(Editor’s Note: This guest post was provided to us by Olga Tikhonova, who writes a wonderful blog about Istanbul food and life in Turkey. To her credit, Olga has managed to track down what had long been a holy grail for Istanbul chowhounds: a local restaurant serving authentic Georgian food.)

For a while I have been skeptical about ethnic food in Istanbul: local tastes usually turned any restaurant serving foreign cuisine into something that was only a slight modification of traditional Turkish food. Yet recently I discovered a Georgian eatery producing authentic flavors without worrying too much about local tastes.

Emniyet Garajı, the massive bus terminal in Aksaray, sees hundreds of people coming and going every day from Georgia. Around the bus terminal you will find the essential infrastructure in place: ticket offices of bus companies, currency exchange booths and a few eateries. Everyone speaks Georgian. “It’s like a little Georgia here,” tells me Maho, a Georgian friend of mine. Georgia is only 24 hours and $50 away, which sounds like a good deal to Maho’s countrymen, attracted to Turkey by the poor economic situation in their country. Many are happy to make the trip to Istanbul and take up a seasonal job here to support their families back home.

I met Maho through some local friends and before yet another visa run he invited us to a restaurant. Sitting down for a meal and a few drinks is a big deal in Georgia, with arrivals and departures of all sorts being mandatory occasions to do so. 

A five-minute walk away from the Emniyet Garaj we stumbled upon a spot graced with a sign that said “Cafe Euro.” While I considered heading onwards, Maho pulled me by the sleeve. “Here we are!” he said. We entered a place with a couple of simple tables and chairs occupied by a bunch of smoking men. Dyed-blond hostess Eka behind the counter cheek-kissed with Maho, indicating a certain familiarity between the two.

“My cousin used to worked here. Was good money, you know,” Maho explained. “Why did she leave?” I asked. “She was tired of drunken brawls and fights on weekends,” he replied. I thought of a dramatic difference between an ethnic eatery that interprets foreign flavors for the enjoyment of the local public and a place that serves the original thing to immigrants. Cafe Euro has clearly got enough publicity among Georgians in Istanbul not to worry about catering to locals.

Meanwhile, things started materialize on the table. First came the plates, knifes, forks, water glasses and tiny tea glasses with no tea. A small plastic bottle of a transparent liquid arrived. Maho opened it and poured some into the tea glasses. If you are familiar with the concept of homemade vodka you may be interested in trying chacha, proudly brewed in each self-respecting Georgian household. Otherwise you should stick to something commercially produced.

Such as tarkhun. Tarkhun is a carbonated drink deep green in color based on the extract of tarragon, a green plant with a slight hint of anise. Tarkhun is the invention of a Georgian pharmacist in late 19th century which got a new life as a mass-produced carbonated drink in the Soviet Union. The drink was our Sprite, just million times better, if you ask me.

Soon the food started arriving. There is no menu at Cafe Euro: just like any Georgian restaurant it features the same range of specialties and assumes you know what you want.
First arrived khachapuri, Georgian savory pies which immediately showcased both the simplicity of the flavors and the heights of the cook’s skills. Piping hot, they are sliced into segments revealing the generous quantity of cottage cheese stuffed inside. The leavened dough tastes just like the grandma would make – a little sour and nicely buttery. A couple of bites down I was perfectly full and happy about having submitted to the Maho’s requests of coming here. Then the lobio arrived.

Lobio is a Georgian bean dish that can be served as a side dish or as a stew. Either way, the dish is made up of a combination of red kidney beans, tender cilantro and the tangy touch of garlic. The garlic bites your palate, while the beans smooth things over and the smell of cilantro adds sophistication. Cafe Euro made a hearty side verion of lobio and after eating one serving I thought I couldn’t eat any more that night. And then the khinkali arrived on the table.

Khinkali are Georgian dumplings featuring assorted stuffings of either minced meat, potatoes or cottage cheese (with meat being definitely the most popular). While belonging to the same family as Turkish manti, khinkali provide a different eating experience. Think of them as dough sacks in a size of a large fig hiding a significant amount of meat inside. The dough puffs as it boils and makes space for a delicious broth to develop inside. The idea is to eat khinkali without losing any of the broth. Just like figs, khinkali have a little neat tail on top. You grab them by this tail, turn the dumpling upside down and take a small bite from the side where the broth has collected (careful, its very hot). The ladies at Cafe Euro clearly know what they are doing as the dough is thin, the meat plenty, and the broth delicious.

