For fish lovers: halászlé in Baja!

Baja. Ever since our first trip to Hungary in summer 2010, Łukasz has been telling me “We have to go to Baja! They serve the best halaszle there!”.

Halaszle is a Hungarian fish soup. It’s made mainly of fish (usually carp), lots of paprika (the soup is quite spicy) and onion. From time to time you might find other fish in halaszle such as wels catfish or other white fish (pike and perch-pike), although the latter not so often as they tend to fall apart while cooking. Another important thing is that this fisherman’s soup is made only with freshwater fish — but this is hardly surprising when we look at Hungary’s geographical location 😉

They say you might find different variations of this famous dish all over Hungary: with and without noodles, with potatoes, with chunks of fish in the soup or with the fish served aside or even as a blended soup, although such halaszle is served only in the area of Szeged.

However, Baja is the most well-known for its halaszle and it’s the place where each year fish soup festival is held. One of the festival’s highlights is the attempt to break the world record in the number of pots of cooked soup, which takes place on the city’s main square! The festival is in July and apart from tonnes of soup, you’ll also find tens of litres of wine there… Sounds good, doesn’t it? 🙂 I guess so, as each year all hotels and B&Bs in the area are fully booked long in advance! We’re planning to see it… maybe next year!

This time Baja greeted us with peace and quiet. The city’s main square was spoiled by cars that were parked on it, so we decided to leave it and go in the direction of the Danube River and once again taste the best halaszle in Hungary (and probably in the whole world)…

We decided to have halaszle in Sobri Halaszcsarda restaurant, recommended to us by Szindbad, who is supposed to be one of the best Hungarian foodspotters. As you might remember, we were very happy with what a local foodspotter in Prague recommended to us (you can read about it here). That’s why we’ve decided to trust a local specialist once again – and that’s how we found the fish soup in Sobri Halaszcsarda.

The restaurant is a bit of a walk from the city’s main square. Inside, it’s quite spacious and comprises two rooms: one very elegant (probably prepared for a reception) and the other looking more casual and less expensive. We take a sit and start choosing! There are different versions of halaszle, so everybody can find something for themselves: with different fish, with or without noodles.

The soup is very big – actually one would do for the two of us. The fish is served aside. At the first glance local halaszle looks a bit like our Polish tomato soup, especially the home-made one, with noodles. However, as soon as you try it you’ll feel the characteristic spiciness of Hungarian peppers. As far as the fish is concerned hmmm… to be honest it doesn’t look very nice 😉 What is more just before our soups were served we’d all been complaining about how we didn’t really like the carp (well, maybe for Christmas Eve dinner)… That said, as soon as we put the fish into our soups we knew that this combination was really delicious!

As the soup was a rather complicated thing to eat (dealing with the fish, putting it into the soup, etc.) we got equipped with fancy bibs. That moment I regretted a bit that Maks wasn’t with us as he would definitely feel better seeing adults wearing these 😉 Especially that he rejected wearing his when he was about 1.5 years old, claiming he was “too big for that kind of thing.”

As far as other dishes in Sobri Halaszcsarda are concerned, it’s rather a place for meat-eaters and for those less picky ones. Be careful when choosing a set for two – it’s so big that it should be called a set for 4! Still, the soup is worth coming here…

Having eaten, we went for a walk around Baja… The town itself is not very interesting: just a few streets and a square… It’s definitely not as attractive as Eger or Pecs, both of which I will tell you about soon. But well – you do need to move a bit after the soup, don’t you?… And then eat some delicious ice-cream on the promenade. Melon flavour was the best! Really yummy! Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the place but I’m sure you’ll manage to find it in the small Baja without any problems! 🙂

PS. If you’re staying in  Villany going to Baja will take some time, as it’s about 75 km from the place. Closer you’ll find a nice castle in Siklos and picturesque Pecs. Only there is no halaszle there 😉

PS 2. Eger, which is probably the most well-known region of Hungary among the Poles, is about 340 km away from Baja, which is definitely too long for a short trip. Still. if you’re there go and try local halaszle in Kulacs Csarda Panzio restaurant in Szepasszony Volgy, in the Valley of the Beautiful Woman, where you’ll find lots of wine cellars. Yesterday Łukasz talked about the soup’s taste for about 500 km as we drove 😉 As if you don’t like to “get your hands dirty with the fish” you’ll like the soup even more, as in this version fish chunks simply “swim” in it…