Country of Carnivores

If you don't want to eat a pastry, it can be tough to find a quick breakfast on the streets of Budapest - especially around the increasingly ritzy Andrassy út.

Budacast says, "A little meat can be good to eat."

Prima Pék bakery

I'd only had coffee and two mandarin oranges before my sales meeting, which went well. But after the excitement and stress had worn off, I was starving.

So, I was going to do the pastry thing, hoping to find something with a smidgen of nutritional value aside from the sugar and empty carbohydrates.

"Prima Pék" is a Hungarian bakery chain, which is decent. I looked in the case, however, to see pastries that looked dubiously shiny and full of air.

So I waited for a minute, stopped and spied my prey: a rántott hús sandwich - a fresh sesame seed bun stuffed with a substantial slab of fried meat, mayonnaise and cucumber. You can find the classic rántott hús sandwich in a very airy "zsemle" (bun) at train stations all over Hungary.

While it probably was not the healthiest breakfast, at least it was tasty and included some protein. I washed it down with an orange juice.

It cost me Huf 620.