“There are a few other Georgian places around but everyone comes here,” Maho notes with satisfaction after the third shot of chacha. I could see why. Cafe Euro is probably not the place you would like to end up in on a Saturday or Sunday night – unless you are in a mood for watching a chacha-fueled fight (no kidding). But this is exactly why Cafe Euro remains such a well-kept secret. It’s a Georgian cafe proud enough not to care about the local tastes.



Address: Bostan Sok. (or Bostan Aralığı) Aksaray
Hours: Daily 10 am to the last guest

(photo by Olga Tikhonova)

Located across the street from the Capa General Hospital since 1975, Ilkadim’s dining room is carefully – if a bit grumpily – attended to by career waiter Mustafa Nalbant, who has worked there since opening day. Owner Osman Bilgin said of Mustafa bey, “He has a diploma in waiting tables.”

So rather than pick from the dozen or so mounds of roasted meats, vegetables, pilavs and stews at the open kitchen, we consulted Mustafa bey for advice. What are all those doctors eating?

“Hunkar begendi, efendim,” replied Mustafa.

And what is Mustafa’s personal favorite?

“Hunkar begendi, efendim.”

Our prescription was written. How could we order anything else?

We agreed to the hunkar begendi and asked to start with an esnaf classic, arnavut cigeri, “Albanian liver,” and one kadin budu kofte, a battered and fried patty of meat and rice, that we find irresistible. On its own, the kadin budu was not spectacular, but the liver and cubed potatoes glowed orange with that magical combination of pepper paste, onions and oil. The liver was soft and its light breading held firm against the spicy bath. In this case, the gravy made the liver and even lent a hand to its neighbor on the plate, the kadin budu kofte. This was all a fine start and well worth the trip if you are a doctor across the street at the hospital. But it takes more than a tasty liver to get us on the tramvay during lunch rush.

The name hunkar begendi means “the sultan liked it” and, with a name like that, imaginations run wild both in the kitchen and the dining room (speculation on the origins of the name and a recipe here). We’ve had it served in elaborate copper bowls, the eggplant so overdone with cheese that each bite stretched out from the vessel like a bite of pizza. But the chef at Ilkadim is not dreaming of Sultans and palace kitchens. He knows his clients don’t want too much cream and cheese in their eggplant begendi. The slow roasted lamb should not be too fatty or obscured by anything, even a garnish. This is a stripped down, simplified hunkar begendi – maybe more suited to a citizen than a Sultan – but in our opinion, one of the best in town. The lamb was fork tender and totally clean in flavor, offset by the eggplant, so smoky you’d think it was prepared using Scottish peat. Delicious, in a word.

If the Sultan doesn’t love this one, he deserves to be deposed. Doctor’s orders.

Address: Millet Cad. 153 C, Capa
Telephone: (212) 589-4838

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

Although this soup is probably best drunk at its source, we’ve recently come across a spot in Istanbul that serves up a very fine bowl of beyran – and not just for breakfast. Located in the bustling Aksaray neighborhood, Ehli Kebap is a grill house who’s advertised specialty is skewered liver in the style of Diyarbakir, a city a few hours to the east of Gaziantep. But tucked into the restaurant’s corner is a soup master with some serious Gaziantep chops who has his own cooking station – gaily festooned with strings of dried red peppers – devoted to beyran making.

Each serving of soup is made to order, cooked up inside its own metal bowl, the usta creating it like a kind of hot and soupy ice cream sundae. First up is a schmear of suet, the shortening-like fat found around the kidney of a sheep, to give the soup some silkiness. Piled on top of that is a mound of white rice and strands of lamb meat that has been slow-cooked for hours, until it is utterly tender, which give the soup its heft. To ratchet up the taste, the usta then adds a dollop of minced garlic to the bowl, and tops the whole thing with liberal sprinkles of light and dark red-pepper flakes. The bowl is then put on a blazing gas burner and a ladleful of broth of an unfathomable depth of flavor is added to it, the whole thing coming to a quick boil. By the time the beyran soup arrives at the table, it has achieved a lovely rusty red color, looking – and even tasting – something like a Turkish version of a Louisiana gumbo.

