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Great Market Hall (Budapest)
Encyclopedia
The Great Market Hall or Central Market Hall (Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
"Nagycsarnok"), on Fővám Tér in the 9th district, is the largest indoor market in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. It was designed and built by Samu Pecz
Samu Pecz
Samu Pecz was a Hungarian architect and academic.-Career:Pecz studied at a number of universities both at home and abroad in Stuttgart...
around 1896.
The market offers a huge variety of stalls on three floors. A distinctive architectural feature is the roof which was restored to have colorful Zsolnay tiling.
Most of the stalls on the ground floor offer produce, meats, pastries, candies, spices, and spirits such as paprika
Paprika
Paprika is a spice made from the grinding of dried fruits of Capsicum annuum . In many European languages, the word paprika refers to bell peppers themselves. The seasoning is used in many cuisines to add color and flavor to dishes. Paprika can range from mild to hot...
, tokaji
Tokaji
Tokaji is the name of the wines from the region of Tokaj-Hegyalja in Hungary and Slovakia. The name Tokaji is used for labeling wines from this wine district. This region is noted for its sweet wines made from grapes affected by noble rot, a style of wine which has a long history in this region...
, túró rudi
Túró Rudi
Túró Rudi is the name of a chocolate bar popular in Hungary since 1968. The bar is composed of a thin outer coating of chocolate and an inner filling of túró...
, and caviar
Caviar
Caviar, sometimes called black caviar, is a luxury delicacy, consisting of processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe. The roe can be "fresh" or pasteurized, the latter having much less culinary and economic value....
. The second floor has mainly eateries and souvenirs. The Lángos
Lángos
Lángos is a Hungarian food speciality, a deep fried flat bread made of a dough with flour, yeast, salt and water.-Variations:Lángos can be made with yoghurt, sour cream or milk instead of water, a dash of sugar along with salt and sometimes with flour and boiled mashed potatoes, which is called...
stand, which Rick Steves considers to be the best at the market, is located on this floor, serving the deep-fried snack lángos
Lángos
Lángos is a Hungarian food speciality, a deep fried flat bread made of a dough with flour, yeast, salt and water.-Variations:Lángos can be made with yoghurt, sour cream or milk instead of water, a dash of sugar along with salt and sometimes with flour and boiled mashed potatoes, which is called...
. The basement contains a supermarket, fish market, and pickles. Not only do they have traditional cucumber pickles, but they also offer pickled cauliflower, cabbage, beets, tomatoes, and garlic..
The market is closed on Sunday, opens at 6am on other days, and closes at 5pm Monday, 6pm Tue-Fri and 3pm Saturday.