(Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by “Meliz,” an intrepid explorer of Istanbul’s culinary backstreets and a frequent contributor to these pages who would like to keep her anonymity.)

It all started with Laz boregi.

It was not just any Laz boregi that showed up at the dinner party that evening, but perfect Laz Boregi—layers of yufka (phyllo) buttery and moist, dusted with confectioner’s sugar, in a symbiotic balance with the custard, which was neither too sweet, nor too eggy; neither too runny, nor too stiff. Goldilocks would be proud. Juuuust right. And, it turns out, this stuff is addictive.

So that got me on the ferry and up the hill to Moda Caddesi in Kadikoy, on a pilgrimage to the source. And that is where I really got myself into trouble.

Bizim Ev is a storefront on one of the arcaded stretches of Moda Caddesi, tucked in between discount stores, karate studios, the best butcher in town, and five million coiffeurs. Glowing and cozy, the place welcomes you with an immediate barrage of choices. And therein lies the problem. How to choose just one thing? Turns out, I am incapable of this.

So. In addition to the Laz boregi mentioned already, they do an amazing savory borek stuffed with roasted eggplant (kozlenmis patlican muska boregi), and a daily selection of other savory boreks. Again, perfect yufka, perfect fillings, perfect borek. My greatest weakness at Bizim Ev, though, is an item best described as When Veggie Quiche Met Ev Pogaca. A baked batter that falls somewhere on the eggier side of biscuit holds together a cornucopia of vegetables (usually potato, red pepper, onion, zucchini) laced generously with fresh dill. Irresistible.  And there is still so much more to choose from: cookies, cakes (the sour cherry cake, ooooh the sour cherry cake), baklava…and then there are the zeytinyagli dishes. Bizim Ev manages to rock the baked goods AND to roll out an impressive variety of cold appetizer classics, all made daily from the best ingredients, and all delicious enough to impress even the most stubborn zeytinyagli snob.

Although Bizim Ev is primarily a take-away type of operation, they do have a few tables, inside and out. If I am in a social and sharing mood, I will sometimes pick up some goodies to bring with me when meeting up with friends at the nearby (and lovely) Moda Tea Gardens – those guys never raise a fuss over BYO snacks.

I do not joke when I say that I am incapable of picking just one thing, but I suspect I am not the only one, as owners Nezahat Hanim and Ali Bey never bat an eye when I look shifty, clutch at my pearls, and let out the clarion call of a closeted addict: ‘oh, and maybe just a few of those, too…’ So go ahead, do not be shy, try it all. Everything at Bizim Ev is outstanding. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Address: Moda Caddesi #9/A, Moda 
Telephone: +90-216-336-1681

Just walk on by to nearby Ciya, your instinct might tell you. But that would be a grave miscalculation. Started in 1919 by Fehmi bey, a refugee from Greece, this restaurant has been run by his descendants for three generations, preserving the founder’s recipes. Serving mainstream favorites and hard-to-find specialties, this is a place steeped in the history and the cuisine of Istanbul. It may look like a typical esnaf lokantasi, if a wacky one, but there is much stored in the culinary memory bank of this place.

There are two ways to approach the imposing steam table here. Either go with the recognizable classics such as kuzu tandir, lamb baked in a brick oven, and the Turkish spin on meatloaf, Dalyan kofte. Or you can take the route less traveled, the offal way, as we did on one recent lunch that started with a rich and garlicky bowl of trotter soup. Prescribed locally as a hangover cure, we found this soup equally soothing if you’re stone cold sober. Moving through the courses, rather than the same old buttery rice with a drizzle of baked beans overtop, we went with the rapturous icli pilav, one of Turkey’s most artful, and delicious, rice dishes. At Fehmi it was loaded down with currants and laced with little pieces of liver.

Back at the steam table to select our main course, the usta went over the options again for us, his voice muffled by a surgical mask. What was that he said? Ciger sarma? Stuffed liver? While our intellect wrestled with how a liver would be stuffed and with what, our stomach took over and said, “evet.” Giddy with excitement over the possibility of finding a new favorite dish – anything stuffed with liver or liver stuffed with anything is a really promising start – we returned to the table followed by a waiter in bow tie and vest carrying our trophy dish.

