Tag: Turkish food

  • Katie Parla’s Istanbul

    Katie Parla’s Istanbul

    By Parla Food Ltd

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    Description

    Getting to the heart of Istanbul’s rich and varied cuisine can be a tall order, but food journalist Katie Parla has spent years helping visitors and locals alike discover the city’s dining culture. Katie Parla’s Istanbul lets visitors experience the city like the author, who seeks out the intense sights, sounds and flavors of one of the world’s greatest food cities. If you are looking for the best grilled meats and offal, outstanding mezes, historic sweet shops and off the beaten track markets, this is your app. If you are satisfied eating mediocre meals steps from top tourist attractions, we suggest you look elsewhere.

    Key features:

    •Once downloaded, the content and maps are available offline.

    •GPS automatically finds venues nearby.

    •The advanced search filter allows you to sort by category, distance and budget range.

    •Simple to share venues with friends via email, Facebook & Twitter.

    •Become the critic and save favorite venues to the “My Picks” category.

    •Browse “Katie’s Picks” for the best of the best.

    •Get the latest Istanbul posts from Parla Food

    About the author:

    Katie Parla has a master’s degree in Food Studies in Italian Gastronomic Culture from the Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata” and a sommelier certificate from the Federazione Italiana Sommelier Albergatori Ristoratori. She is the author of National Geographic’s “Walking Rome”, the blog Parla Food, and the app Katie Parla’s Rome. Her food criticism and travel writing regularly appear in the New York Times. She lectures on food, beverage and sustainability topics for universities in Europe and the US.

    via Katie Parla’s Istanbul for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad on the iTunes App Store.

  • Turkey’s best kebab restaurants

    Turkey’s best kebab restaurants

    Because there are two types of meat in this world — Turkish kebabs and everything else

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    By Talya Arditi, for CNN

    Put any kind of meat on a stick and roast it over a flame and it immediately becomes food fit for gods.

    No country understands this sacred rule of seared meat like Turkey.

    Turkish kebabs are the incarnation of the meat lover’s most exotic fantasies, with grilled lamb, beef and chicken as skewer MVPs.

    Most kebab restaurants also have a long list of Turkish starters called meze that are as delicious as the main dishes.

    Turkey’s best alcoholic complement for all that meat is rakı — an aniseed-flavored drink that’s often diluted with water and chilled with ice. Frothy, yogurt-based ayran is a great non-alcoholic complement to heavy dishes.

    But who are we kidding — you just want the meat. Here’s where to get it in Turkey.

    Hamdi Restaurant, Istanbul

    Hamdi Restaurant in Istanbul offers extraordinary views of the Golden Horn.
    Located just steps from the Egyptian Bazaar in Eminönü, Hamdi Restaurant isn’t just a stop on the way to the bazaar but a destination itself.

    Specializing in southeastern cuisines, the venue affords a magnificent view of the Golden Horn, the Galata Tower and Eminönü.

    Since window-side tables are in high demand, making a reservation in advance is highly recommended.

    A signature dish is the testi kebabı. Cooked over charcoal in a clay jug covered with dough for three to four hours, the dish is made with veal, tomatoes, onions, garlic, pepper, oregano, tomato paste and butter.

    It’s quite a ceremony to watch this extraordinary dish being served — waiters break the jug in front of you to reveal the meal inside.

    Another must is the haşhaş kebabı made with minced veal and lamb, and mixed with capsicum, salt and pepper.

    Tahmis Caddesi, Kalçın Sokak Number 17, Eminönü, Istanbul; +90 212 528 03 90; approximately $15 for a main dishwww.hamdi.com.tr

    Kebapçı Halil Usta and İmam Çağdaş, Gaziantep

    Halil Usta’s küşleme attracts crowds.

    Two kebab restaurants reign supreme in the southeastern city of Gaziantep: Kebapçı Halil Usta and İmam Çağdaş.

    Open since 1972, Halil Usta is a humble establishment with a dedicated following.

