Shandong Chinese Restaurant (山东饭店)

Budapest’s Chinatown (Monori Center) isn’t usually considered the most fashionable dining destination, after all, who gets excited about rows of warehouses on the city's outskirts? Fans of Chinese food, of course. Similar to HeHe, this unpretentious eatery serves up some of the best Chinese fare in Budapest. The owners hail from Shandong province, but the food reflects many parts of China. A highlight is the sweet-and-sour pork (tang cu li ji), a dish one will find in most Chinese restaurants but here the sauce hits all the right notes – not cloyingly sweet and perfectly bright-tasting – with tender and crispy meat.

They have a simplified menu with affordable and delicious takeout-classics and I can also recommend the dumplings and the twice-cooked pork belly (hui guo rou). My Chinese friend usually recommends the bone-in chicken dry pot (gan guo ji), an entire bird chopped into small pieces and served with vegetables, as well as fish-fragrant braised eggplant (yuxiang qiezi). Note that Shandong usually shuts down in February during Chinese New Year.