It\u2019s cold outside, finally, and a Hungarian goulash is the warming antidote.<\/p>\n
Monika\u2019s European Kitchen, helmed by husband-and-wife team Chad and Monika Belson, is serving slow-cooked European-style soul food in Largo. Stews, soups and housemade sausages are on the menu. Monika is from Budapest, Hungary, and Chad has Polish and Belarusian roots. Together they are bringing the food of their childhoods to Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
The pal\u00f3c soup is made with a base of caramelized onions and in-house smoked ham, pork and sausage, then cooked with green beans, root vegetables and fresh pork and finished with sour cream, herbs and small potato dumplings with crispy bacon. It is a dish that takes all day to come together.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything we do is low and slow,\u201d Chad Belson said. \u201cSo that\u2019s today\u2019s project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monika\u2019s opened late in November in the former German restaurant J\u00e4gerst\u00fcble at 1995 E. Bay Drive, Largo. It shares a kitchen with Hirs Sausage Market next door. This makes for a unique built-in infrastructure that you typically only have at traditional sausage houses and lauded barbecue joints. All the smoked meats and sausages Monika\u2019s uses, and they use them liberally, come from Hirs, Belson said.<\/p>\n
Some of J\u00e4gerst\u00fcble\u2019s dishes remain on Monika\u2019s menu. And the previous owners take an active role in their quality control and still make the German-style sausages at Hirs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe original owners are very much consultants for us, they taste test things for us,\u201d Belson said. \u201cThey want to see us succeed, which is very kind of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
A confectioner originally by trade, Monika is the executive chef, and Chad helps in the kitchen. After being open just over a month, they have added a couple of dishes to their opening menu, the pal\u00f3c soup and a German rouladen, in which thin-sliced beef is rolled with mustard, onions and pickles and braised in a brown gravy with red wine. Pierogies and polish-style potato latkes from Belson\u2019s grandmother\u2019s recipes will be coming in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to us to maintain these family recipes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is Eastern-European soul food.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve encountered more Hungarians and Europeans in the area than they expected, Belson said.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Monika) came here with a hundred dollars in her pocket,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a story that is shared by a lot of people, and it is the American dream.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s cold outside, finally, and a Hungarian goulash is the warming antidote. Monika\u2019s European Kitchen, helmed by husband-and-wife…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4085,67231,596,687,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-137782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-largo","9":"tag-monika","10":"tag-pinellas-county","11":"tag-restaurants","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}