The band, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, hails from Albuquerque. Lately, they've been living and performing in Budapest. But recently, the group had an unusual gig -- as the house band for a Romanian restaurant in London. The World's Hugo Boothby took in the show -- and a meal -- and sent us this Global Hit.

Music in restaurants can be a hit or miss affair. But, once in a while if you're lucky the house band is the best thing on the menu. Tonight in this Romanian restaurant, the main course is A Hawk and a Hacksaw. The band's songwriter and accordion player is Jeremy Barnes.

BARNES: "Oh I think it's a great gig, I despise playing in rock clubs. It's so nice to be somewhere with a nice atmosphere, and you know we get Romanian beer and we are going to eat some sort of Romanian meat dish even though we are vegetarians"

A Hawk and a Hacksaw draw on musical influences from across Eastern Europe, but it was Romanian music that first got Jeremy excited.

BARNES: "I was living in the Ukrainian village of Chicago and all my neighbours where Ukrainian, Polish or Romanian and I found some old Romanian recordings at a thrift store and I bought them simply because of the cover and then when I put them on it was a shock how beautiful it was, from then on I was hooked"
As he listened to more music from Eastern Europe, Jeremy began to understand that musical borders can be very porous there.

BARNES: "Once you start exploring and looking around and discovering what things sound like in Romania and Hungary and the fact that a big part of Romania used to be Hungary and all the Hungarians secretly wish and want it back, the borders are not set in stone."

The band's latest CD is called the Hun Hangar Ensemble EP. This track -- Vajdaszentivany -- is named after a village in Transylvania.

The song's played on a Cymbalom, a Hungarian stringed percussion instrument that looks a bit like the inside of a grand piano.

BARNES: "It's actually an ancestor of the Piano. It looks like it's just a big table with strings stretched across it. And Balazs, or the musician plays it with sticks so instead of the mechanical section of the Piano you just hit it with sticks. It takes a lot of skill to be able to be able to hit the right notes and Balazs doesn't really make any mistakes which always baffles me I don't know how he does it."

Ungar Balazs is one of the Hungarian musicians who've joined A Hawk and a Hacksaw on their new CD. He's playing tonight at the Romanian restaurant.

So if you're sitting down to enjoy a nice Romanian dinner what's the best song to listen to?

BARNES: "I would say something slow to let the digestion takes it's course. Some of our songs are a little bit fast to eat to, better for dancing. The first song on the EP is a song that Heather wrote. It's called Kiraly Siratas and um yeah I think this is probably the best song to digest to."
For The World, I'm Hugo Boothby in London.