Plain food and flashy food in Istanbul

 

We've had plain food and flashy food in Istanbul.   On the whole (unlike a lot of the other tourists we assume) we tend to prefer food where the waiters do not make a big floor show, going for taste rather than  flashy display, and we both hate being the centre of attention in a restaurant.  In this last Turkish food blog, I'll show both the plain and the flashy food we encountered.

 

A tourist can eat well and cheaply if one buys food in the local markets (a lira equals about $2 AUD)

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a non tourist restaurant we had  boregi (a bit greasy) with potato wedges (they love potato chips) and a mixed Turkish salad

 

 

and an egg and sausage bake.

We've had lots of bread types in Turkey.  All of them have been offered free by the restaurant.  We have been offered sliced breads from a Vienna-type bread loaves, pide, so called "turkish breads, and this air filled bread, lavash, which really has to be eaten hot to be at its best.

Though simple, the breads have been great for eating with mezes and mopping up gravy when there is no rice or potato, as in this peach and chicken Ottoman stew.

 

 

We had it with a baked rice pudding and a fruit plate.

 

 

 

In Uskudar, we went to a big family restaurant called Filizler Koftecisi.  They obviously don't have a lot of tourists, but tried to make us feel welcome, even producing some flags to represent our backgrounds and theirs!  Being a Turkish restaurant on the Asian side, no alcohol was offered.

We were offered bread and pickled cabbage and cucumbers and bread as our freebie appetisers:

 

They were a bit surprised when we only had one meze - ezme/rushed tomato salad

 

and a mixed Turkish salad

 to start with.

We shared a mixed kofte dish, served with bulger wheat, rice and mashed potato, tomatoes and grilled chillis, with a tomato and chilliu sauce.

We found their icecreams very fancy, but they are everywhere and you can taste the fruit in them.  I loved the berry ones - especially the blackberry.

The baklava are everywhere too, varied and very good:

 

 

as are Turkish delight, which taste very different when fresh and which are served in smaller portions than they are here in Australia.

 

 

In a tourist restaurant, we ordered a salt baked levrek/ sea bass. We  were offered lavash, black olives and hommus

 

After 45 minutes, the fish came out baked in a thick crust of sauce.  It proved to be one of those fancy show dishes that we try to avoid.  It wasn't needed, but a show for the tourists was put on.  Purple flammable liquid was poured on

 

 and set alight.

 

 

Then, the fire was doused and the salt cracked to reveal a large fish wrapped in foil, which surprised me. 

 

The fish was carved and them served to us.  It was delicious and cooked with button mushrooms and garlic, and served with salad and baked potato.  We couldn't finish it all.

Another meal that we saw in most of the tourist restaurants again involved lots of fire," testi kebap", the claypot lamb stew.  Apparently the dish originated in Cappadocia, and is a lamb, vegetable and spice stew baked in a ceramic vessel shaped like an amphora and sealed with dough.  To serve, the amphora, which has a groove round the neck to weaken it, is cracked and the stew poured out.  The tourist restaurant pour the pre-cooked stew into the amphoras and bring them out in flaming trays. 

the waiter then bangs on the groove with a metal rod until a crack appears, knowks off the lid, and pours it on the palte of the admiring  diner.

 

We avoided this dish, pre-warned by a friendly waiter about the show, but apparently it did taste very good.

 

Now we are back in Australia, we are going to try our hand at cooking Turkish food, simple and fussy, but I think we'll avoid the fire show.

Food of Turkey: the best in Istanbul, the nice in selcuk and Sirence, and the bad in Selcuk. Plus the weekend market in Selcuk.

The best meal we had was at a seafood restaurant in Istanbul, the  Ahirkapi Balikcisi, where the staff were very grand, but where cats still ranged around underneath the tables, where there was a range of patrons - tourists and locals, old money and new.  Fasinating.  We weren't really sure when we went how the system worked but gradually learned as the meal went on.  

We wanted to order appetisers and they brought round atray to choose from.  We had  marinated calamari

sauted sea samphire

 

 

a capsicum and chilli paste in olive oil to have with our bread.

 

  

 They were all very good, but only the latter was strong in taste.

In Turkey, as in Europe, the salad is eaten before the main course.  Ours had pickles around the outside.

 The fish are all on display in a refrigerated display case and we chose snapper 

 

 and bluefish.  both very fresh and grilled very simply.

We didn't need to order dessert. It came round anyway and was delicious.  Semolina pudding and icecream

Fresh watermelon

Poached figs and icecream

We missed out on the fresh green almonds but we were so very full so it wasn't a problem.  The whole meal came to much less than the meal at the horrible seaside town and was served with far more style and tasted better.  I would say that this is the only meal that has been five star so far on our tour.

In Selcuk, we visited the local farmers market.  The fruit and vegetables are straight off the farm and apparently they use saved local seed rather than commercial varieties.  As a result, the tomatoes really taste like tomatoes, the fruit have blotches but taste strongly as they should.  How I wished I had a kitchen.  We bought a kilogram of cherries, some green plums and apricots.  So good!

 

 We also saw stalls selling the local cheeses.  Goat is very popular in this area and the nanny's wear little bags over their udders to stop the kids from taking all the milk.  Apart from cheese, there are fresh breads, halva, sweets, cakes, biscuits, nuts and dried fruit.  We also saw dried herbs for teas and flavourings

dried capsicums

and an amazing assortment of seasonings and spices, considering that the food does not taste particularly spicy.  In fact it can be fairly bland.  They must not use as large amounts in their cooking as I do.

 

 At the restaurant of a friend of our hosts, we tried grilled eggplants and meatball kebabs

and grilled spicy meatball kebabs

 
Both were very good.  the rice was mildly buttered.


In a very dark, very dingy looking restaurant, we discovered that he didn't take visa.  We tried to leave but he told us to eat what we wanted and pay him the next day!   Amazing trust!  We had one of the area's very good red wines and a mixed mezze of cold stewed vegetables and dill flavoured yoghurt which were apparently cooked in the old Roman style.

local cheese in filo pastry:

and fried cheese. 

This was all beautifully cooked by an old bloke in the simplest of kitchens, who kept racing out the front between preparations for a fag.  He was amazing because an American tour group,  three locals,  6 bemused looking Chinese tourists, another American and some German tourists turned up.  They rang for a friend to help him chop up vegetables, and a young man turned up with more supplies, but he basically did all the cooking and the washing up by himself, while mein host rushed around looking flustered and trying to dust down tables as the unexpected guests arrived.

 For another meal, we popped into a local diner for a meal like the locals ordered.  You choose three dished from a bain marie and we added a salad.  We had the salad

 

a pea stew

 

stuffed capsicums

a lamb stew which tasted just like one my mum used to make and call Irish stew

and the usual gratis bread

 with some gratis yoghurt.

By the way, we are often offered food as a free part of a meal.  Sometimes it is halva, sometimes biscuits, sometimes olives, sometimes Turkish delight, once we had ammaretto!


In Sirence, we had freshly squeezed orange juice and these little biscuits which were soaked in a very light honey.  Delicious again!

Unfortunately, the meal we had in the restaurant opposite the mosque wasn't too good.  The cold stewed salads had chips in them which was awful,

the grilled mushrooms had rubbery cheese and more chips.

the sardines were overcooked.

Only the gratis halva was any good.