    Its tender meat has made such a name over the years that this lunch-only restaurant runs out of meat by 3 p.m. almost every day.

    Most notable is küşleme, a velvety soft lamb kebab served in copper pots. Although a side dish, the salad (greens, tomatoes, mint, thyme, red pepper, pomegranate molasses and spices) can stand proudly on its own.

    İmam Çağdaş is one of the best kebab restaurants in Gaziantep.Unlike Halil Usta, İmam Çağdaş is large and modern.

    Standout dishes include Ali Nazik, lamb served on top of a bed of char-grilled yogurt-eggplant purée, and Altı Ezmeli Tike Kebabı, a stew-like kebab made with lamb served on top of a tomato and pepper mash.

    The restaurant’s flaky, pistachio-filled baklava is as celebrated as its kebabs.

    Kebapçı Halil Usta, Karşıyaka Semti, Gaziantep Mozaik Müzesi Arkası, Tekel Caddesi, Öcükoğlu Sokak, Şehitkamil/Gaziantep; +90 342 323 16 16; approximately $7 for a main dish;www.kebapcihalilusta.com

    İmam Çağdaş, Eski Hal Civarı, Uzun Çarşı Number 49, Şahinbey/Gaziantep; +90 342 231 26 78; approximately $10 for a main dishwww.imamcagdas.com

    Onbaşılar, Adana

    Onbaşılar has beautiful lake views.Adana kebap is one of the most famous of kebabs — visitors should try to savor it in its hometown.

    Grilled over charcoal, this spicy, minced-lamb kebab is best enjoyed here alongside charred tomatoes, peppers and onions with sumac and lavaş (thin flatbread).

    A regional drink called şalgam, made with fermented pickled carrot juice, is good alongside it, while the kadayıf, a pistachio-filled shredded pastry in syrup, is the best choice for dessert.

    Recommended: a table with a view of the Seyhan Lake.

    Onbaşılar, Karslı Mahallesi, 82046 Sokak Number 3, Çukurova/Adana; +90 322 215 00 00; approximately $8 for a main dishwww.onbasilar.com.tr

    Koç Cağ Kebabı in Erzurum

    Cağ Kebabı is an Erzurum specialty best enjoyed at Koç Cağ Kebabı.
    The eastern city of Erzurum is home to Koç Cağ Kebabı, a modest eatery where the unique cağ kebabı originated.

    Cağ kebabı is made of lamb marinated with onions, salt and pepper for 12 hours and then placed on a large, horizontal skewer and cooked over a wood fire.

    The traditional way to eat this succulent meat is with your hands or wrapped in lavaş.

    Travelers who can’t make it to Erzurum can try Şehzade Cağ Kebabı in Sirkeci.

    Koç Cağ Kebabı, Kongre Caddesi, Kongre Binası Karşısı, Merkez/Erzurum; +90 442 213 45 47; approximately $5 for a main dishwww.cagkebap.com

    Şehzade Cağ Kebabı, Hocapaşa Sokak No.3/A, Sirkeci, Istanbul; approximately $8 for a main dish; +90 212 520 33 61

  • Beyond The Doner: Finding ‘Real’ Turkish Food In Istanbul

    Beyond The Doner: Finding ‘Real’ Turkish Food In Istanbul

    Krisanne Alcantara

    Reporter for AOL and The Huffington Post

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    Before going to Istanbul, I knew little about Turkish cuisine beyond doner kebabs and Turkish delight. Much like stereotypical “Australian food,” these misconceptions were uninformed and simplistic, yet not exactly horrible (lamb on a spit? What’s not to love?). Still, I figured my three-day trip to the heart of the Ottoman empire was a good opportunity to finally learn about authentic Turkish cuisine. That, and I watched Anthony Bourdain guzzle some kind of honey-drizzled cream thing on the Istanbul episode of “No Reservations” and decided I could no longer go on living without knowing such rapture.

