Milky Way Kínai Étterem (Chinese Seafood Restaurant / 唐人街大酒楼)

Hidden within an interior courtyard, Milky Way is the best-known seafood restaurant within Budapest’s Chinatown. The owner is knowledgeable about lobsters, crabs, tiger prawns, shrimps, and other treasures of the sea not only because he hails from the seaside Chinese city of Wenzhou, but because he worked at a fish market for fifteen years before opening this restaurant.

We loved the steamed scallops in a rich sauce layered with glass noodles and garlic (suan rong shan bei; 蒜蓉鲜贝) and had a delicious whole steamed pike-perch, which was tender and pure tasting and seasoned gently with sweetened soy sauce and scallions (qing zheng lu yu; 清蒸鲈鱼). Among the wallet-friendlier options is the fish soup, boosted with noodles, eggs, bok choy, and shiitake.

Apart from seafood, their laziji is excellent – manageably spicy morsels of fried chicken buried in chili peppers. Also good: the pork baozi, the Wenzhou-style pork belly slices (wen zhou jiang rou; 温州酱肉) and the egg fried rice. (We didn't try it, but I was recommended by several people their Peking duck, which has to be pre-ordered).

To find the restaurant, you'll need to weave your way through the courtyard parking lot and climb two flights of stairs. The main dining hall opens to six private rooms. Friday and Saturday evenings get busy with local Vietnamese and Chinese people so reservations are a must. Seafood is pricey in landlocked Hungary and a full meal with a drink comes out to about €40 per person. The Chinese service staff speaks some English and Hungarian.