The newest Street Food frenzy is a Hungarian invention

The writer of the article in the index.hu doesn’t want to say that in the street food front there is nothing new to be made; for the newest street food has been born in front of our eyes, the ring. The Budapest Bakering had its debut on the Rehab Critical Mass on Sunday, and its test run started on Monday. However, everybody is talking about these three wonder cars.

These cars, which remind us to Budapest’s transportation instruments and also have the function to serve food, are the invention of Adam Lendvai. Furthermore, we cannot say that it is an old dream as it came to live half a year ago. In spite of this, the Budapest Bakering concept is a well-thought idea: Adam Lendvai wanted to make a street food that is innovative, can be eaten at all time, easy to deliver and it is a great meal for breakfast as well as for dinner. Its name has become the ‘ring’, a name which he invented with another member of Budapest Bakering: Melinda Megyesi.

They have only got operating permit for the 7^th district, so they can only be seen in this territory: the street food cars that resemble the trams, the trolley buses and the regular buses. Soon, two more food cars are being operated: the green HEV (suburban railway) and the blue Soviet metro cars.

If the ring will have a big success, further expansions could happen. Before someone would think that these little cars are operated with motors, they do not: the ring seller boys push these cars; however, bicycle can be connected them.

What is the ‘ring’?

It is not a bagel, said Adam Lendvai for million times. Lendvai said that it is a completely new food , kind of closed sandwich which is brand new in the whole world (Filled bagel balls can be eaten in New York but those are round and in Istanbul, from similar cars, round scones with seed can be bought and they called ‘smit’ but they are without filling. The Turkish ‘acma’ might be the most similar to the ‘ring’ but the former is called Turkish bagel.) The bagel is filled as they cut it half as a sandwich, however, the ‘ring’ has its very special filling inside the food; also, its pasta is completely different. The writer of the article had a taste and he assures that the pasta is different, scone like but a little sweet and the filling still had its problem to be equally distributed; however, he said that it was good.

Food truck or food car?

There are more and more food trucks in Budapest but because of some regulations, they had to stay in one place which deprives them from their original function: to be in motion. These regulations are due to the public domain regulations; if a food truck wants to move around Budapest, it would need permits from all the districts. Most food trucks, therefore, bring their kitchen to the streets. They do not get permit to move around the city, only to be in one place; for this reason they work as the other street sellers or buffets.

The ring isn’t making its food, its already prepared; therefore, the small car is made for transportation. Since they don’t have kitchen, they don’t need a special permission from ANTSZ (National Public Health and Medical Officer Service); even though they had to install a small hand washer with warm water. Although, for now they only have permission in the 7^th district so we can find them only in this region, they want to get permit from all the other districts, too.

Until this problem is being solved, the rings will be delivered to the rest of the city by bicycle.

To what to be the filling of the paste, there were a lot of ideas. First, The Budapest Bakering group had collected ideas from their friends; secondly, they had asked a bakery to make them. They had made 17 different rings that they had tasted in the Gozsdu court, then, the most popular flavours were made the final version of ring types which are the following:

• Sheep’s cottage cheese – bacon – green pesto
• Sausage with dried apricot
• Blue cheese with dried fruits and walnuts
• Crystallized lemon with honey, ginger
• Goat cheese, rolled in ham and with fig
• Spinach with feta cheese
• Parmesan cheese with dried tomato

This list is not final yet; on the website, more versions could be recommended. According to the plans, they want to have 10 types of rings which will fill up the food cars. Now, customers can choose from 6 types: five salted, and one sweet. The writer of the article on index.hu hasn’t tried all of them, only four. On the tasting the sausage with dried apricot was the favourite and the writer agrees that it is the best. The filling was harmonious: the sweet taste was perfect with the sausage, the filling was also equal in all the places; they have managed to reach the 50-50 percent of pasta and filling portion which was their aim.

It was the same with the other type, the spinach with feta cheese, but the writer did not like the stuffing (because of the spinach). The only sweet taste is the crystallized lemon with honey and ginger and it is perfect if someone likes spicy flavours. For the writer, the worst was the goat cheese, rolled in ham and with fig. The flavour combination was good for him but the stuffing wasn’t evenly distributed and the ham pieces were there sometimes but weren’t at others.

Despite these things, the writer recommends to be in a queue in front of these cars rather than in front of Fornetti.

The ring cars start at 7 a.m. and the plan is that they serve hungry working customers in the morning and the party animals at night. On weekends, they work until 3 a.m. when there is no more food place open. There is a mobile application with the purpose to track where they are in the moment. But if they are too far and we do not want to walk a long distance we can ask them to come to us, instead.

The cars and their prices will be easy to use to which is 300 forints. For this price we can buy two scones or a cheese burger at McDonald’s and the ring is more fulfilling. The writer thinks that it has a big future; the only disadvantage could be if the tourists are posing with the cars all the time, in which case no one would want to stand in line.

based on article of index.hu
translated by Andrea Toth

Photo: Budapest Bakering Facebook page

Source: http://index.hu/