We generally don’t get too excited about soup, but recent visits to Ehli Kebap to sample their beyran have left us thinking that this may be among the finest soups we’ve had in town, something we would be more than happy to slurp down on a daily basis – breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Address: Simitçi Şakir Sokak 32, Aksaray
Telephone: (212) 631-3700

(photo by Yigal Schleifer)

Entering through the hall lined with photos of esteemed guests our attention hung on the huge wall-covered grotto, the likes of which we haven’t seen outside of natural history museums. We won’t get into the ceramic bas-reliefs of Anatolian construction through the ages featuring Greek temples, Ottoman mosques and soaring office towers that adorn the other walls, or other such subtle details. Let the over-the-topness of the grotto – with its stuffed doe and gurgling brook – stand as a symbol for the glory of all things at Has Kral, including the food.

Looking at the menu, we spotted many similarities to one of our favorite restaurants, Akdeniz Hatay Sofrasi, which also serves the cuisine of Turkey’s Hatay area, near the southern border with Syria. Has Kral has the metrelik kebab, sheesh served by the meter, a sporting man’s choice. We also noticed the hallmark of Hatay whimsy, chicken or lamb baked in a salt dome and set ablaze at the table. Both are excellent at Akdeniz, but require advance order so we couldn’t sample Has Kral’s version.

We started our meal with a number of meze that we know and love from the Hatay kitchen – a zingy zahtar (fresh thyme) salad, fattush, or green salad riddled with crunchy fried pide chips, and lubnan ezmesi, which combined a salty soft cheese with roasted eggplant yogurt and dried red peppers. The starters, along with one of our favorite guilty pleasures between courses, icli kofte, were delicious.

Selecting from the list of kebabs is an overwhelming part of a meal at Has Kral. However poetic, items with names like “the dance of kebab” didn’t help us make a decision. We asked the waiter to translate the list into plain kebab language and settled on one of the specials, featuring an assortment of three kebabs. Here’s where Has Kral earned its crown.

Two of the three kebabs were shockingly good. The third, a çöp şiş, was very good by any normal measure but paled in comparison to its compatriots on the plate. One of those, made of fatty ground lamb shot through with bright green pistachios and shreds of red pepper, was crumbly and almost sweet. We found its partner, bursting with pine nuts, so moist and delicious that we thought we might be hallucinating. But that’s the Has Kral experience – trippy, down to the last detail.

There is a tempting desert menu, including candied unripe eggplants and walnuts, but by the end of the kebab course the atmosphere of Has Kral can get a little heavy. We suggest wandering the little streets around Has Kral, , in search of that perfectly plain kunefe shack. They are out there and we find kunefe, a traditional kebab house desert of shredded pastry and cheese soaked in syrup, is somehow sweeter when sitting on a rickety stool on the sidewalk, rather than when being stared down by a stuffed doe perched on a concrete grotto.

Address: Ragib Bey sok. 25/A, Aksaray
Telephone: (212) 534-9707
Web: http://www.haskralsofrasi.com/

In Turkey, ancient Urfa (called Edessa in Roman times) is best known as the supposed birthplace of Biblical patriarch Abraham and the actual birthplace of Ibrahim Tatlises, the undisputed heavyweight champ of the Turkish Arabesque music scene. The city is also known as a major food spot, famous for its dried red peppers and its kebabs. During a visit a few years ago to Urfa – which seems to have two kebab houses for every resident – a local “historian” told us that the town was also the birthplace of yogurt and (perhaps more plausibly) çig kofte, both invented, he claimed, by Abraham himself (the Biblical figure, not the singing star).

In Istanbul, Aksaray’s atmospheric Ragip Bey Street has over the years turned into Little Edessa, lined with a number of kebab joints and spice shops selling the fiery red peppers of Urfa. Following a good recommendation, we made our way to Urfali Haci Usta, a veteran kebab house on the street that has a large dining room decorated with plastic palm trees and walls painted a shockingly bright red. We sat down at table across from a mustachioed man in a black tank top who quickly struck up a conversation with us. Did we know, he asked us, that one of Barack Obama’s grandfathers came from Urfa?

We didn’t put much stock in our new friend’s knowledge of the Obama family tree, but we did realize he might be a good guide for what and how to eat in the restaurant.

