Tag: Turkish food

What to eat in Istanbul

Turkey For Food Lovers

In addition to being a cultural, religious and historical capital of the world, Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, is a food lover’s paradise. Get the skinny on what local specialties to try while you’re there.

While exploring the incredible churches, mosques, baths, and monuments of Istanbul, you will be lured by the sights and smells of the food coming out of every restaurant and street cart. Simple, fresh food is the name of the game here, and there are treats to satisfy meat-eaters, vegetarians and sweet lovers alike. Don’t miss a trip to the bustling spice market, where many of these specialties are available. Here is a small sampling of some of the most iconic Turkish dishes to watch for:

Baklava

Hundreds of thin layers of delicate phyllo dough are stacked together along with honey and nuts to create one of Turkey’s most famous desserts. Prepare to be amazed by the sheer variety of baklava available, which comes in all shapes, sizes and flavors in Istanbul. Walnut and pistachio variations are most common.

Borek

These savory phyllo pastries also come in a variety of shapes and with many different fillings. They can look like turnovers, cigars or even lasagna and are typically filled with mild white cheese, vegetables (most often spinach) and/or ground meat. They can be eaten for breakfast or as a snack at any time of day.

Doner kebabDoner kebab

One of the most popular kinds of street food in Istanbul, doner kebab is what is known as shawarma in the rest of the world. Compressed chicken, beef or lamb is pressed onto a large spit, roasted and shaved. Get it in a pita, tortilla-style wrap or on a sandwich.

Kofte

These spiced Turkish meatballs are another delicious meat dish. Usually made with ground beef or lamb, they are flatter and smaller than the usual meatballs. Kofte are typically grilled and served on a pita.

Lokum

Better known as Turkish delights, these chewy, sweet confections are another specialty of the region. If you’ve only had stale Turkish delights that pull out your fillings, give them another go in their native land. You won’t be disappointed. They come in a variety of flavors, from pistachio to rosewater and coffee to pomegranate.

Manti

These tiny meat-stuffed dumplings are a must try. They are usually boiled or steamed and topped with a sauce made from yogurt, butter and garlic. Manti resemble mini tortellini and make for a filling meal.

Muhallebi

A rich milk pudding, be sure to sample muhallebi while in Istanbul. There are entire shops, called Muhallebicisi, devoted to this sweet dessert. Have your pick of flavors like orange blossom water and mastic.

via

May 19, 2012
Homesick for Istanbul

It happens every time I go to Istanbul. I visit for a few days and the city embeds itself so far under my skin that I find it emotionally distressing to leave. This is how it used to feel when I left Rome during my bright college years when I was coming and going for thesis research. But back in the early 2000s, I was ballsy and my brain was more malleable, so I could see myself moving abroad (I did!) and learning the language (did that, too). Now, a move doesn’t seem so easy and the complexities and financial sacrifices of relocating makes the pangs of homesickness I feel for Istanbul that much more acute.

This trip was particularly special, as it is springtime in Istanbul and my friend Şemsa and I made the most of it with daily breakfasts and dinners on her balcony. We both enjoyed the ridiculous view of the Bosphorus Bridge and I felt particularly pampered by her extraordinary artichoke-driven cooking.

I had a few really wonderful meals out, including lunch with Tuba at Çiya, a place everyone freaks out over, but which I sometimes find disappointing (world’s worst içli köfte, anyone?). This was not the case on Wednesday. We had some amazing seasonal kebabs like sarımsak kebabı (garlic kebab) and yeni dünya kebabı (loquat kebab).

Lunch at Kasap Osman in Sirkeci was downright disgusting…they put melted cheese on my doner! Vomitous. So I went across the street to Namlı Rumeli Köftecisi for a nice plate of redeeming, palate-cleansing köfte.

Another meaty highlight were the köfte at Ali Baba in Arnavutköy, my ideal comfort food.

I also enjoyed strolling along the Bosphorus admiring the houses I will never be able to afford.

Back in the thick of it all, I spent an afternoon in the Grand Bazaar, something I never do because the hawkers are so profoundly obnoxious. But this time I went after a good lunch at Şeyhmus Kebap Evi with my buddy Ansel of Istanbul Eats.

Sufficiently nourished and armed with headphones and a stone face, I braved the hey ladys and where you froms shouted by the tchotchke vendors and hightailed it to the antiques section where I window shopped for sugar bowls, marble mortars and copper samovars.

Then it was back to Şemsa’s for another fabulous meal. With a spread like this, leaving seems like a crime against good sense.

