermarket in NY. Something like a sigh followed by a, "But I don't want to!" Of course, those weren't the actual words used. But you don't need to speak Hungarian to know that this woman was avoiding the customers like the plague. She started to clear the stacks of cards and envelopes from her conveyor belt. Sloooooooowly. Perhaps she was hoping the line would somehow die down before she was ready for customers. Then she took a couple minutes to check out the (annoying) beep coming from the second register. Having failed to figure out the problem or the solution, she sulked back to her spot behind register number three and called the next customer.

And in true Hungarian tradition, the "next customer" - who in reality was the guy in front of me - is the person who pushes through the crowd and gets to the register first, not the actual next person in line. Yesterday a woman tried this tactic on me and let me tell you, where I come from, the line is sacred and there is no cutting allowed. She put her goods down on the conveyor belt - actually reached around me to do so. I did my best sumo stare-down, walked around her and placed my items in the cashier's hands. That was yesterday. Today I waited because in truth, I am no match for these Hungarian lunchtime shoppers/line-cutters.