Merih Resturant

Datli Maya
Our first visit to Datli Maya started and ended with tirnakli pide that came right out of the oven. We used it to dab up everything from the breakfast bar – dark honey, chunky fruit preserves, and rich butter. Then we piled wedges of spicy tepsi kebab on it and then still couldn’t keep from tearing off pieces to go with refills of tea – washing down the tea with bread. Tirnakli pide is so typical in Istanbul restaurants, particularly kebab shops, that it is often simply called “bread”. And quite often it is just bread. Fresh but a bit limp, reheated over a grill if you are lucky, it’s never the star of the table. Datli Maya’s fresh pide opened our eyes to the glory of this staple and tapped into a deep unknown place in our stomach. On this blog, we’ve issued high praise of nearly everything else to come out of Datli Maya’s oven, but it was a simple tirnakli pide that hooked us on the place.

Siirt Seref Buryan
When life gives you lemons make lemonade, and when a Roman-era aqueduct runs just outside your restaurant, use it to create one of Istanbul’s most original alfresco dining spots. That certainly seems to be the thinking at Fatih’s Siirt Şeref Büryan Kebap Salonu, which stands in the shadow of the Roman-era Valens aqueduct. For a large group of friends on a celebratory Sunday this past summer, the restaurant cleverly set up a long table underneath the shade of one of the defunct waterway’s spacious archways. The result was pure magic, the archway serving as the ideal setting for a procession of food that culminated with what seemed like endless plates of Siirt Şeref’s exquisite kimikli (“on the bone”) pit-roasted lamb. It was a day of perfection, shaded by centuries of history.

7-8 Hasanpasa Firin
Based on the emphatic wording in some of our reviews (in Gaziosmanpasa we found “homewrecking beans”; a celery root meze at Cukur Meyhanesi once summoned “gutteral moans” from our table; at Urfa Sark Sofrasi, we found a kebab that was “bleat-worthy”.) it might seem that we are really easily impressed. Honestly, we are often impressed, but rarely are we totally blown away by a new discovery.

Our most recent eureka moment occurred on a boat crossing the Bosphorus, where the metaphoric value of two continents colliding was not lost on us. Prior to boarding we stood in front of a window display with dozens of beautiful baked goods at 7-8 Hasanpasa and picked a “paskalya” loaf and circular “tahinli” that looked something like a wide cinnamon roll sprinkled with sesame seeds. We wandered down to the dock and found our seats on the back deck of the boat and opened the backpack we’d stowed the breads in. The sweet smell of tahini along with that of mastika from the paskalya escaped from the bag, summoning such a reaction on deck that you’d think we’d just lit up a joint. All eyes were on us saying, “Let me get some of that.” Seagulls, defying their physical design to soar, awkwardly flapped their wings hovering in place by the rail like hummingbirds, begging for just one crumb of our tahinli. The deep horn of a tanker blew from far away. It seemed the entire Bosphorus was aware of our snack.

On the first bite of crusty edge flavored by the sesame seeds, we were struck with shame that we hadn’t had this treat until now. Once we got to the center, where moist pastry hid a lining of tahini so sweet and nutty, we were gushing and squawking like seagulls. We giddily tore off pieces insisting that each bite was better than the one before. Our companion for this epic journey, a friend from Greece, said he’d been eating a similar, tahini-spiked roll all of his life and this was the best one he’d eaten, “Ever!” Now there’s an emphatic description that we fully endorse.
Address: Sehit Asim Caddesi 12, Besiktas
Telephone: +902122619766

Mandabatmaz

Cigerci Lutfi
There was something extremely delicious, yet dusted with melancholy, about this very memorable liver sandwich spontaneously eaten in front of the IMC Carsisi. The delicious part was the warm liver whose oil soaked the bread, transporting us back to previous years when we made regular stops at an itinerant liver man in Taksim Square. The aftertaste of melancholy set in as we tried to recall the last time we’d encountered one of these old street food staples. As far as Istanbul street food is concerned, the appearance of the cigerci with his distinctive lantern-shaped case and a wicker basket of fresh bread was never as reliable as a simitci rounding the corner or quite as common as the sandvicci (the kind you still find slinging cold sandwiches to the roustabouts on the Galata Bridge). But, though less common, the cigerci’s fare is far more satisfying than both. We started the year 2011 with Lutfi’s liver sandwich and we’ve suffered occasional cravings since then that led us back to the IMC, on ultimately failed missions, never to find him again. Lutfi might be missing, for now, or working another beat, but he’s not forgotten. When 2012 comes around, we’re hoping to kick it off with one of his sandwiches.

