Eat and Let Live.

(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 1

Re-visiting my Winter 2007 food journey to Istanbul, here on Posterous. Be sure to check out all parts. Enjoy:

First breakfast in Istanbul. This famous little cafe located right along the Bosporus...

..next to the Bebek Mosque called Bebek Cafe is famous for.. well.. just being a cafe. At a time when coffee houses boast on about their smoked salmon salads and duck confit, this landmark shop has been known to serve the bare minimum of turkish black tea, turkish coffee, sage tea and a couple of pastry items, and do it really well. Here, it's easy to spot some celebrities sip tea next to any Joe Schmoe.

I start my day with some Pogaca, a savory pastry filled with feta cheese and covered with toasted sesame seeds. It's crusty outside and soft and buttery inside.

Of course hot, tart black tea is the best accompaniment.

That night I visit "Dukkan", which is known to be one of the best steak houses (if not the best) located in one of the worst slums located in the European side of the city, Kucuk Armutlu. The concept is genius: This is a butcher shop where you can pick your meat and have it simply grilled and have it inside the shop with a giant bowl of salad and some Argentinian wine. The owner, Emre Mermerci, is known to have traveled and lived in the US and Argentina for years to learn the best tricks about a proper steak.

...and smoked beef proscuitto.

Here we see a medium-rare Ribeye in close action..

...and his beef aging quarters are impressive as well.

That same night we skip dessert and decided to head down to what I consider the best of what might be translated as a 'pudding house'. This concept of "Muhallebici" is one of those great traditions most Turkish people take for granted. This is where some great traditional Turkish desserts are served until late night (well into the morning) and some simple dishes such as Pilav with roast chicken and chicken noodle soup are also served. (We had a sampling of both before our desserts. We decide to share "Keskul", a traditional pudding made out of an almond base and milk. It's fragrant, rich and often topped with ground pistachios and coconut. If you're a metabolism-punishing freak, or a suicidal diabetic, you can also add a scoop of sweet cream ice cream on top. (we did.) The rest of the different desserts are too many to go into detail here, but I can tell you that one pudding includes strands of chicken breast as the main ingredient, and another is enjoyed with spoonfuls of rose water. An adventurous bunch of late night eaters are these Turks.

A couple of days later we make a trip to Konyali, which is one of the best traditional Turkish / Ottoman kitchens in Istanbul. It's somewhat pricey, but the extensive menu of Otto-Turko specialties remain the same as they were 60 years ago in this establishment.

Fresh 'pide' bread (yeastless puffy bread) is served with some rosemary-marinated olives and light olive oil whether you want it or not.

We order some Turkish appetizer classics: "Arnavut Cigeri,"

chunks of lamb's liver covered with flour, salt and pepper and then flash fried, then traditionally served with red onions marinated with sumac and parsley.

We also get Fennel Root braised with chunks of lamb and dill.
When eaten slightly warm, this is heaven with a river of olive oil running through it.

We of course had to try "Ic Pilavi," which has hundreds of variations in Turkey, but all symbolize abundance and festivity. It is a pilaf heavily spiced with black pepper and cinnamon, which then is slightly sweetened with caramelized onions, raisins and pinenuts. It's rich, heavy, and.. just plain GOOD. Most versions also include at least five different kinds of meat not excluding chicken liver, rooster and turkey.

My main dish arrives: Hunkar Begendi.

It is a traditional ottoman dish which consists of roasted eggplants cooked with butter, aged cheeses and black pepper, and then topped with braised lamb stew. Some sort of lamb gravy tops this dish although my grandmother would disagree with that particular addition. If you could have this for breakfast, you would save two meals' worth of money. You could imagine why.

We finish our modest meal with some truly amazing turkish coffee, served with plain turkish delight in a thick brass cup . This particular cup of turkish coffee was one of the best i've ever had, complete with espresso-like tiger stripes and 'telve,' powder-fine coffee grounds hitting your tongue every sip. If drip were wind-powered, this cup was nuclear.

Glorious Gourmet Gluttony - Turkey, Winter 2007 Part 2

(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 2

Lunch at grandmother's: She starts us off with some red lentil soup. I think it's enriched with some polenta and of course, butter, so half a cup is already a substantial start. I add a good deal of hot pepper flakes.

Fava: A simple, yet a-hard-to-get-it-right sort of dish that is made with pureed fava beans, lots of olive oil and dill.

It's dense and very creamy.

