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….

• Gords Galore!

   

  http://istanbuleats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/squashes.jpg

• Shrooms

   

  http://istanbuleats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/shrooms.jpg

• Grapes

   

  http://istanbuleats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/grapes.jpg

• Eggs

   

  http://istanbuleats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/eggs.jpg

• A woman selling bread at the market

   

  http://istanbuleats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/breadlady.jpg

• Some balkabak

   

  http://istanbuleats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/balkabak.jpg

• Mr. Shrooman

   

  http://istanbuleats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/shroomman.jpg

In Turkey, many people assign much of what happens throughout the day to kismet, or fate, but when eating wild mushrooms you might be tempting it. Every year, it seems, local papers report on someone’s demise by mushrooms, which explained why the woman in the duster was reluctant to finish the transaction.

Having swallowed the subject, Aziz bey lit a cigarette, took a puff and tucked it behind his ear, adding to the carnival atmosphere of the moment. The woman, presumably satisfied with Aziz’s survival of the mushroom demonstration, bought a kilo of the fragrant fungi and hustled her family on toward the next table selling homemade breads and fresh milk repackaged in plastic Coke bottles.

This exchange greeted us as we entered the Inebolu Sunday market in Kasimpasa — a sort of open secret among Istanbul foodies prowling for the culinary holy grail and displaced villagers yearning for that taste of home. In Istanbul, the koy, or village, and its products are idealized by city dwellers, who are generally forced to accept mass-produced food.  While “village-produced” has become a marketing tool as regularly abused as the term “organik”, we think people fill their bags at the Inebolu Pazari for less philosophical reasons — because everything at this open-air market is so delicious and cheap.

A visit to this market has become a semi-regular ritual for us when the seasons change and it is never a disappointment. We come home with koy ekmegi breads laced with herbs and cheese and suzme yogurt so thick and rich that we spread it on the bread and call it a meal. Of course, there are the jams made from mulberry and rosehip alongside amber shades of honey glowing in their jars like backlit bottles of scotch. Mismatched containers clutter tables, herbs sit in their dirt awaiting replanting, loaves of bread sit in huge mounds as if unloaded by dump truck, red-feathered chickens jabber and bolt out from under cars. Unlike most of the produce found at greengrocers around town, every item here, even the stacks of vine leaves bound with different colors of string, feels like part of a cottage industry, almost boutique. The Inebolu Pazari makes other daily street markets in Istanbul feel like Sam’s Club.

Ask Aziz bey, who has been making the 11-hour drive from the Black Sea region’s Inebolu every weekend for 15 years with a trunk full of mushrooms, where he gets his mushrooms from and he’ll deflect the question with chuckle and a cryptic answer that makes his customers’ faith in him all the more impressive. “This isn’t the kind of stuff you can get from the big wholesalers,” is all he says.

Address: Toprak Tabya Sok. (just off of Bahriye Cad. Across from Sururi Park), Kasimpasa
(Note: the market runs on Sunday only, going from 6 AM until 4 PM.)

(photos by Yigal Schleifer)

We’d been told by many reliable sources that the best bean is at Husrev and others said to look no further than Fasuli. Watching the taxi meter hop up another decimal place on our trip to Gaziosmanpasa, we too thought this might be a foolish mission.

But one name in our research caught our attention and stayed with us: Selma usta. We’d heard some chatter recently about Selma usta, staking her claim as the only female kurufasuliye master in Istanbul, so we decided to go check out the hive of the bean queen for ourselves.

If Husrev and Fasuli represent the major league of beans, Selma Usta, as talented as she may be, is still in the farm leagues. She had no poofy hat and starched white jacket nor the pride of most bean ustas, a giant copper pot to be photographed in front of.

But don’t be fooled by the looks of this humble little beanery in a drab suburb. It has a fanatical following. Look around the place and you’ll find the testimonies of other diners written right there on the wall. One boy rhymes of sneaking off to Selma for beans and being beaten by his mother when he returns home. A married man named Ahmet writes that only after eating Selma’s beans did he realize his own wife’s culinary shortcomings. Persuasive words! These could be home-wrecking beans, good enough to break up a family.

And the beans were all that. The plump and pale Erzincan seker variety were prepared in a tiny batch in the kitchen of Selma usta with materials she sources personally from the city of Tokat, in the heart of Anatolia. She claimed to be holding some secrets and we believe her. But, for us, the defining feature of this dish was butter.