Source :

May 7, 2012
A Vacation Trip to Istanbul

I am an admirer of Steve Sando who grows organic heirloom beans in California, so when he praised a book on Turkish cooking, Turquoise, written by a friend of his, Greg Malouf, I ordered a copy.

This is a coffee table sized book with pretty pictures of food and men. Boys and men. Apparently there are no women in Turkey except for two wrapped in black and huddled in a street doorway. I didn’t like this pretentious book and I barely looked at the mostly meat recipes.

NYT 10/2/11

Then there was a travel article in the New York Times and it showed pictures of people, including women, eating and having a great time. In fact the food descriptions were tempting, and we did need vacation plans. Then a customer came into the restaurant and I admired her scarf. She said she had gotten it in Istanbul. She reminded me that we had run into each other in Oaxaca, Mexico, a favorite city for both of us. Perhaps we had the same tastes! She urged us to go to Istanbul.

With some hesitation I talked to our friend Krystyna, a most intrepid researcher, and asked her to look into the possibility of an Istanbul visit. Besides getting the usual guidebooks, she joined Airbnb, to find us an inexpensive place to stay. She also found us an American ex-pat “foodie”, Kathy Hamilton, who could take us to restaurants and the fabled Spice Market. And another American ex-pat fabric designer, Catherine Bayar, who knew weavers, dyers, and felters. Krystyna even worked at learning a little Turkish, a very different language from anything we knew. Best of all, she has a friend from Istanbul whose family wanted us to come to dinner during our stay.

We went in February; off-season for tourists, and it was very cold and very hilly. But even on the first day, (before we met with either guide) as we wandered around, we found:

– People were exceptionally helpful, often taking us where we wanted to go whether they spoke English or not.

– The City is startlingly clean. The cobblestone streets all have drainage ditches lined in stone, and not even a cigarette butt is present.

– There are cats everywhere, and they are as friendly as the people! Obviously because the people feed them and they expect the best from humans.

On later days we reflected that we never saw an obese person. Of course there is a great amount of walking (as well as a very good transportation system).

Most amazing of all, I never saw any sign of public sexual aggression- no eyeing women up and down-no nasty noises or comments….how come?

And we always felt safe walking the several blocks home from where taxis dropped us off, though it was dark and men were about.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I started with a list of 27 restaurants that we might try and actually got to 15. They say you can’t get a bad meal in Istanbul, and we didn’t! We did have favorites though….

Ciya Sofrasi, on the Asian side of the Bosporus (Kadakoy), cooked amazing vegetables like purslane and borage, mallow and dock.

Asitane (Edirnakapi), tries to reproduce Ottoman Empire dishes such as almond soup, dried eggplant with pomegranate molasses and saffron rice pudding.

Van Kahralti Evi

Van Kahralti Evi (Beyoglu), serves breakfast (all day) of cheese and olives and dips like muhammara (roasted red peppers), sour cherry preserves, honey with walnuts, and beautiful breads with water buffalo butter and clotted cream (kaymak). Most everything is shipped in daily from the Kurdish city of Van, near the Iranian border.

And Akdeniz Hatay Sofrasi (Fatih), where wonderful breads emerged from the oven all night. Hatay is a Turkish province near Syria and the cuisine reflected that. The fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and the sweet olives served as dessert were both memorable, as was the waiter’s and the owner’s generosity and warmth.

Also good was Anatolia (Sultanahmet), where we went the first night, and tasted Raki, along with amazing olives and cheeses, and learned about Turkish politics from the viewpoint of the Kurdish owner/waiter.

We also enjoyed Cooking Alaturka, Develi, and Datli Maya, where one climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor, walked through the kitchen and then a few more steps up to the small dining room overlooking a pocket park. There was a little place in the Spice Market where we drank superb Turkish coffee and ate locum, Turkish delight, and many varieties of baklava. And Bizem Ev in Konkapi, for delicious spinach boreks.

Because we so liked the kaymak at Van, we proceeded to visit three kaymak makers for breakfast. Besiktas Kaymakci has been serving kaymak for over a hundred years. The current owner, Pando Bey is 87 years old. We ate his famous kaymak, a rich thick but delicate cream with honey, eggs, fresh bread and black tea.

We went twice to Ciya Sofrasi, and the second time they gave me a small booklet of commentaries about the chef-owner, Musa Dagdiveren. This quote from him leaped off the page when I saw it:

“I travel all over the country to cook with people in their homes and also study old books to find new leads. I get very excited when I discover new poor people’s dishes, because I believe only poor people can create great food. If a man has money, he can buy anything, but a person who has nothing must create beauty from within.”