    Turns out, I was not alone in my mission to find authentic and delicious Turkish food beyond the trusty doner. In fact, I discovered there was a whole, blessed blog dedicated to such a quest, aptly namedIstanbul Eats (now under the umbrella of the worldwide Culinary Backstreets). Run by two American expats living in Istanbul, dedicated to finding the city’s best off-the-beaten-path eateries, these bloggers also organized food tours, I discovered. How serendipitous.

    So one cold, rainy Saturday morning, I Google-mapped my way to the Spice Market in Istanbul’s Eminönü neighborhood, where I was to meet my tour guide, Angelis Nannos, and engage in some good old Southeastern European gastronomy. Angelis, I discovered, was a former civil engineer from Athens who quit life and moved to Turkey four years ago to eat and just generally chase happiness. He also had a blog named Angelis and the Istanbul and wore a bow tie. I trusted him immediately.

    The tour commenced with breakfast shopping, naturally. An infectiously jovial Angelis shepherded us down a narrow, bustling alley, where he made frequent stops for various foodstuffs: bread, three types of cheese, some salam (Turkish salami), a bag of olives. He encouraged us to sample from the mammoth-sized open containers of olives, ranging from pale green to blue-black. “It’s not like in Brooklyn, where you’re not allowed to pick up the food with your hands,” he said to me cheerily. “Here in Turkey, you can try before you buy!”

    Loot in hand, we stepped into a deserted arcade where we gathered around a makeshift breakfast table covered in newspaper. We tucked into our feast caveman-style, attacking fresh slabs of beyaz peynir (a mild, white cheese) and tulum peynir (a goat’s milk cheese ripened in a goatskin casing) with hunks of sesame-encrusted pretzels. Spicy salam was wrapped around plump olives and stuffed into still-warm bread. As we ate, chipper old Turkish men brought out cups of Turkish çay and plates of the honey-topped clotted cream I’d watched Bourdain scarf. Bal-kaymak was what this traditional Turkish breakfast dish was called, and it was creamy and rich and tart and sweet all at once. One bite, and I knew I could never look at my cornflakes the same way again.

    After breakfast, Angelis led us deeper into the less-frenetic markets of Küçük Pazar, where we continued our food worship: baklava, kokoreç (a sandwich prepared from chopped, slow-roasted lamb intestines, sweetbreads and offal), and mercimek çorbasi (steaming, red lentil soup peppered liberally with chili and mint). We paused briefly for pide at the shop of Haci Mehmet, a man who’d been making the crusty, cheese-filled flatbreads for 35 years. Tea was to follow, but not without stopping first at Altan Sekerleme, a tiny sweets store established in 1865, for rosewater-flavored lokum (Turkish delight). Cold but satiated, our small group huddled together by an abandoned Ottoman-era caravanserai to quaff soul-warming Turkish çay from hourglass-shaped glasses. Tea, I noticed, just like in many parts of Asia, was a staple with almost every Turkish meal and this was definitely alright with me.

    Our eating adventures were far from over, however. On our way from Eminönü to the neighborhood of Fatih (where I noticed the diminishing presence of women), we visited a hole-in-the-wall doner kebab spot frequented by locals. Yes, I was assured, doner is considered authentic Turkish cuisine. Although I’d never had doner like this in New York: tender, fatty lamb layered with perfectly charred vegetables. I was floored by how fresh everything tasted: all the “street meat” we’d eaten, the peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini. It was beyond farmer’s market fresh. It was grown-in-the-backyard fresh. I mentioned this to Angelis, and he smiled, amused.

    “All these guys here, they were doing ‘farm-to-table’ and ‘locavore’ long before it became fashionable,” he explained. “It’s the only thing they know, to cook the vegetables and produce they have available to them. They’ve been doing it this way for hundreds of years.”

    We washed down the doner with a creamy, tangy fermented millet drink called boza, then sat for the final meal of our six-hour tour: an exquisite büryan kebap (pit-roasted lamb). Içli köfte and perde pilav(a dumpling and rice dish) accompanied the main course — further evidence of Turkish cuisine’s strong Central Asian influences. I can’t say if it was the food or the company or the history and culture I’d soaked in, but I left the restaurant that day feeling rapturously full.