What was on our plate was lightly browned over the top, with an egg sauce, we later learned. The underside was like drenched bread becoming one with the inside. It gave way easily to the fork, releasing what looked like icli pilav and cubed liver into the thin pink juice on the plate. But the big difference here is the casing of this sarma, kuzu gomlek, which translates to “the sheep’s shirt.” This is the caul fat, a thin webby membrane that protects the internal organs of a milk-fed lamb. In Fehmi usta’s day, this gomlek would come along once a year so it was a somewhat precious article and ciger sarma was a seasonal dish, traditionally.

Today, kuzu ciger sarma is on the menu everyday at Fehmi, and, as far as we can tell, it is the holy grail of the menu. As we sopped up the juice in our plate after devouring the rich sarma, swearing that the Turks had figured out how to make liver tastier than the French with their foie gras (sorry, we get a little carried away sometimes), the manager and son of Fehmi came over to see how we liked the dish. We told him that we thought we’d found our new favorite liver preparation and thanked him for it.

Taking a second look at the place on the way out, we made mental note of the coordinates. Yanyali Fehmi is not a replacement for the Kadikoy magic of Ciya, but it is an excellent supplement.

Address: Yaglikci Ismail Sok. 1, Kadikoy
Telephone: +90 216 336 3333
Web: fehmilokantasi.com
Hours: 9am-10pm

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: Over here at Istanbul Eats, we like to think of ourselves as kofte savants. While to the untrained eye kofte may look like nothing more than a grilled meatball, we like to discern differences in taste, texture and consistency in the different styles of this ubiquitous Turkish dish. Like coffee, tea and wine, we would argue that the concept of terroir be applied to kofte and its different regional interpretations. With that in mind, we invite to join us this week for an exploration of the many faces of kofte, with a look at five favorite spots in Istanbul.)

Köfte comes in many forms each with its own title – lastik köfte, inegol köfte, ev köfte and, like the ones at Recep Usta, tükrük köfte. The term tükrük, meaning saliva, comes from a slightly stomach churning popular urban legend that the street cart köfte vendors outside of Besiktas stadium spit on their hands before shaping their meatballs. All the same, köfte that resembles those street meatballs in size and shape – spit or no spit – are categorized as tükrük köfte, as do the fantastic kofte at Recep Usta….(click here for the full review)

In this picture, anything but fresh grilled fish would seem incongruous. But hop off the boat in Cengelkoy, for example, and you’ll find a very different culinary world in the backstreets beyond the dock. Among other things, you’ll find köfte. In fact, people in Cengelkoy seem to have been eating kofte, quite happily, at Recep Usta kofte since the 1970’s.

Köfte comes in many forms each with its own title – lastik köfte, inegol köfte, ev köfte and, like the one at Recep Usta, tükrük köfte. The term tukruk, meaning saliva, comes from a slightly stomach churning popular urban legend that the street cart köfte vendors outside of Besiktas stadium spit on their hands before shaping their meatballs. All the same, köfte that resembles those street meatballs in size and shape – spit or no spit – are categorized as tükrük köfte, as do the kofte at Recep Usta.

We happen to love eating tükrük köfte sandwiches outside of the stadium. It’s about the only part of a Besiktas soccer match that we do enjoy. So it was pleasantly surprising to see our old game day meal on a plate alongside a pile of onions and a dollop of red pepper sauce. But the resemblance stopped there. If Besiktas stadium kofte is the canned tuna fish of meatballs, then Recep usta is serving sushi-grade.

On the way out, we asked Yavuz bey, son of the founder Recep usta, how he’d categorize his excellent meatballs. “Recep usta köftesi,” he said, then and there, creating a new category of meatball (and cleverly avoiding any reference to bodily fluids). Smart move.

Address: Cakali Sok. 4, Cengelkoy
Telephone: (216) 321-4977

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: Over here at Istanbul Eats, we like to think of ourselves as kofte savants. While to the untrained eye kofte may look like nothing more than a grilled meatball, we like to discern differences in taste, texture and consistency in the different styles of this ubiquitous Turkish dish. Like coffee, tea and wine, we would argue that the concept of terroir be applied to kofte and its different regional interpretations. With that in mind, we invite to join us this week for an exploration of the many faces of kofte, with a look at five favorite spots in Istanbul.)