Roughly chopped shepher's salad,

followed by olive-oil braised artichoke hearts.

Pre-empting the possibility that we might be sinning if the main dish didn't include some sort of meat, we dig into this version of Orman Kebabi,

which is chunks of tender lamb roasted with caramelized pearl onions, tomato, button mushrooms and then topped with aged cheese and lots of oregano. Did I mention...

that this was also served with some tomato-rice pilaf?)

AND some braised vegetable medley"?

A few days later I visited one of my favorite bakery / coffee shops in Istanbul with my friend Ali Riza, and his girlfriend Itir. The shop is called Beyaz Firin (White Oven). It's a bakery with overwhelming choice where you can order it off the shelf and have yourself a 3000 calorie breakfast almost instantly.

We shared: Roasted Egglplant and chicken quiche,

Pogaca with Dill (A pouch-like pastry filled with local feta cheese),

and a "mini-kol-boregi" Which is a personal-sized flake-pastry-pie filled with ground meat and onions and then topped with sesame seeds. I think the amount of butter that goes into making one of these is kept secret. It's better that way.

We finished our breakfast off with some almond and pistachio cookies

and of course,

...tea.

Glorious Gourmet Gluttony - Turkey, Winter 2007 Part 3

(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 3

A day later I found myself waiting for a friend in the damp cold of Taksim. When I realized I was next to one of my favorite restaurants from my childhood, "KONAK", I decided to get..

..some Lahmacun to go. It's officially one of my favorite things to eat: Almost wafer thin crust topped with onions, minced lamb meat, tomatoes and pepper flakes and parsley, which is then flash-baked in a coal oven. I finished this particular one in under 32 seconds.

That same night my friend Ali promises me some amazing culinary experience and takes me to the backstreets of Taksim to find this hole-in-the-wall restaurant called 'Umut Ocakbasi".

"Ocakbasi" is a certain kind of kebab-house where you can sit right in front of the grill where they prepare all the dishes AND have a nice chat with the 'grillmaster' . It's kind of like a Japanese Hibachi grill experience, except it's more of a 'working-man's-feast' sort of a setting.
The decor sublime in its rinkydinkycité.

The grillmaster exudes..umm... grilling mastery...

ome 'mezes' arrive without us asking for them, always a good sign. The fluorescent lighting fails to make the food look bad.

Creamy feta cheese with cucumbers and tomatoes,

Chopped, coal-roasted onions topped with olive oil and hot peppers,

Fire-roasted eggplant salad,

Cacik (thick yogurt, cucumbers, and lots of mint),

Onion salad with sumac and parsley,

And "Ezme", which is a freshly made tomato paste with onions, parsley and olive oil

Cop sis arrives.

It's small bits of lamb chunks skewered with giant metal rods and quickly grilled for a minute and traditionally eaten with lavash bread and lots of cumin. A few rods are also supposed to feature chunks of lamb liver, but our waiter informed us that we were too late for that days fresh delivery of liver.

We finish the meal off with Adana kebap. Knife-minced sheep meat is spiced with peppers and quickly grilled over charcoal. The smoky gamey goodness of this classic dish is unexplainable in words, on a blog, facebook, or anywhere else where you're not actually eating this thing.

Glorious Gourmet Gluttony - Turkey, Winter 2007 Part 4 (Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 4

Next day, more meat. This is the FIRST establishment I can remember visiting as a child with my mother and my grandmother...

It's amazing to see that the simple combination of grilled meatballs...

...

...Piyaz (white bean salad with onions, lettuce and carrots dressed with oilve oil and vinegar) ...

and Ayran, the creamy yogurt drink not unlike a salty-lassi...

..has not changed since the first day I visited there as a 4 year old.
Of course the lack of anything interesting to look at in the interior only makes me love this kofte-shop even more.

A day later my family and I were invited to our old family friends' house for dinner. It was designed as an early new-years dinner, so the menu was conducive to long hours of eating, drinking and chatting.

Stuffed grape leaves,...

...home made hummus drizzled with melted, peppered butter...

...Another recipe for "Fava"...

...this time topped with red onions and parsley...

Just as we thought we were done eating, our host Afife whips out this giant roasted turkey..

..and serves it with almond-pilav and a ..

..."I-ve-never-eaten-anything-like-this" good chutney made with onions, raisins and dates...

