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Munch goes to Jozsa Corner
Friday, March 30, 2001 By Munch
Long ago, gypsying through Hazelwood, Munch was drawn by the charms of the restaurant Jozsa Corner, but sadly it was closed that day.
Jozsa Corner is at 4800 Second Ave. in Hazelwood and all foods are available for take-out. Hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays by appointment. For information, call 412-422-1886.
Munch spit into his/her palm, clapped his/her hands together and vowed to the heavens, "I will return to Jozsa Corner some day!"
Munch munched elsewhere. Years passed.
Last week, Munch had a hankering for chicken paprikas. MOM (mother of Munch, keeper of a top-secret paprikas recipe) refused to prepare paprikas on demand for her oversize Munchkin. Munch overheard a traffic report that mentioned Second Avenue. It was chilly and raining. Munch's stomach growled. Planets aligned. Munch remembered Jozsa Corner.
Rare serendipity! Munch knew to act immediately.
MOM tucked away her dumplings, arranged her face into a supercilious expression and away they went.
Jozsa Corner has been a Hungarian haven in Hazelwood since 1988, founded to be an eatery, arts center and meeting place for the Hungarian community. The gregarious proprietor, Alexander Jozsa Bodnar, made even us Munches of non-Central European ancestry very welcome.
"So, you have come to the little Hungarian restaurant tonight!" he boomed, leading us into the brick dining room, which is hung with shelves full of Central European handiwork: lace, vases, plates, paintings. It is a very cozy, intimate room, and it feels like being in Alexander's home.
To leave Jozsa Corner without bantering a bit with Alexander would be to miss out on good company. He sat down with us. He told us he prepares his culinary specialties as they do in northern Hungary, in the region of the Carpathian Mountains. He told us of his young daughter, his gentleman's farm years ago, his plans for second-floor banquet space. He told us how to make blood sausages.
Alexander also told MOM she had a beautiful complexion, just to butter her up.
Then he brought on the food.
We began with a superb homemade soup with pork and fresh vegetables ($1.50). Next were small servings of tangy red cabbage salad and langos ($1.50), a Hungarian fire bread, which is flat, round, crispy and sprinkled with garlic and parsley (or, as a dessert, with cinnamon and powdered sugar).
The langos is also used in several manly and wonderful-sounding sandwiches: kolbasz langos (a kielbasa-like homemade sausage and cheese, $3.75), AJB Splash (beef hortobagyi with cheese, $3.50) and the AJB Special (sauteed peppers, onions, eggs, kolbasz and cheese, $6.50). Munch's new vow is to wrap his/her mouth around one of these. Soon.
As a main course, Alexander brought us small platters ($15) heaped with Transylvanian Gulyas, sour cream, hearty rye bread and, much to MOM's competitive delight, Chicken Paprikas. The gulyas (or, as MOM's Betty Crocker cookbook spells the Americanized version, "goulash"), was thick with pork and tangy cabbage. The chicken paprikas, slightly spicy, slightly sweet, was tender enough to slide off the bones. It was served over short, chewy nokedli: spaetzle-like dumplings the length of a thumb joint.
For Munch, the meal provided epiphany: goulash is delicious and need not contain ground beef and Creamette macaroni. For MOM, it was concession: Chicken paprikas that is not made from her recipe can taste wonderful. Even though we were stuffed to the hilt, for dessert Alexander brought us palacsinta, warm crepes filled with apricot, topped with whipped cream and dusted with cinnamon ($1.50). To say that they were splendid is not complimentary enough; they were transcendental.
Jozsa's Corner epitomizes the rare Munch trinity: delicious, charming and inexpensive. Alexander is a gracious and political host who, we discovered, kept the restaurant open an extra hour just to serve Munch and MOM.
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