Dinner with Fatma’s Family

Yes! Exactly what I believe.

A highlight of our trip was our visit with Krystyna’s friend Fatma Nalbant’s family. They made a beautiful spread of dishes – the finest thin-rolled grape leaves I’ve tasted, borek, and kisir (a bulgur salad) made with a little tomato paste, red pepper, and shredded cilantro and diced pickle. When I admired it, Azzize, Fatma’s sister immediately repaired to the kitchen to show me how to do it.

We did see Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque and the ancient Christian Chora Church. We also traveled to a suburb to see the new Sakirin Mosque, designed by Zeynep Fadilhoglu, a woman. It is quite beautiful.

Sakirin Mosque

We went to a hamam, a Turkish bath. At last I was warm! It was a wonderful experience. We went to one in our neighborhood rather than an expensive tourist version and it was both comforting and energizing.

When Catherine Bayar arrived on our 2nd to last day in Istanbul, she took us to a small weaving studio where they wove plain weave linen, cotton and silk for elegant classic scarves and shirts.

Musa’s rug. Now in my kitchen.

Another of Musa’s rugs.

Then on to Musa Kazim Basaram, expert natural dyer and designer/weaver of modern kilim rugs. He and I connected, intensely discussing natural dye techniques. He wants to reproduce my mermaid quilt design in a kilim and I am delighted. He later sent us a container of his delicious grape leaves, which we were grateful to have for supper, since we were too exhausted to go out.

Catherine next took us to Ikonium Studio, where American expat Theresa May O’Brien is partnered with Mehmet Girgic, who makes museum quality felt art. She had antique camel saddlebags and newish large kilim rugs. Before I went there I had Turkish liras left over, but afterwards, I needed my debit card to help pay for the gorgeous, woman-made Nuzumla kilim now in my living room.

Nuzumla Kilim

The apartment we stayed in is called Helen Suites. It is in a quiet, old neighborhood, a few blocks away from the train, which takes you into the center. The area is called Kumkapi, and is considered conservative. Women in headscarves were always walking the narrow streets, but we saw no women in burkas or chadors in our neighborhood. Our space was comfortable, warm in this very cold weather, and very inexpensive. We were glad not to be in a tourist hotel.

The worst part of the trip was coming home to Kennedy Airport. Understaffed, dirty. We stood in line for an hour and a half, and were yelled at by officials who didn’t possess the wherewithal to care for so many of us with only three customs and immigration staff to check baggage and passports for hundreds. Hateful, after the comforts of passing through Istanbul Airport.

Finally, at home, I looked at my cookbooks. There are a few okay recipes in Turquoise, but much better versions in Silvena Rowe’s Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume. I had acquired Ghillie Basan’s Classic Turkish Cooking in Istanbul and Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook once home. I’m so glad that the Istanbul we saw (and in these cookbooks) isn’t the one in Malouf’s Turquoise! I was able to adapt recipes for sweet potato borek, leek borek and apricot pistachio pilaf from Purple Citrus, making them vegan, and the kesir, muhamarra, and cemen dip from what I learned in Istanbul, and so we served an Istanbul dinner for a few weeks upon our return home. As predicted by many of our customers, we loved the city, its people, and the food.

http://selmaslist.blogspot.com/2012/03/vacation-trip-to-istanbul.html

March 20, 2012
Musa Dagdeviren recovers foods that Turkey forgot

Musa Dağdeviren (right) in the kitchen at his restaurant Çiya Sofrasi. Photograph by Carolyn Drake.

To get to the restaurant Çiya Sofrasi from the old city of Istanbul, you take a twenty-minute ferry ride to the Asian side of the Bosporus. On a cold Monday night last November, a friend persuaded me to make the trip with him. The place was pleasant but unremarkable, with a gray tiled floor, wooden tables, and no tablecloths or printed menus. There was a self-service bar with meze priced by weight. Hot dishes were dispensed at a cafeteria-style counter by a hatchet-faced man in a chef’s hat.

The first sign of anything unusual was the kisir, a Turkish version of tabouli, which had an indescribable freshness and suddenly reminded you that wheat is a plant. The bitter edge of sumac and pomegranate extract, the tang of tomato paste, and the warmth of cumin, which people from the south of Turkey put in everything, recalled to me, with preternatural vividness, the kisir that my aunt used to make. Likewise, the stewed eggplant dolmas resembled my grandmother’s version even more intensely, somehow, than those dolmas resembled themselves.