Like him, we ordered the patlican kebab, chunky discs of fatty minced meat that are interlaced on a skewer with big hunks of eggplant and which are then all grilled together. Our kebabs arrived accompanied by a mound of chewy flatbread and various small plates holding parsley, sliced onion, grilled tomato and peppers and an ezme (chopped tomato, onion and parsley) salad flavored with dried red pepper that gave it an intensely earthy and rich flavor.

Our friend, meanwhile, got to work, separating the tender eggplant flesh from its charred skin and then placing it, some meat and a bit of everything else on the table on top of one of the flatbreads, which he then deftly rolled up into a monster wrap, washed down with a big glass of ayran. We followed suit, wondering as we bit into our scrumptious durum if Urfa might in fact also be the birthplace of the burrito.

The Bible’s Abraham was known for his graciousness, his tent open on all sides to visitors. Once done with our food, our friend – in true Urfa style – invited us over for coffee, kunefe (syrupy shredded wheat wrapped around cheese) and conversation.

We left the restaurant filled with good food and good cheer, hoping to find ourselves again drifting toward this part of Aksaray very soon.

Address: Ragip Bey Sok. No: 23/B, Istanbul
Telephone: (212) 534-9962
Web: www.urfalihaciusta.com

(photo by Yigal Schleifer)

Several months back, though, we caught sight of a sign by the side of the road in Persian script. Intrigued, we looked closer and realized that it belonged to a restaurant called Asuman, run by a nearby travel agency with the same name that specializes in trips to Iran.

Asuman’s location – just on the edge of the Laleli neighborhood, a wholesale clothing district where many Iranians come to shop, and of Aksaray, a district popular with migrants – seemed to indicate that this might be a place that serves homesick Iranians, rather than gawking tourists.

With visions of steaming, saffron-infused rice pilafs filling our heads, we recently returned to Asuman to try things out. After climbing a short set of stairs, we entered a small, fluorescent-lit dining room that overlooks Ataturk Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare that runs through the heart of the area. The room was decorated in a style that hovered somewhere between tacky and elegant, with light green tablecloths on the tables and chairs upholstered in brown fake leather. There was no zither player, although Persian music was playing in the background.

The one-year-old restaurant, we found out, has a chef from the northern Iranian city of Tabriz. Most of its business involves catering private functions for Istanbul’s Iranian expat community (the previous night, they prepared food for an engagement party with 200 people).

The menu, meanwhile, was short and to the point. A few soups, kebabs, pilafs and stews – a kind of Iranian greatest hits collection. We decided to skip the kebabs and go for some of the other dishes on the menu, starting off with a refreshing cold yogurt-cucumber soup that was topped with chopped walnuts and golden raisins. That was followed by khorost gheymeh, a tomato-based stew made with yellow split peas (and, somewhat incongruously, topped with crinkle cut French fries), and ghormeh sabzi, a stew made with chopped greens and kidney beans. Both dishes (15 lira each) had a dark orb swimming in the middle – a preserved lemon, it turned out – which gave the stews a funky, but pleasant musty hint.

Along with the rib-sticking stews, we also ordered two pilafs – one topped with chopped pistachios, barberries (red currant-like dried berries with a piquant taste) and a crown of vivid yellow saffron-colored rice, and another that was infused with dill and fava beans. Both were very tasty. Stuffed to the gills, we finished off our meal with a glass of strong tea.

The search for more Iranian spots will continue. For now – until we can find another one – we declare Asuman our favorite Iranian restaurant in Istanbul.

Address: Ataturk Bulvari No: 158, Aksaray, Istanbul
Telephone: 212-511-2737

(photo by Yigal Schleifer)

In eastern Turkey, a lamb is consumed literally from head to tail, with hardly any part of the animal going uncooked. One of the specialties from the region, particularly in the area around the picturesque city of Mardin, is kaburga – breast of lamb – a cut akin to short ribs that often ends up in the scrap heap in other parts of the world. Over at Kaburga Sofrası in Aksaray (the restaurant also has two other locations: one in the Şişli area and another in Laleli, a district near the Grand Bazaar), an Istanbul neighborhood filled with cheap hotels, seedy internet cafés and a surprising amount of good restaurants, kaburga is given the royal treatment, stuffed with peppery rice and slow cooked for some eight hours, until the meat turns meltingly tender.