Students of Istanbul street food will recognize the “islama” modifier on this kofte and understand its relation with the oh-so-edible “islak” hamburger in Taksim Square. It is a fellowship of drenched bread. But while the wet burger is drenched in secret sauce and sent to steam in the burger hamam, islama kofte’s wide slices of village bread are dunked in kemik suyu, or, homemade beef stock, and grilled alongside the meatballs.

We asked Osman usta, who has worked the grill at AKO Adapazari Islama Kofte for 39 years, what the secret is. He replied, “No secrets. You just dunk [the bread] and grill it.”

The “and grill it” part of Osman’s instructions, we think, is the key to this dish though….(Click here to see the full review)

We asked Osman usta, who has worked the grill at AKO Adapazari Islama Kofte for 39 years, what the secret is. He replied, “No secrets. You just dunk [the bread] and grill it.”

The “and grill it” part of Osman’s instructions, we think, is the key to this dish though. Three slices of toasted, sopping bread covered nearly a dozen bite-size kofte. The bread achieved a real crunch and melt-in-your-mouth sop that we’ve only experienced in a good French toast. At other kofte places, we’ll never look at bread — sitting there undunked and untoasted — alongside kofte the same way.

Though the bread represents the luxury option package of the dish, distinguishing it from more common models, checking under the hood of this kofte reveals a meatball firing on all cylinders. Juicy and handmade, grilled perfectly over a charcoal fire, these meatballs need not hide under any bread. “Forget the bread, I’d come back for the kofte alone,” said someone at the table. Which side of this dish — the islama bread or the kofte — plays the lead seems a subject for debate, only to be resolved by another visit to this fine spot.

Address: Yasa Caddesi 11, Kadikoy (inside the bazaar area)
Telephone: (216) 338-7815
Web: adapazariislamakofte.com

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: This week we are celebrating the white bean, that humble legume that reaches levels of incredible complexity and flavor when in the hands of Turkish cooks. Until visiting some of Istanbul’s shrines to the baked bean, we generally regarded the dish as something eaten out of a can beside railroad tracks. But Turkey takes this humble food (known as “kuru fasulye”) seriously; that means chefs in tall toques carefully ladling out golden beans in a rich red gravy onto monogrammed flatware, served by waiters wearing bowties and vests. Even in the least formal of Istanbul’s beaneries, the guy manning the pot has the air of a high priest knowing that his incantations alone conjure something unusually delicious out of a simple bean. This is no hobo fare. This week, to celebrate the bean, we are counting down our five favorite place in Istanbul to get “kuru fasulye.”)

At Çomlek you can’t miss the huge red clay cauldron sitting behind the counter. The fellow with the big ladle says it’s the pot that makes these beans better than the rest. Cooking vessel aside, a serving of these beans also has the highest meat count of any place we’ve visited in Istanbul. Whereas most beans might have a shred or at best a few nuggets of tender roasted beef in there for flavor, Çomlek’s are crowned by generous helping of meat. In such a rich dish the meat offsets the cloying beans satisfyingly, leaving the meek still able to walk away and the strong-willed able order up another half portion. The restaurant, located on the wooded slopes above Uskudar on the Asian side, is a bit out of the way. But for us, these are beans at their best and worth the trip.

Address: Turistik Cad. 28, Çamlica
Telephone: 216-316-2953
Web: www.comlek.com.tr

(Editor’s Note: This guest post is by Jeffrey Gibbs, an American writer and teacher living in Kadikoy whose personal blog can be found here.)

I stumbled home from a day of managing wild middle schoolers and started to open the fridge for a medicating Efes Dark only to find a magnet near the handle that read, “Gilan Cafe, Iranian Cuisine. Kadıköy.”

I did a double take. Yes, yes, it said Iranian. Iranian! How long have I searched for a decent Iranian restaurant in Istanbul? The address was just up the road and so my fiance and I hit the sidewalk and after about five measly minutes, found the unpreposssessing little cafe tucked among the apartment buildings of the Acibadem neighborhood.

The cafe had an outdoor patio with heaters and a cozy room inside simply decorated with red table clothes and pictures of Persopolis. Among Darius’s ruins, a new display of framed newspaper clippings sang the praises of the little restaurant. In the background, Iranian music by the famous Persian musician, Hayde, played from a laptop manned by our waiter.