Food, I should clarify, has never played a large role in my mental life. I enjoy a good meal as much as anyone, but I get so confused by nutritional, budgetary, ecological, ethical, aesthetic, and time-management concerns that I often subsist for weeks on instant oatmeal and multivitamins. Having read Proust, and also neuroscientists on the direct connection from smell and taste receptors to the hippocampus, I have long been aware that eating is, for many people, an emotionally and mnemonically fraught activity. But, that night at Çiya, I viscerally understood why someone might use a madeleine dipped in tea as a metaphor for the spiritual content of the material world.

Overwhelmed by the kisir and the dolmas, I wondered if the explanation lay in my past. Both my parents were born in Turkey, but I hadn’t been back for more than four years. I hadn’t gone to my grandmother’s funeral; I had been holed up in my apartment in San Francisco, writing a dissertation chapter about Proust—Proust, who wrote so movingly about losing a grandmother! Now, belatedly returning to my parents’ homeland, I found myself not on the Black Sea, where my grandmother was born and buried, or in Ankara, where she lived, or in my father’s home city of Adana, where my aunt still lives. Instead, I had come to Istanbul, a city with which I had many romantic associations but little practical experience. Perhaps the meze reminded me of an irretrievable time when my aunt and my grandmother had cooked for me, and I had been where I was supposed to be in the world.

As the meal progressed, the tastes grew stronger and more varied. One inscrutable salad contained no recognizable ingredient except jewel-like pomegranate kernels, nestled among seaweed-colored, twig-shaped objects and mysterious chopped herbs, nutty and slightly bitter. A stew uniting beef, roasted chestnuts, quince, and dried apricots in an enigmatic greenish broth tugged at some multilayered memory involving my mother’s quince compote. I kept looking around the room for some clue to what was happening. Half the tables were empty; near us sat a few Turkish families, a handful of lone diners with books, and two Italian backpackers. There were some restaurant reviews on the walls, and a portrait of Atatürk, and a shelf with a row of jars bearing handwritten labels—“Dried Quince,” “Pickled Deer-Mushrooms,” and many terms I didn’t recognize, which I copied into a notebook.

via Musa Dagdeviren recovers foods that Turkey forgot : The New Yorker.

more: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/04/19/the-memory-kitchen

March 20, 2012
Five Istanbul Hot Spots With A View – Forbes

Five Istanbul Hot Spots With A View

Caroline Patek Caroline Patek, Contributor

Five Top Spots With Views of Istanbul’s Bosphorussee photosMecit Gulaydin

With its Ottoman Empire history and vibrant modern culture, there’s no denying Istanbul’s charm. At the center of it all, the city’s lifeblood is the body of water that divides Europe and Asia—the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The waterway’s strategic importance enticed Constantine the Great to found the city as the capital of the Eastern Roman empire, but today, it’s the focus of some of Istanbul’s most sought-after views. At the end of a day in Turkey’s busiest city, settle in and ponder this famous strait from these five spots with can’t-miss views.

1. Mikla restaurant

Sitting atop the Marmera Pera hotel in the historic Pera district of Istanbul, this innovative restaurant combines Scandinavian and Turkish cuisines. Chef Mehmet Gürs takes serious care—he’s enlisted the help of an anthropologist to find unique foods around Turkey—to use local ingredients in his dishes, such as the lamb shoulder with prune pestil (dried fruit leather) and pomegranate molasses. Chrome furniture from the 50s and 70s gives the dining room a retro, sleek feeling, but the real showstopper is the view from the outdoor patio and terrace bar. The terrace gives you a panorama of the skyline’s best sights—the Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque and the Bosphorus.

2. A’jia hotel

With a striking white columned façade, this 16-room boutique hotel is a restored 1800s-era Ottoman mansion, but inside, the amenities—such as the Acqua Di Parma bath products and Philippe Starck bathtubs—give the space a modern, minimalist vibe. Situated on the banks of the Asian shoreline on the outskirts of the city (about 40 minutes from downtown in the suburb of Kanlica, accessible by shuttle boat) this yali (a word for the wooden residences along the Bosphorus) houses an elegant restaurant with an outdoor terrace serving up Mediterranean and Italian cuisine—such as lamb shank confit—with the sparkling strait as a backdrop.

