Bars

Bars

Do go to some bars. It's where you pick up the Budapest-feeling. There is a new wave of bars around the city that are entirely unique and a lot of fun, they are called 'romkocsma', literally ruin bar. People rent rundown places or sometimes even yards and stuff it full of second-hand chairs, tables, weird, interesting items that are sometimes thematic sometimes random, creating this surreal, nostalgic, incredibly fun atmosphere, and run it as a bar.

For example, you can sit in an old car and sip your beer, or in half a bathtub, and often these places have many rooms, each with a different collection of items, so you can go explore a little bit of history. Over a few years dozens of these popped up all over, and now they have a hierarchy, there are fancier ones, there are not so fancy ones, but they are all fun. From the outside they look like typical student places, but that does not deter other people usually, like my parents.
If there's one thing that is unique in the Budapest night life, it's these places. They are kind of "soft bars", they serve tea, coffee, pastries, cocktails, hard drinks are rare, but nevertheless, I'd go before about ten o'clock.
Here's a list of these with maps: http://romkocsmak.hu/index.php?id=romkocsmak_lead
I can personally vouch for Szimpla and Instant - during the day, anyway :).