Mohti
Whenever we are feeling down on ourselves for eating so much fatty lamb kebab, frustrated by the crowds on Istiklal, defeated by the taxi drivers, angry at the world, we head to Mohti. Huseyin bey, the owner and patron saint of this “Laz meyhane”, has a twinkle in his eye that reminds us of how lucky we are to be alive and in Istanbul, particularly in the damp cold months of hamsi season. It was one such night that we found ourselves sulking at a corner table. Huseyin, aided by few plates of plump, juicy hamsi slowly brought us out of our funk. When the clouds in our heads cleared we looked around and joined the party that Huseyin weaves between his guests every night. His hamsi is more than delicious and his restaurant is a living room in every sense.

Before we knew it, the sun had set, the ‘kordon’ had filled with promenading families, and my friend’s two-year old daughter had sweet-talked Esra out of ten pieces of home made baklava. There is some sort of special magic that happens with these sorts of unplanned plans in Turkey—somehow everyone you love takes time for a meal that meanders over the full course of the day, conversation is broken only by hushed appreciation of the dish just placed in front of you, and in the end, you are neither full nor drunk, though you should be. Heyamola in May was just such a day, with the added richness of companions who took such glowing delight in including us in their excitement over every recipe, every ingredient, every subtlety of flavor and texture. We just barely made the last ferry, but I think each of us felt a pang, and would not have minded had we been stranded, ‘forced’ to remain at the table together.

Dinner at a meyhane should be the perfect night out: A table full of tasty little bites to share with friends, free-flowing alcohol, and boisterous neighbors getting up to sing and dance. What’s not to love? But while I enjoy a night on Nevizade as much as anyone, the meyhane experience in Istanbul too often has a whiff of the perfunctory. The samemeze, lacklusterly prepared. The same songs spurring what can feel like compulsory fun. The same squabbling over padded bills at the end of the night.

Fortunately, the meyhane blues is not an incurable condition. This year, three very different establishments reminded me why the meyhane night is such a beloved Turkish tradition.

In a culinary world where a different cut of kebab is often what passes for innovation, a menu full of the completely unfamiliar is a rare and precious find indeed. At the humble but cozy Black Sea meyhane Mohti in Istanbul’s Asmalımescit neighborhood, every bite was bursting with fresh, new-to-me flavors (and, most of the time, hamsi): a savory pancake made from the little fish and shredded vegetables; a salad tossed with mint and hot peppers; hamsi-studded cornbread; a hot skillet of gooey cheese, butter, and cornmeal; and warm, custard-filled Laz böreği for dessert.

Other times, the same-old can be done so skillfully that it almost becomes new again. That’s the feeling I walked away with after a meal at Karaköy Lokantası, a packed two-story Istanbul restaurant done up in brilliant turquoise tiles. There’s nothing equally flashy about the food, but everything was so perfectly prepared, even this usually squeamish diner found herself going back for seconds of thinly sliced, roast-beef-like tongue and ever-so-delicately fried liver. Tangy squash blossoms stuffed with rice and pungent greens in olive oil carried with them a hint of Aegean sea air.

On an actual visit to the Aegean, a friend I was staying with in the seaside town of Ayvalık dismissed any thought of a waterfront meal, instead leading me down the cobblestone backstreets to Hüsnü Baba’nın Yeri. The interior of “Father Hüsnü’s Place” is faded and rather glaringly lit; far better to grab a table in the alley, underneath hanging vines, and let the friendly staff cover it with small plates – stuffed mussels redolent of the ocean, garlicky samphire, perfectly cooked calamari and zucchini fritters, all cheap as can be, and served until late. This, I think, is the meyhane stripped down to its essentials: good food, good hospitality, and a rakı or three. That’s a recipe that will never get old.

