Hi, chefkim68, I just got back from Budapest a few weeks ago and loved it! I'm older than you by about 12 to 13 years, but I'm also single and travel solo most of the time. Let me say that the food in Budapest was wonderful! One restaurant that I especially recommend is called Goli. The head chef is from Tel Aviv, and it has some of the best Mediterranean food I've ever eaten. I found it on the Michelin website, and it's really starting to make a name for itself. It's small, so you definitely need a reservation. https://www.goli.hu It's open for both lunch and dinner.
Another place I really enjoyed was Két Szerecsen, which I found via Time Out. And it was wonderful. I had a very tasty dish called Mézes Mustáros Csirkesaláta, which was a salad with slices of chicken and avocado in a honey mustard sauce with bacon and cherry tomatoes. It was delicious and the rest of their menu looked fantastic. I wish I would've had time to go back.
I stayed at the Medos hotel, which I really liked. The price was right (I paid about $108 per night with breakfast included), and it was very convenient to restaurants, sights and shops, and also very convenient to trams and the Metro. The rooms were really large, too which was nice. The Odeon Metro station was just 2 blocks away.
But if you're looking for an apartment or a hotel, you might want to check on Booking.com. You can filter it to get the requirements you want; and ask that it just pull up options that are available for your dates. It should hopefully come up with some suggestions for you. After you find one, I would suggest looking to see if you can book directly because many times it's cheaper. Sometimes it's not, though, or sometimes you can't. Some establishments just want someone else to handle the booking for them.
There were many food booths in the Great Market Hall that I went to (stay on the first floor for the food options).
In terms of sightseeing, I would recommend touring Parliament. I unfortunately did not get a chance to because it was closed the day I had my ticket since Parliament was in session, but the building is just magnificent and huge. The Basilica of St. Stephen is also worth a visit. It is just gorgeous on the inside and outside.
And I really loved Matthias Church on the Buda side. It was absolutely stunning and probably one of the prettiest churches I've ever been in. Other than that, I mostly just walked around and looked at the incredible architecture, parks, greenery, flowers, and so on. I had such a wonderful time in Budapest and I can't wait to go back.
One more thing: if you like opera, I highly recommend finding out what's playing at the opera and buying a ticket for it if you can. The Hungarian State Opera is a beautiful building, and seeing Turandot there was a fantastic experience. I just loved it. I used to work in opera, so I'm very picky, and this was a phenomenal production. So, I will definitely be going back there on my next trip. And of course, there are other venues in town such as the Liszt Academy which has any wonderful productions and performances.