    I also left with a better understanding of Turkish cuisine. Though it varies across the country, the food I enjoyed in Istanbul was a bold fusion of Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean influences, adapted to indigenous ingredients. The vastness of the Ottoman Empire, which spanned three continents for almost 600 years, meant tasting layers of history in everything I ate. Turkey also has some of the most fresh, hearty street food in the world (my favorite was lacmacun, dough topped with mince and herbs, stuffed with vegetables and eaten like a burrito). I loved the meze style of eating; how breakfast was both piecemeal yet abundant (a plate of cheese, a bowl of olives, a dish of sliced sausage, some cucumber). Like Turkey itself, food was simple yet rich, like kaymak drizzled with honey and a steaming bowl ofmercimek çorbasi. Dried fruit subtly punctuated dishes in place of sugar; there was a lot of lamb and a lot of tea. And they liked cheese. Oh my word, these Turks liked their cheese.

    But what really struck me was the Turks’ obvious love for food in the most unobnoxious way: just this deep-rooted appreciation and respect for its colorful history. None of the Turks I met were “foodies,” they just loved and understood good, local food. In my three days in Istanbul, I barely scratched the surface of this fantastically vibrant food culture, which, happily, gives me reason to return. In the meantime, I found a place that sells kaymak in New York. And I’m not even going to lie. I’m still a sucker for a good, greasy doner.

  • Bean Soup – Kuru Fasulye

    Bean Soup – Kuru Fasulye

    “Bean Soup” aka “Kuru Fasulye” is one of the most traditional Turkish dish, wholesome and so delicious.

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    Whatever pasta is for Italians “bean soup” is same for Turks. The traditional recipe for Bean soup contains beef or lamb meat with small chunks , ground beef , sucuk or even pastrami. However we serve “bean soup” in A la Turca without meat to please our vegetarian customers as well. 🙂

    It’s very common to serve “bean soup” with “buttered rice” in Turkey

    Why don’t you stop by and try this delicious Turkish beauty today ?

  • Foreign Grocery Friday: The Simit Bread of Turkey

    Foreign Grocery Friday: The Simit Bread of Turkey

    Foreign Grocery Friday: The Simit Bread of Turkey

    Where: Istanbul, Turkey

    When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we’d never find anywhere else. So we’re trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we’ll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

    Forget bagels. Let’s talk about the Simit. These baked rounds of dough are covered in molasses and sesame seeds and, though they look more than a little bit like pretzels, have a flavor all their own. First-time visitors will be dazzled by the Simit vendor balancing act of navigating crowded streets with a tower of Simits atop their head, while seasoned Istanbul travelers are like, “whatever.”

    The utility of the Simit in Turkey is similar to that of Chile’s Hallulla bread. It’s the cheapest of the cheap, you-can-count-on-it carbohydrate beloved by all walks of life, for meals at all times of the day. We’ve had it cut into bite-size pieces for breakfast nibbles, slathered with Nutella as an after dinner street snack, and wholly plain during a fit of hungry stomach grumbles.

    The Simit may not be a exclusive to Turkey, but the use of molasses sets Turkish Simits apart from those of the Balkans and Middle East.

    The taste: It’s chewy and yeasty, perfect for a hearty snack. The sesame seeds influence the flavor a bit too much, but that’s just how it is; who are we to complain about a centuries-old favorite? Still, a Simit goes very, very well with a Turkish tea sweetened with a lump or two of sugar.

    The price: We paid 1.50 Turkish Lira ($0.85) for a Simit with cheese outside both the Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar, so consider that the high end of prices.

    Where to find it: Are you in Istanbul? Are you outside, walking on the street or in a cafe? Chances are near 100% that you’re in range of a quick Simit break as they’re ubiquitous. Look for the vendors who balance a stack of them atop their heads.