We were soon met by Fetihan, a sharp, down-to-earth woman who had lived for thirty years with her Iranian husband in the Gilan province of Iran (thus the restaurant’s name). “It was like the Iranian Black Sea,” she told us. “With the blue water of the Caspian Sea in front of you and the mountains at your back. Ahhh, a gorgeous place.” We ordered a starter of “Ashe Doogh”—billed as “Ayran Soup” in Turkish. It was a hearty, creamy yogurt based soup with tiny meat balls, fava beans, rice, and a hint of herbs. A swirl of bright green thyme oil adorned the top. Fetihan also brought out a complimentary salad of mint, cucumbers and tomatoes with a basket of thin lavash bread.

For my main dish, I order fesenjan, a rich walnut and pomengranate sauce over slow cooked köfte. It is served, as is everything else, with a plate of Persian rice. My fiance goes with ghormeh sebze, a creamy spinach based dish that reminds me of Indian saag. It has chicken, peas, and tiny köfte, with a rich sauce flavored with dill, cumin, and a diminuitive Persian lime.

“All of my ingredient from the spices to the lime come directly from Iran,” Fetihan explains. “You can’t find this kind of rice in Turkey.”

The rice was wonderful—a pillow of white with a sprinkling of bright yellow grains flavored with saffron. Unlike Turkish rice, our hostess tells us, Persian rice is cooked without oil because you are supposed to pour the sauces of your main dish on top. For drinks, we had Iranian ayran, a chilled version of Turkey’s classic yogurt drink flavored with crushed herbs. It was light, creamy, and refreshing.

My fiance, being Kurdish, pointed out all the similarities between the Persian dishes and Kurdish ones. One menu item is called Ab Ghosht, in Kurdish Av Goşt—“Meat in Sauce.” The dessert was Zerde—“yellow” in both Kurdish and Farsi. We ordered one and found ourselves treated to a bowl of a saffron flavored custard topped with pomengranate seeds and green pistachios. As with a Turkish meal, our Iranian one was finished off with a glass of hot tea.

The second time we went, Fetihan’s son was on hand. His enthusiasm and knowledge of Iranian ingredients and culture was infectious. He had set up a traditional Newroz table in the front of the restaurant with the 7 S’s, as he called them, or haft sin in Farsi. The sacred seven include sir (garlic), somaq (sumak), sib (apples), and senjed an Iranian fruit symbolizing love. He also brought out a bowl of candy coated coriander seeds which had a wonderful flavor when eaten with the strong Persian tea.

The restaurant may not be located in the heart of Istanbul, but it’s easily reached with a minibus or a taxi from Kadıköy wharf—or by a twenty minute walk (it’s near the Kadıköy Carrefour). It’s worth the journey; Fetihan puts a level of care into her creations that is reminiscent of Çiya.

Good international cuisine in Istanbul needs support—there’s so little of it and what exists is often overpriced and overrated. Fetihan serves delicious meals at normal prices with a generous spirit. Go. Eat. Tell others.

Address: Umut Sok. 3/D, Acıbadem/Kadıköy
Telephone: (216) 325-6615
Web: www.gilancafe.com

There was nothing simple about selecting the number one lahmacun maker in Istanbul. There are scores of freshly fired crispy/chewy, spicy/piquant versions of the dish all over town. But, perhaps by sheer coincidence, our top two lahmacun joints are located a stone’s throw from each other in the Asian side’s Kadikoy district, which at least gave us the chance to line them up for a side-by-side comparison of lahmacun-ness.

We started the sampling at Halil Lahmacun – an old favorite and a celebrated destination for Istanbul lahmacun lovers. In 1980, Urfa native Halil Dortok turned his back on a promising career as a tailor to open a small shop with an oven where he started making lahmacun. Perhaps it was a tailor’s attention to detail, but Halil’s oven-baked creations quickly won him fame in the lahmacun world.  Today Halil’s son Fuat is in charge of the oven and, judging by the traffic in the shop on a Wednesday well before lunchtime, nobody is complaining.

Lahmacun, like pizza, is one of those mysterious foods where a lot is created with so little. But in the hands of a real master, or usta, a paper-thin round of dough topped with a simple mix of ground peppers, meat and spices, becomes something magical – almost a living thing.

Fuat pulled two lahmacun from the oven for us – the perfectly round edges just slightly charred from sitting on the floor of the brick oven – and garnished them with a bit of parsley and a lemon wedge on the side. Mama Mia! This looked like a perfect lahmacun.

