Momotaro Restaurant

In case you've never been to a Chinese restaurant designed as a hunting lodge, here is your chance. Momotaro's former occupant decorated the space with taxidermy and animal antlers and the current owner seems to find it a fitting theme to accent their Chinese cuisine as well. Momotaro is among the top-tier Chinese restaurants in Budapest, serving traditional pan-Chinese dishes with a focus on dim sums.

My go-to order here is the xiaolongbao soup dumplings, thin-skinned steamed buns filled with soup and minced pork. Another standout is the Taiwanese-stlye savory turnip cake (luo bo gao), spongy nuggets made from rice flour, daikon radish, and minced dried shrimp. The soups are light Chinese-style noodle soups rather than heavy ramens.

Momotaro is currently one of the few Chinese restaurants in Budapest's downtown — for most others, you'll need to journey out to Budapest's Chinatown, a 15-minute cab ride from the city center — and it's also near several tourist attractions like the Hungarian Parliament building and Liberty Square.

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