Shandong Chinese Restaurant (山东饭店)

Budapest’s Chinatown (Monori Center) isn’t the most fashionable place, after all, who gets excited about rows of warehouses well outside the city center? The obvious answer: fans of Chinese food. Shandong Restaurant is located on a particularly rundown section, but I urge you not to turn your back on it. Similar to HeHe, this unpretentious eatery serves up some of the best Chinese fare in Budapest (while the owners hail from Shandong province, the food reflects many parts of China).

A highlight is the sweet-and-sour pork (tang cu li ji), a dish you'll find in every Chinese restaurant but here the sauce hits all the right notes – not cloyingly sweet and perfectly bright-tasting – with tender and crispy meat. Groups of three or four should order the bone-in chicken dry pot (gan guo ji), an entire bird chopped into small pieces and served with vegetables. Use the electric griddle placed before you to cook it through in the creamy, soy-based sauce (give it about ten minutes).

If you’d prefer something more familiar, the dumplings and the twice-cooked pork belly (hui guo rou) are also tasty, for example. Note that Shandong usually shuts down in February during the Chinese New Year.