Wednesday
Reviews (Eats)Basta Street Food Bar: Gourmet to the People
Dürüm is the specialty at Basta Street Food Bar, but you won’t find a smoky grill inside this tiny Kadıköy storefront. With its bright turquoise counter, tile-patterned floor, and steel-topped, light-wood stools, Basta looks more like a hip café than a traditional kebab joint.
“One customer came in, sat at the counter, took one look at what we were doing in the kitchen and walked right out,” laughs Kaan Sakarya. The former chef of the highly rated Nicole restaurant in Istanbul, Sakarya opened Basta in April along with colleague Derin Arıbaş. Their aim: applying their fine-dining training to gourmet fast food – specifically dürüm, grilled meat wrapped up inside lavaş flatbread.
What apparently unnerved that dubious diner was the sight of pre-cooked meat being reheated on a flat-top griddle, rather than skewers of raw kebab meat being cooked over coals.
Read the rest of the review at Culinary Backstreets.
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Post Tags: dürüm, Kadıköy, kebab