As we approach the sub-35bpm heartrates, we finish the meal off with perhaps one of the most traditional Turkish desserts called "Asure". I have seen so many variations that to this day I am not sure about what it is at this point, but it tends to have a pretty thick pudding component that is then topped with all kinds of grains, nuts, fresh fruits, candied fruits and spices. Ever wonder how Sultans kept their Harems in check? This is it.

Glorious Gourmet Gluttony - Turkey, Winter 2007 Part 5

(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 5

A couple of days later, having skipped breakfast (not intentionally) I decided to go to this shop that i've been meaning to visit for a couple of years now. It's a kind of rinky-dink cafe that is famous for its "Doner,". Doner is hundreds of layers of lamb meat fire-roasted and thinly sliced in leaves as it grills crispy outside. Yes, it is like a Gyro, yet is is NOTHING like a Gyro. Gyro is poison. Doner, my friends, is the culinary pinnacle of meat preparation.

We order it over rice, topped it with hot pepper flakes, and the shop makes us happy with a full complimentary plate of pickled cucumbers, and tomatoes. Freshly baked bread accompanies.

During our half day excursion into the old city with our dear family friend Barbaros, A.K.A. Abudis, (a separate visual essay of this excursion should be available here soon) we let him lead us into culinary bliss with his deep knowledge of the city.

He stops a street vendor and gets us a couple of 'simit'. It's the traditional turkish pretzel made with yeast-less dough covered with toasted sesame seeds and baked in a stone oven. It is THE quintessential street food in Istanbul, and Barbaros manages to find the most amazing one i've ever had.

The vendor tells me that he's been baking his own simit with the same recipe since 1974. I briefly want him to be my brother.

It's crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside.

Barbaros then takes us to his 'secret' shop near the Grand Bazaar where all kinds of hard-to-find Turkish foods can be found. He promises us to find the best PASTIRMA we ever had.

Pastirma is an expensive loin of lamb covered with a spice-paste of garlic, paprika, and some other unknown spices known as Cemen, and then dry-cured by hanging. It is somewhat similar to breasola, yet again, Breasola is no Pastirma.

See that chunk of fat that marbles the loin?

It instantly melts away as it touches your mouth .

...

On our way, we come across a vendor selling roasted chestnuts.

We try a few.

Before our gastronomical finale of the day, we decide to take a tea break. Both my brother and Barbaros confirm from experience that this is the best tea you can get around the old city.

And here it is: KOKOREC

Even though i have written about this peculiar yet delicious street food in another album, experiencing it this time at this particular shop made me realize how little i knew about good kokorec .

To recap: Kokorec is cleaned lamb intestines rolled around a rod, slowly charcoal roasted

and than chopped to order with pepper flakes, lots of salt and oregano

and than chopped to order with pepper flakes, lots of salt and oregano

...

...

...

and then served inside a quarter loaf of crusty turkish bread.

...

This particular shop named "imparator" (translated: Emperor) makes the best kokorec...

...and one little trick i learned while i was watching the guy roast is that every few minutes the coal fire is sprinkled with pinches of oregano so the oregano smoke permeates the meat. That, my friends, could be the meaning of life for that particular moment. ( and i am pretty sure it was). Bourdain would pay me to smell my breath at this point.

No trip is finished without dessert, so my brother and I visit this little sweets-shop that i've been wanting to visit for a while.

It's a tiny shop where they've been making only a few classic turkish desserts...

...since 1963.

I try "Sobiyet",

...a dessert similar to Baklava except it's a little lighter, more elongated but has a somewhat creamier feel than Baklava.

After a few days of mediocre eating, we pick it up again:
We have breakfast at "Kale" (means 'castle'), which is located along the Bosporus, right under the Rumeli Hisari, the fortress Fatih the Conqueror built during the siege of Constantinople in 1450 in a matter of weeks.

A big basket of cookies, rolls, and breads arrives.

I choose to go with the traditional egg dish named "Menemen" . I decide to have the simplest version made with eggs, tomatoes and green peppers.

Cig Borek: A large puff pastry filled with ground beef, and then flash fried until the meat is brown.

The next day we visit the ever-so-popular cafe in Bebek named Lucca, and had a late lunch:

We collectively shared a smoked salmon salad,

filet-mignon with melted blue cheese potato gratin,

and papardelle with braised duck ragu.

That night, the sweet tooth was in effect, so we went to Brasserie Burc, which is home to some of the best profiterole in existence. And then of course tea, tea and more tea.