Outside the Budapest tourist area, the prices are more reasonable.
The menu is only in Hungarian and the young server does not speak English.
I order what appears by its photo to be an English Breakfast.
I also order a cafe latte, but when the server repeats it back to me, it sounds like something else.
I order my meal at the cash, pay, and am given a stick with the number 20 on it.
The numbers are random; the couple ordering after me gets number 17, and the young man after that gets 29.
I sit on a high wooden chair at a high wooden table, and a minute later my drink arrives, and it is indeed a cafe latte.
One cafe wall is brilliantly wallpapered with a smorgasbord of cafe images.
In one image, a man, a jeweler it seems, sits at a table inspecting a gem while an invisible hand pours sauce on his cheesecake.
A little girl stands on a kitchen scale, tilting a watering can, out of which spills cookies into a shallow dish with the word ‘cakes’ on it.
A man in a sporting outfit holds a rugby ball while standing tiptoe on a juice press.
Finally, a man wearing a top hat poses on a cake pan while holding a pastry roller.
There are other images too – a salt shaker, pretzel, fork and spoon, plate of cookies, tea cup and saucer, a croissant, a piece of cake, and a tray of butter.
I spend the better part of my meal just looking at the detail on the wallpaper.
My food arrives, an English breakfast to be sure, except that when I try the sausage, the spice causes perspiration beads to collect in my eye sockets.
The server sees me dabbing at my eyes with a napkin and brings me another without my needing to ask.