Despite its rib shack wooden façade and slightly grungy surroundings, Kaburga Sofrası tries to spiff things up, with cloth napkins on the tables and piano music playing over the sound system. The presentation of the kaburga, meanwhile, is done with a flourish: a waiter brings it to the table on a large platter covered with a silver dome, delivering it to another waiter who then takes over, de-boning the steaming, tender meat and shredding it into bite-size morsels. Along with the flavorful iç pilav – the rice that was stuffed and cooked inside the ribs – the kaburga is served with a side of rice mixed with fresh parsley and roasted almonds, which offer a crunchy contrast to the soft meat.

Of course, lamb also appears in other forms on the menu. In the icli köfte, ground meat, sautéed onion, parsley and spices that are stuffed into a bulgur wheat shell and then poached to make a very large and tasty dumpling. Mumbar, another specialty from the Mardin area, is lamb intestine stuffed with ground meat, rice and mint (and frankly, something whose rubbery funk we’ve never warmed up to, as much as we’ve tried). In the excellent and earthy guveç, cubes of lamb, eggplant, tomatoes and green pepper are slowly cooked in a clay pot until all of the ingredients become soft as butter and almost meld together.

To make things easy, dessert is limited to one choice: a kind of helva made out of sweetened semolina studded with pine nuts and served warm. It’s quite tasty, but chances are that by this point you’ll be feeling as stuffed as a, well, lamb.

Address: Sekerci Sokak No: 8, Aksaray (note: there are plans to close this
location, so please call ahead)
Halaskargazi Caddesi No: 252/4, Şişli
Fevziye Caddesi No:1, Laleli

Telephone: 212-532-7373 (Aksaray)
212-225-9595 (Şişli)
212-520-1515 (Laleli)

Web: www.kaburgasofrasi.com.tr

The only positive thing about the torturous annual visit we make to Istanbul’s main police station in order to renew our residence permit is the chance to drive through the low-rent Aksaray neighborhood, home to dozens of intriguing off-the-beaten path restaurants, most of them opened by migrants from other parts of Turkey.

On our last trip through the area, we noticed a large, newish-looking sign belonging to a restaurant called “Akdeniz Hatay Sofrası.” Hatay is the name of Turkey’s southernmost province, an area bounded by the Mediterranean and the border with Syria. Until the 1930’s, the Hatay region was actually part of Syria, and the food from there is closer in spirit and flavor to what is found on menus in Aleppo or Damascus. Hatay, the restaurant, is run by a family that hails from the area and does brisk business serving up authentic and very good food from the region. On the several occasions that we’ve been there, the two-floor restaurant was packed with large groups, mostly families who also originally came to Istanbul from Hatay, sitting at long tables covered with countless plates of food.

Hatay’s Syrian roots are especially obvious when it comes to starters, where a creamy hummus – an item surprisingly hard to find in Istanbul – and a smoky eggplant and yogurt salad called mütebbel are the stars. Two zesty salads tossed with tart pomegranate molasses – one made with cracked green olives and another with za’atar, a wild herb that tastes something like fresh oregano – are also highly recommended.

The extensive main course menu has several kinds of kebabs and a rotating lineup of daily specials, mostly hard-to-find home-style soups, stews and savory tarts. But the menu’s real stars are two show stopping dishes: chicken or lamb stuffed with rice and baked in salt (tuzda tavuk and tuzda kuzu in Turkish), which need to be ordered at least 2.5 hours in advance. Slow cooked in a wood-burning oven, the meat is entombed inside a dome of rock salt and then the whole thing is wheeled to your table on a cart. A waiter then douses the dome with a clear flammable liquid, while another waiter lights it and runs away as the salt erupts in a massive burst of fire that would be the basis of a lawsuit in most other countries, but here is all part of the fun. Once the flames have died down, a waiter returns with a mallet and an industrial sized chisel and cracks open the salt to reveal steaming, succulent meat (and in the case of the chicken, deliciously crispy skin).

If you still have some room left for dessert, try Hatay’s excellent künefe, a traditional Middle Eastern sweet made out of a mozzarella-like cheese sandwiched between layers of crispy shredded wheat and doused with a sugary syrup (believe us, it tastes better than it sounds).

Hatay is a quick cab ride from Beyoglu (and even closer to the Sultanahmet area) and we have recently found ourselves going there more and more. In fact, we’re already looking forward to next year’s visit to police HQ.

Address: Ahmediye Cad. No: 44/A, Fatih
Telephone: 212-531-3333
Web: www.akdenizhataysofrasi.com.tr