Hüsnü Baba’nın Yeri
Tenekeciler Sokağı 16
Ayvalık
(0266) 312 87 14

Eaten by a river outside of Tokat on sunny October afternoon, this humble cheese and rocket sandwich was one of our Best Bites of 2011.

We’ve come to love road tripping in Turkey, for the opportunity it affords for impromptu dining from a back-seat larder of the regional ingredients we can never resist hoarding over the course of a journey. On this day we assembled sandwiches from roasted red pepper paste purchased from a villager at a weekly market in the pretty Black Sea hamlet of Erfelik; perky rocket, juicy tomatoes and a crusty multi-grain loaf bought at a corner shop in Amasya; and plain old creamy beyaz peynir sourced from a bufe somewhere outside of Tokat.

We drove slowly along the highway north of Tokat until we saw a narrow dirt track, then turned off and followed it to an apple orchard set beside a sluggish river. We were famished and clouds were beginning to close in on what, after a Black Sea sojourn, was our first clear day in almost two weeks. After parking the car we carried our ingredients, along with the plates and basic utensils we always road-trip with, to a bridge whose wide hand rails served as prep counter.

Biber salcasi isn’t meant to be eaten uncooked, but its salty bite is a brilliant counterpoint to milky cheese. The bread was dense and chewy, the rocket fresh as could be, the tomatoes juicy enough to destabilize our sandwiches and send rivulets running down our wrists by Bite Five. As we ate we listened to the river burble and basked in the kind heat of an autumn sun. After a while the orchard’s owner, an elderly gentleman dressed in going-to-town trousers and suit coat, appeared and offered us a bag of yellow apples. It was time for tea, he said. Could he have a ride to his regular cay evi in Tokat? Of course, we answered. So we finished our sandwiches, packed up our supplies and headed into town.

Details:
We can’t tell you where to eat a rocket, tomato and beyaz peynir sandwich served in a setting as idyllic as this. But we can almost guarantee that if you fly almost anywhere in Turkey, rent a car and hit the road with open eyes, you’ll find something as memorable.

Hayri Balik
We always feel a bit like a cheating spouse when we walk past our longtime favorite – albeit dry – fish spot, Arnavutkoy’s Adem Baba, toward Hayri Balik, a lovely little fish shack up the street. But sometimes, well after the brunching hour, we like to have something a little stronger than a Fanta with our fish. Any sense of guilt is quickly numbed, though, as we drain a cold beer in the afternoon sun sitting outside of Hayri’s humble dining room…..

Cukur Meyhanesi
Çukur serves up other meyhane classics, such as grilled lamb chops and kofte, but – somewhat unusually – the folks at Çukur  have also figured out how to grill Black Sea sardines, or hamsi! Long considered a lost cause by grill men for its tendency to slip through the grill and into the coals, hamsi is usually fried or baked. At Çukur they’ve thrown caution to the wind and worked about ten of these little squirmy fish onto a skewer and bookended them with tomato and pepper. Hamsi is agreeable in just about any form, but fresh off the grill the fish’s characteristic smack of the Black Sea is even more pronounced….

Furreyya
From the outside, Fürreyya Galata Balıkcısı, a tiny new restaurant in Beyoglu’s quaint Galata area, doesn’t look like much. Two tables, two stools at a short counter, a smoky grill and not much else. But Inside this modest fish shack beats the heart of a more ambitious place. The friendly husband and wife team who own the place and share kitchen duties used to run a restaurant in Istanbul’s upscale Bebek neighborhood, and it’s clear that Fürreyya is in experienced hands….

Kemal’in Yeri
The neon sign in front of Kemal’in Yeri shines like a “Last Chance for Gas” sign seen on the highway before entering the desert. In your rearview mirror are the crowded tourist traps of the Galata Bridge. Ahead lie the shipyards and decrepit chandleries of the Golden Horn. But Kemal’s Place is not only the last place to eat on this stretch of the Golden Horn, it’s one of the last places in all of Beyoglu where you can eat reasonably well on reasonable budget sitting outside beside the water without another hungry soul in sight…..

