1. Who are you?
I’m Carolyn Bánfalvi, an American who has been living in Budapest for about ten years. I moved here because I fell in love with a Hungarian, and we now have two little girls. I do many things. I’m a writer who has authored the first culinary guides to Budapest/Hungary: Food Wine Budapest (Little Bookroom) and The Food and Wine Lover’s Guide to Hungary: With Budapest Restaurants an Trips to the Wine Country (Park Kiadó).

My husband and I run a boutique culinary tour company, which we founded two years ago, called Taste Hungary. We organize customized food, wine, and market tours in Hungary, and we are currently organizing an exciting lineup of special food/wine themed events for the coming months in Budapest. We also own a small publishing company (www.kalligrafkiado.hu) through which we publish Hungarian translations of classic American children’s books. You can see more about my work at www.carolynbanfalvi.com.

2. What do you like about what you do?
I love what I do. I love being a writer because I can just go out and research and experience whatever I happen to be interested in at the time, and then write about it. Organizing and giving the culinary tours is lots of fun too since I can introduce travellers to all of the good things that I have discovered in Hungary. I also love that my days are always different, and I especially like when I get to travel for articles and research.

3. What don’t you like about what you do?
The one thing that I don’t like is the difficulty in managing my time (which I am sure everyone who works for themselves has to deal with). I am always trying to do too many things at one, and I have so many projects that I want to begin, and not enough time in the day to start them. I need longer days!

4. Please tell us about your website/blog ‘TasteHungary’ and your aims
Tastehungary.com is the site for our culinary tour company. We just re-designed it, and we will be frequently adding new tour possibilities. The blog has been on hiatus for awhile, but I also plan to bring that back to life shortly, and to add content that will make people interested in Hungarian food and wine (and of course, our tours).

5. Are you working with other blogs and if yes, which ones and why?
I frequently do guest posts for other blogs, and I also work with the Hungarian food blog www.chew.hu.

6. Your TOP 3 hotel experiences and why?
I like the Altstadt in Vienna because it doesn’t feel like a hotel. I love the outdoor sauna with a glass wall overlooking the Alps at Hotel Schloss Lebenberg in Kitzbühel. And I recently had a really nice stay at the Székelyko Kuria in Transylvania.

7. Your TOP 3 food/restaurant experiences and why?
Whenever I travel I always try to seek out the local and authentic specialties and foods of the area. I always visit the local markets when I travel. It is hard to just pick three great food experiences, but here it goes: Cracking open Maryland blue crabs spread on newspaper in Washington DC, feasting on seafood at a marisquería in Valencia, and eating in the garden under the chestnut trees at my mother-in-law’s house in the Hungarian countryside (with some nice Hungarian wine, of course).

8. Which food/restaurant concept would you like to share with us?
One thing that everyone who comes to Budapest should experience is eating at an étkezde (also called kifozde). For the traveler seeking authenticity and a true slice of Budapest life, these places are the jackpot. There are small eateries, usually only open for lunch, with absolutely no frills. They serve traditional Hungarain food, and a meal won’t cost more than five or six euros.

9. Any comments you want to share with us?
I’d like to persuade everyone to come visit Hungary. Allow at least several days for exploring Budapest, and then head to the countryside to check out the wine regions. Tokaj is my personal favourite, with gorgeous scenery, Medieval cellars that stretch back for kilometres, and delicious wine. What most people don’t realize is that Tokaj produces more dry wine than sweet, and the native varietals (like furmint and hárslevelu) are definitely worth trying. For reds, Szekszárd is a great place to visit, and of course Villány is the best-known red wine region. Budapest has an ever-better dining scene, many market halls, traditional coffee houses, and quirky bars.