    Cut and filled with spreadable cheese

    If you’d like to share some of your foreign grocery finds, we’d love love love to see them. Send ’em on over via email here and snack on, my friends.

    [Photos: Cynthia Drescher/Jaunted]

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  • Nazif’s Is Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

    Nazif’s Is Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

    Nazif’s Is Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

    Nazif’s Turkish Grill & Deli swings into action with olive oil, tomatoes, yogurt, sheep’s milk cheese, tea and more from its delicious Mediterranean crossroads cuisine.

    By Katharine Shilcutt Wednesday, Mar 6 2013

    See inside Nazif’s kitchen and cozy up to its massive wood-burning oven in our slideshow.

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    A sausage- and egg-stuffed pide is the Turkish version of a calzone, but better.

    Nazif’s Turkish Grill & Deli

    8821 Westheimer Road
    Houston, TX 77063

    Category: Restaurant > Turkish

     

    Baby lahmacun: $1.95

    Shepherd’s salad: $3.45

    Mixed appetizer plate: $7.95

    Sausage pide: $8.95

    Pideli köfte: $9.95

    Sunday brunch buffet: $14.95

    Baklava: $3.95

    The sound of tiny silver spoons against the gold-trimmed glass cups of tea on every table at Nazif’s was clinking across the room like dozens of wind chimes, the hum of dozens more conversations in Turkish purring underneath like the babble of a gentle river. Since opening in June, Nazif’s and its popular Sunday brunch have become the meeting place for Turkish expats and their families, who crowd into the restaurant starting at 10:30 a.m. and often stay through the afternoon, drinking cups of chai and dancing to the live music that bounces cheerfully off the cool tiles and high ceilings.

    My friend Jessica and I sat back from our plates, which were covered with half-moons of cucumbers and tomatoes jumbled together with salty cubes of white Turkish cheese — a basic Turkish breakfast — and warm piles of eggy menemen soaking up the olive oil from nearby mounds of red pepper- and eggplant-filled akuka, heavier dishes that are usually reserved for big affairs like Sunday brunch.

    “This is the point in the meal at which we’d have a cigarette or two,” Jessica said. “If we were back in Istanbul.” Although I don’t smoke, I enjoyed the idea of a mid-meal break and tried to picture Jessica’s life inTurkey, where she’d taught school for a year and a half before returning to her hometown of Houston.

    As we took a mid-meal break of our own, Jessica told me wistful stories of her daily life there through tales of food: waiters like those at Nazif’s who allowed you to linger at a cafe table over cups of chai as long as you liked; the color-saturated markets at the base of nearly every building, where vendors would send kilos of mushrooms in baskets on rope-based pulley systems up to apartment dwellers; the sensory pleasures of endless bushels of tomatoes sweeter than she’d ever found in Texas, of produce so fresh it was still caked with dirt; and simit hawkers roaming the streets balancing trays stacked high with sesame seed-topped rings of bread and crying out “Simitçi!” as they went.

    “They’re so good,” Jessica said. “People say they’re like bagels, but they aren’t. They’re simple but wonderful.” On the table next to us, Jessica suddenly noticed, there was a single simit on a plate, speckled black with sesame seeds. The bread hadn’t been on the Sunday brunch buffet, although 50 other dishes were — including two types of bread and husky squares of börek with spinach stuffed between flaky layers of phyllo dough. She asked our waitress, but Nazif’s was out of the simit. As with many of the restaurant’s specialties — kebap, rice pudding — you have to arrive early to order it or wait until next time.

    It hardly mattered, though, since we continued to cure Jessica’s reverse-homesickness for her adopted Turkish home with olive oil-poached artichokes, smoky hunks of stewed eggplant, yogurt-topped potatoes under a dark green dusting of parsley and dill, fluffy bazlama bread coated with butter and strawberry jam — light dishes reflecting Turkey’s warm climate in the summer and dishes that were equally attractive on that muggy Houston morning.