This was a fine specimen. The topping was light and had a clean taste of fresh vegetables, even without the parsley and a spritz of lemon juice. “Crispy” was the word double-underlined in our field notes, followed by “awesome.”

From there it was on to our next taste-ination. We are usually suspicious of chains, particularly when it comes to something as hand-crafted as lahmacun. But in the past, we’ve enjoyed many a lahmacun at the Kadikoy fish market location of Borsam Taş Firin, an Istanbul mini-chain of lahmacun ovens. When we set out to find the number one lahmacun in Istanbul, we were intrigued by a few tips that urged us to head toward another branch of Borsam, just a few streets north of the market. Preference of one branch over another of the same chain must indicate the presence of an outstanding usta, we thought to ourselves.

Still quite impressed by Halil and ready to walk off a full lunch at Ciya, we headed uphill to find Borsam Taş Firin in full swing. This is not a place that skimps on production. Along with an oven-tending usta and his two assistants, there was a young man whose sole occupation was to brush off excess flour from the back of the freshly baked lahmacun with a tiny broom, before passing it on to be served. The team worked in a quick rhythm and we had our lahmacun in hand within a minute or two of ordering.

Discerning between these two top-notch lahmacun makers – Halil and Borsam – seemed impossible. Like Halil’s, Borsam’s lahmacun, with its lovely contrasts of oven-darkened crust and deep red flecked topping, looked ready for the cover shoot of Bon Appétit Magazine. But we recognized the difference before even tasting this one, thanks to Borsam’s brush boy, who rolled up our lahmacun into a baton with some parsley inside, forcing us to tear it apart to share. Thinking back to the first lahmacun of the day, Halil’s was not the tearing sort, its crust so crisp it nearly shattered in our hands. Borsam’s lahmacun, on the other hand, first snapped a bit and then gave way to a soft stretchy second layer of the crust hidden between the bubbly topping and the matzo-like crispy bottom crust. Imagine a crust just a couple of millimeters thick with three completely different personalities all formed in just a few minutes in a raging oven. This is the lahmacun usta’s magic touch. With a crust this complex, the topping, a peppery, musty spread that reminded us that this is not a vegetarian treat, was almost beside the point.

Due to the work of the nameless doughboy who, by luck or instinct, created a lasting memory, Borsam won our vote for the best lahmacun maker in Istanbul. Our search for lahmacun perfection is over (for now).

Halil Lahmacun
Address: Guneslibahce Sokak 26, Kadikoy
Telephone: 0216-337-0123

Borsam Taş Firin Lahmacun
Address: Serasker Sokak 78, Kadikoy
Telephone: 0216-349-4323

(photos by Robert H.Gertner)

(Editor’s Note: This post is part of our occasional “Since You Asked…” advice column. We welcome our readers’ questions, so feel free to send any you might have to istanbuleats@gmail.com)

Dear Istanbul Eats: The Asian side’s Korfez was always my very special night out when friends came to town, especially since they had their own boat that would come pick you up on the other side of the Bosphorus. Being swept across the water by private boat was always an impressive start to a reliably excellent meal. Now that Korfez is closed I don’t know what to do. Can you help? Marooned in Mecidiyekoy

We feel your pain. Cruising over to Korfez was certainly one of our favorite Istanbul dining experiences. There are some other options, though. Lacivert, also on the Asian side, offers a boat pickup service, although the food and service are not quite up to Korfez’s standards. Kordon, a very nice restaurant housed in the same Ottoman-era building as the waterfront Sumahan hotel, can arrange for pickup on the hotel’s boat (as long it’s also making a run to collect Sumahan guests).

But we suggest cutting out the middleman and chartering your own boat. There are lots of freelance boatmen looking for business along the shore of the Bebek area, but we’ve had good luck with Kaptan Erdogan, who docks his boat on the Eminonu/Fatih side of the Golden Horn. He can be reached at 90-(0)532-651-0331 and even has his own Facebook page. Expect to pay 80-100 lira per hour for his boat, which accommodates ten comfortably.

Whichever boat you end up with, ask the captain to take you up the Bosphorus to Suna’nin Yeri in Kandili or Ismet Baba in Kuzguncuk. You’ll have excellent food at better prices than the fancier spots along the Bosphorus and you can put the money you saved on dinner into the cost of the boat ride. Happy sailing!