3. Vogue restaurant

Located on top of the Beşiktaş Plaza office building, Vogue has been a fixture in Istanbul the past 15 years. Its international menu draws inspiration from the Mediterranean while the sushi bar is a nod to the Asian shores across the strait. Choose from dishes such as miso-braised black cod, roasted duck and vanilla panna cotta. The restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto views of the Bosphorus and the LED-lit Bosphorus Bridge outside. Reserve a table outside on the terrace—which seats 80—during the summer months for a slight breeze off the water.

4. Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus

Occupying a restored 19th-century palace in the trendy Beşiktaş area, the hotel blends Ottoman style with contemporary amenities. Rooms located on the first and second floors of the palace building give you a straight-on view of the water, the Asian coastline on the other side of the strait, the Maiden’s Tower and the domes and minarets of Old Town. And the view only gets better as you walk outside. The hotel’s patio boasts a pool and whirlpool (not to mention direct boat access if you like to arrive in style). At Aqua—the hotel’s signature restaurant with name-appropriate design touches such as blue glassware and light fixtures—inside tables have views of the Bosphorus and the outdoor terrace lets you dine at the water’s edge.

5. Anjelique

Part restaurant, part nightclub, Anjelique sits on the Bosphorus waterfront in a three-story mansion. Located in Istanbul’s Ortaköy area—known for its nightlife—the glossy restaurant serves Asian cuisine on the first floor and Mediterranean fare on the upper two levels. Aside from entrées such as porcini mushroom and truffle risotto, you can nosh on bar food like crispy duck wraps and vegetable quesadillas. The airy space on the sea level opens up onto an outdoor deck and dance floor with a long fire pit, and inside, massive windows give you ample opportunities to check out the lights of the city’s skyline and the water below. An ever-changing rotation of DJs spin tunes—a different style on each floor—into the early hours of the morning.

via Five Istanbul Hot Spots With A View – Forbes.

March 2, 2012
Quiet market traders? Istanbul may as well just install vending machines

A shouting ban is crazy, as markets are meant to be noisy places – you should have heard my grandfather sell his wares

guardian.co.uk

A fish monger in front of his stall at a market in Istanbul, Turkey

A fishmonger in front of his stall at a market in Istanbul, Turkey. Photograph: Alamy

I once made a surprised man fall over a small dog by shouting at him in a market, which is testimony – if any were needed – to the power of vocal advertising. Markets are supposed to be noisy. They are the last unsterilised retail environment, and banning shouting, heckling, recreational foul language and casual threats would be like carpeting the Amazon. But sadly, this is exactly what authorities in Turkey have done, by introducing a law last month that bans traders from shouting and singing.

Market trading has been in my family for generations and so I feel a sense of comradeship with those in Turkey now being forced to quieten down. My own grandfather would stand in Petticoat Lane with fabric stolen from a Limehouse curtain wholesaler and go about his business shouting: “All nicked! Nothing legal! Take it off my hands quickly ladies – I’m too pretty for prison.” Let’s consider this for a moment – here is a man, loudly proclaiming an actual crime and furthermore stating an enthusiastic desire to make an actual profit from it, in broad daylight, in the middle of London. Remarkable.

In Britain, selling fruit and veg from a market stall is still sometimes a licence for foul talk. It can often just pour out of you as soon as you put your money belt on. Good fruit and veg market shopping can be like buying stuff from her out of The Exorcist. But it’s always, I hope, just a bit of fun. Many of my counterparts in Istanbul have managed to turn this kind of thing into song. They’ve given the format lyrical integrity, like Rodgers and Hammerstein. Brilliant.

There is certainly a need to stop traders harassing shoppers, but that’s because harassment is a crime, not advertising your wares. Many London markets prohibit heckling by traders, but this works because most of the larger ones are now entirely gentrified. It’s all cupcakes and knitwear, from Camden Town to Greenwich. After all, crochetwork is a tricky thing to heckle passers-by about. It wouldn’t stop me having a go, though, as you can probably imagine. But anyway. The point is that people are going to these markets for entirely different reasons to those visiting our friends in Istanbul. As long as the traders aren’t heckling each other – which any half decent market manager will stamp on immediately – a bit of volume absolutely makes the occasion.

Perhaps the Turkish authorities should do away with all the market stalls and install row after row of vending machines, with Mariah Carey being piped through the sound system to add a bit of acceptable ambiance. No one would ever go, of course, and the city would be poorer, both in terms of market rents and cultural character.

“There is no joy in a market shrouded in silence,” said one Turkish market-goer, interviewed about the change in legislation. She is entirely correct. Surely the world is already joyless enough without stopping barrow boys singing about mandarins.

via Quiet market traders? Istanbul may as well just install vending machines | Paul Smith | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

February 16, 2012