It's places like Balaton that makes me rave about Cleveland dining. I've never tried Hungarian, Central European cuisine before. So one night, my girlfriend and I wanted to try a new place and after reading all the good reviews about Balaton, we decided to layer up and head out in the snow.
The restaurant is located in Shaker Square, where as you know is pretty developed and have a number of places to grab dinner and drinks. Balaton is located on the Northwest quadrant.
From recommendations on Yelp, we shared a cucumber salad and an order of the Wiener Schnitzel. I really really wanted to try the stuffed cabbage and the homemade potato pancakes, but I knew this place serve huge portions and the extra appetizers would have been too much.
The Cucumber salad was good. Somewhat sour and tangy, but has a good crunch and complemented our main dish really well. The Wiener Schnitzel was amazing. It really does have a feel of a home cooked meal. The dish is a generous veal-cutlet in traditional batter, then fried perfectly, and served with a side of applesauce, and speatzels. Even though we split the dish, it was still two full portions for each of us.
At the end, I had just enough room for the cafe expresso and Dobosh Torte. It's true what one reviewer said "it'll be stupid to come here and not order the Dobosh Torte" - eight layers of rich cake, with seven layers of smooth creamy chocolate, covered with hard-caramel. Holla !!