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Good Taste

Hungarian rhapsody You can spend a happy hour - or an entire evening - working through V Street's deeply satisfying bar menu of vegan street food; riffs on an Argentine hot dog (with charred carrot playing the dog), chunky Peruvian fries (livened with aji

The Langos, which looks like a pizza, with one slice removed taken at V Street.  ( RON CORTES / staff Photographer }
The Langos, which looks like a pizza, with one slice removed taken at V Street. ( RON CORTES / staff Photographer }Read more

You can spend a happy hour - or an entire evening - working through V Street's deeply satisfying bar menu of vegan street food; riffs on an Argentine hot dog (with charred carrot playing the dog), chunky Peruvian fries (livened with aji amarillo), or fiery dan dan noodles twirled over a soothing mushroom.

But the showstopper from chef Rich Landau at this new Rittenhouse Square sibling of the acclaimed Vedge (he runs it with his wife, Kate Jacoby) is a play on a humble Hungarian street food called langos (LAHN-gosh).

In Budapest or on Lake Balaton, you can find endless varieties of it - a boiled-potato fry bread topped with sour cream and various cheeses, cabbage, mushroom, ham, or sweets.

Landau says this is the one street food whose character he did not really try to reinvent. But he has certainly made the so-called Hungarian pizza's accent more refined, even sophisticated.

The fry bread is crisped, and blessedly lacking in the oiliness that can sink the original. And the top is spread as a bagel might be with a schmear of gently desalted sauerkraut, blended into a remoulade dotted with meaty dollops of smoked chioggia beets.

The effect is far, far beyond ordinary pizza, funnel cake, or bagel - the wedges of warm, almost delicate potato bread given a cool sheen by the kraut spread, a whiff of Budapest from the dusting of fresh dill, and a rich, tartare-like chew, compliments of the smoky, earthy, yet surprisingly ethereal beets.

- Rick Nichols

Langos, $9, V Street, 126 S. 19th St., www.vstreetfood.com.