Mohti Laz Meyhane
“My heart starts pounding when a pregnant lady enters the room,” said Huseyin, the artist turned owner/operator of Mohti, a new “Laz Meyhane” in the back of the backstreets of the Asmalimescit area. While this might sound to some like the unsavory confession of a man with an exotic fetish, to us it was a breath of fresh air, redolent with the old-style charm of a classic meyhane patron, something that’s increasingly harder to come across these days….

Hayvore
The Black Sea area is Turkey’s culinary misfit – not really about kebabs or meze. If anything, the food there seems to have been mysteriously transplanted from the American Deep South. We’re talking corn bread, collard greens and smoky bean stews. It’s simple, filling, down-home food and Hayvore is a great – and affordable – spot to get acquainted with it….

Still, even if you’re not fasting, a traditional iftar meal at the right place remains a unique and tasty window into life during the Ramadan period. Below is a list of recommended spots for iftar in Istanbul (note – all highly recommend making reservations):

Asitane
This upscalish restaurant near the lovely Chora Church prides itself on its devotion to cooking according to ancient Ottoman recipes. For whatever reason, we’ve usually found the place uncomfortably devoid of customers during most of the year, but during Ramadan Asitane fills up with fast breakers looking for an Ottoman-style iftar. The restaurant’s garden is a particularly pleasant place to spend the evening.

Fixed menu 70 TL
Address: Kariye Camii Sokak No: 6, Edirnekapı, İstanbul
Tel: (212) 635-7997
Web: www.asitanerestaurant.com

Çiya
Although no excuse is needed to visit this well-known spot, one of our favorite restaurants in Istanbul, during Ramadan they are serving up a special iftar menu which, like the restaurant’s regular menu, will likely change daily and feature lesser known regional specialties from around Turkey. Highly recommended.

Fixed menu 45 TL
Address: Guneslibahce Sokak 43, Kadiköy
Phone: 216-330-3190

Kanaat
Located in the Asian sides’ Uskudar neighborhood, this classic restaurant is an esnaf lokanta (tradesmen’s cafeteria) that has grown into something bigger and classier, with an almost overwhelming selection of very nicely made prepared dishes served from what seems like a mile-long steam table.

A la carte
Address: Selmanipak cd. No:9 Üsküdar İstanbul
Tel: (216) 341-5444

Şahin
Unlike Kanaat, Şahin has remained a humble, yet bustling, esnaf lokanta, with two small floors and a smaller menu of classic dishes prepared with a lot of love. It’s another one of our favorite places in town.

A la carte
Address: Orhan Adli Apaydın Sk. No:11/A, Beyoglu, Istanbul
Phone: (212) 244-2543

Sultanzade Sofrası
Istanbul’s Eyup neighborhood and its complex of mosques and mausoleums is a major pilgrimage site and a favorite spot for families who want to have an outdoor iftar. During Ramadan, the historic neighborhood has an almost carnival like atmosphere after sundown. Sultanzade Sofrası, a restaurant serving food from the Hatay region and overlooking Eyup’s main square, is a great perch from which to take in the neighborhood’s iftar vibe.

“Luxury” iftar menu, 34 TL
limited menu, 17.50 TL
Address: Kalenderhane Cad. No: 35/ 3, Eyüp-İstanbul.
Tel: (212) 615-34 55
Web: www.sultanzade.com 

(photo by balavenise, via Wikimedia Commons)

(Editor’s Note: Since the New York Times ran a wonderful article in last Sunday’s Travel section about Buyukada, the leafy island near Istanbul, we’ve decided to rerun a previous post containing some suggestions on where to eat on the isle.)

If it’s because of showing visitors around or simply a desire to get away from the city for the day, we can usually count on at least one visit a summer to Buyukada, the largest of the Princes’ Islands.

But as much as we like looking at the car-free island’s Victorian mansions and visiting its quiet, forested backside, when it comes time to eat on Buyukada, we feel like we’re stuck inside an airport, forced to eat mediocre food at outrageous prices. (Although we very much like the food at Kiyi, a seaside restaurant on the island that we’ve previously recommended, even a casual dinner there ends up costing more than what one would like.)