    Jessica admitted at the end of the meal that although she’d been home for a month, she’d avoided Turkish food despite her longing for the olive oil, tomatoes, yogurt, sheep’s-milk cheese and tea she’d come to love in Turkey, not wanting a bad meal to mar her memories.

    “This was perfect,” she beamed, sipping the last of her Turkish coffee. Jessica offered a compliment in Turkish to a family next to us on their two beautiful, giggling children as we left after nearly three hours spent at Nazif’s. She felt at home once again.
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    Much of the reason that Jessica and the expats who crowd Nazif’s feel at home can be attributed to owner Nazif Farsak. Although the tomatoes he gets here may not be as furiously red and ripe as those in Istanbul, his commitment to finding the best ingredients (including locally raised lamb for his urfa kebap and kuzu çöp i) and making everything — even the pide dough — from scratch shows in the wonderful food at his namesake restaurant. Eating at Nazif’s can’t be compared to eating in Turkey, thanks mostly to its location at Westheimer and Fondren in a plainly Houstonian strip center, but it’s as close as you’ll get here.

    That said, Farsak — who’s a constant presence in the restaurant — is smartly reaching out to average Texan diners as well with daily lunch specials that offer a tremendous amount of food for shockingly low prices. On a return visit, I took along a pizza- and burger-loving friend who’d never so much as tried Greek food, let alone Turkish food — a glorious jumble of Mediterranean cuisines thanks to its location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Perhaps thanks in part to the great density of Middle Eastern restaurants in Houston, my friend not only found the Turkish food relatable — who among us hasn’t had hummus by now? — but relished every bite.

    “This food is so simple,” he said, stealing bits of pideli köfte off my plate, “that it could go very wrong. But this is stunning.” He and I both noticed the aggressive chargrilled sear on the köfte, beefy meatballs diced roughly, tossed on top of thick squares of bazlama bread and topped with a barely sweet tomato sauce that smacked of smooth, buttery marinara. To the side, tart Turkish yogurt offered a cooling, astringent dimension when mixed with the pideli, and nutty rice pilaf begged to be thrown in — but I had no more stomach space left for it.

    Along with the enormous plate of pideli köfte, my $14 lunch special had included a big bowl of Turkish shepherd’s salad — cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and more — and a large slice of baklava, plus unlimited refills of Turkish tea, which I drank from my tulip-shaped glass greedily. My friend’s lunch special cost a few dollars less but somehow came with even more food: a sausage pide, more salad, crispy French fries and soft, jiggly rice pudding.

    Although he hadn’t known pide from pideli before ordering, I encouraged him to get the stone-baked specialty by describing it as the best calzone he’d never tried. This description does not do pide justice, however — especially not the pide at Nazif’s.

    The hand-rolled dough is both sweet and savory at once, crunchy on its golden exterior and pita-soft inside. Tucked into the diamond-shaped pastry is an assortment of ingredients that would be equally at home inside one of the kolaches sold next door: scrambled eggs, cheese and Turkish sausage robustly seasoned with nutmeg and other warm spices. My friend’s eyes widened on his first bite and stayed wide as he worked his way through the platter-sized pide.

    “I’ve never had anything like this,” he finally said, mystified by the revelation that this Turkish pide was perhaps better than his beloved Italian pizza.

    “If you come back here without me, we aren’t friends anymore,” he warned, only half-joking. “I want to try more things. Can we try more things next time?”

    “Yes,” I assured him. “We’ll definitely be back to try more things.” With or without him, I’m determined to work my way through all of Farsak’s dishes at Nazif’s. After all, I had only a taste of the lahmacun — spicy beef and vegetables on flatbread so unbelievably thin and crispy, it could have been a buttery communion wafer — that day, thanks to a charming appetizer section that offers “baby” bites of various dishes for around $2. I can’t wait to try that entire flatbread, the urfa kebap Nazif’s was out of that day, and so much more at Houston’s newest Turkish restaurant — a welcome entry in the small but welcoming Turkish scene.

    houstonpress