If a trip to Buyukada is on your agenda this summer, here are two recommendations that have helped us get around the island dining blues…..(Click here for the rest of the review, and here for a review of a charming restaurant on Burgaz, another of the Princes’ Islands.)

(Editor’s Note: In almost a decade of intrepid eating in Istanbul, we still miss the immigrant community restaurants we know from the American big cities where language barriers and foreign customs make a lunch into a real adventure. Istanbul has foreign communities and it has foreign restaurants but the two rarely seem to meet. It wasn’t until we visited Zeytinburnu that what we were looking for, Little Uighurstan.)

Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.

“Do you hear that?” asked Sean Roberts, an expert on Uighur culture and politics and our dining companion for the day. “They’re making the lagman.”

As if inspired by the image of a pizza-maker spinning dough on his finger like a basketball and tossing it in the air, lagman-makers have a similar choreography that includes a deep swing, a flip and a smack of the thick braid of noodles. But unlike pizza dough, lagman noodles have escaped mass production; they are handmade by definition. As fat and chewy as udon at certain points and thin like spaghetti at others, a bowl of lagman is full of surprises. The generous topping of sautéed finely-chopped lamb, fresh red and green peppers that came with the suyru lagman (guyru lagman comes with a more chunky variety of the same ragu) was a delicious and spicy change of pace from the milder Turkish pallete.

“This is a good lagman. I’m sweating,” said Roberts.

The location of these thwapping noodles was Zeytinburnu, an Istanbul neighborhood that seems almost as far off of the beaten path as the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar. The last stop on the tramway, it’s a busy little district with a pleasant central pedestrian boulevard lined with that particular style of concrete blocks present throughout all Turkish cities, architectural non-sequiturs. At street level on the main drag, it seems this area is all about the trade of leather jackets, much like the shopping streets of Laleli and Aksaray. But look a little closer and you’ll notice banners in Arabic script and blue and white star and crescent flags in upper level windows, an old-timer with a long stringy beard strolling down the main street in a black velvet skull cap with embroidered totems, the signs of a coherent community of people from a place in the west of China described as Eastern Turkistan, the Uighur of Zeytinburnu.

Often idealized in Turkey as the proto-Turks, the Uighur have enjoyed a privileged status since the 1950’s and their community in Zeytinburnu has steadily grown since then. Though it’s increasingly difficult to leave China and enter Turkey these days, newcomers still arrive regularly, like the cook at Turkestani Restaurant, who took our order with a bashful smile and not a word of Turkish.

We visited three Uighur restaurants in Zeytinburnu, sampling the large Uighur-style manti dumplings, somsa, a savory pastry stuffed with lamb and, of course, lagman. The food was all very good, but it was the scene that captured our attention. We were reminded of tight-knit communities in Queens or the West Bank of New Orleans, where restaurants play a key role in cultural preservation. At one spot, Pan-Turkic newspapers were stacked on one table, while the soft lilt of the Uighur language filtered through a privacy screen where a mother fed her children Kashgar kebab and teenagers gathered around a huge flat-screen to watch a Uighur crooner’s concert DVD.  At Ipek Yolu, another of the neighborhood’s restaurants, we even met the director of a local Uighur kindergarten.

In Istanbul, foreign communities rarely settle and thrive the way the Uighur have, so foreign restaurants rarely feel – or taste – authentic. But in Zeytinburnu, rest assured, there is a Uighur at the next table keeping the cook honest. The lagman will be as fresh and tasty as it is in Kashgar. And the noodles will always be audibly handmade.

Turkistan Restaurant
Address: 63 Sokak #5, Zeytinburnu
Telephone: (212) 547-3822

Urumci Lokantasi
Address: 50/5 Sokak #3, Zeytinburnu
Telephone: (212) 665-2813

Ipek Yolu Restaurant
Address: 60^th Sokak 28 (behind Ziraat Bankasi two blocks back, on the right), Zeytinburnu
Telephone: (530) 923-4088