All beans prepared in the Black Sea style are swimming in butter spiked with salca. But Selma’s butter is a like nothing we’ve encountered in Turkey. It is as if we’d seen butter on TV for years and now, finally, we’re in the farmhouse eating it straight from the churn. It gave the dish a strong flavor that we now know to be farm fresh Tokat butter and filled the dining room with its intoxicating musk.

This superior ingredient, like a rocket booster, shot this dish beyond the realm of worldly beans where it now floats, in our minds at least, in bean heaven. On the way out, we told Selma that this lunch was well worth the 25 TL we paid a taxi to get there. She blushed and her son smirked and suggested we take the Metro next time. The Tas Kopru stop is just across the street.

Address: 1028^th Sokak #4, Taskopru/500 Evler, Gazisomanpasa, Istanbul
Telephone: (212) 477-1706

(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.)

A severe man in a monogrammed blazer and slacks stands at the door of Husrev, greeting patrons with a nod and an open-palmed, sweeping gesture toward the dining room. Heels click across the polished marble floor as important men and women walk in and check their coats without pausing from their telephone conversations. Eavesdrop and you’ll probably overhear the finishing touches on a deal to build a Turkish spacecraft or the purchase of one of the Bosphorus bridges.

It’s easy to get caught up in the charged atmosphere of Husrev — overstuffed high-roller booths line the walls that lead out to a vast atrium where everyone appears in their prime and dressed for it — enough to make you forget that everyone has just ordered nothing more than a bowl of beans accompanied by a salty yogurt drink. But that is what’s so pleasurable about Husrev: it’s a familiar plot with an unusual Turkish twist. From Hong Kong to Houston, a high-powered business lunch is propelled by a big steak and stiff drinks, but not in Turkiye. Here, deals are sealed over beans.

The beans at Husrev are certainly worthy of their dedicated following. Eating a serving of the blond and creamy beans bathing in a rich, red gravy, we got the feeling that every variable in the recipe is tightly controlled by a board of usta in white coats.

With such resources committed solely to making beans, how could this not be the best bean in Turkey or the world? Husrev’s logo features the globe indicating international triumph and they do claim to be the “world’s bean gentleman”. What would the cassoulet-loving French say about that? Or Cairenes about their beloved ful?

Concentrating deeply on the beans before us, we could not identify a single flaw in this bowl of beans. These very well could be the best beans in the city, but, truthfully, we were a little disappointed to find them only delicious. We were hoping for magic beans — ones that would transform us into rich and successful people like everyone else at Husrev. But even at 9.50 TL, the most expensive beans we’ve ever eaten, we weren’t that that much poorer leaving the place.

Address: Dedeman Is Merkezi, Yildiz Posta Caddesi 48/1, Esentepe
Telephone: (212) 347-4210
(located beside the Dedeman Hotel in Gayrettepe)

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

There was a time when every meyhane around here had a true character at the helm, someone who knew how to work the crowd, comp a drink and indulge in the art of hospitality every night. Now, sadly, as Asmalimescit and other traditional dining zones go upmarket, the only trace of that old school proprietorship is found in yellowed photos on wall.  In this context, Huseyin — a boisterous host in an exceedingly sterile market — is almost as odd a fit as Mohti’s concept: thoroughly home-style Black Sea cooking in a meyhane setting.

Huseyin’s confession was elicited one night recently, when we showed up at his meyhane with a pregnant lady in tow. The plan was to have a quick dinner, but Huseyin (pictured below) wasn’t having that. He wanted to see the pregnant lady moan with delight over multiple courses. So our modest order quickly turned into a Laz tour-de-force featuring nearly every item on the menu and one, which happened to be our favorite of the night, that was prepared for the kitchen staff’s meal.

In previous reviews of Laz restaurants we’ve stated our belief that the Laz are actually a long lost clan from Alabama — hence their affinity for what seems like American-style soul food and fiddle music. And like a true southern diner, the mark of a Black Sea restaurant comes in the breadbasket. If there’s cornbread in that basket, the place is probably legit. At Mohti, the bread offering was set to a higher frequency, with fresh chunks of hamsi ekmek alongside the cornbread. Truth be told, Turkish cornbread can often be a bit dry and dense, but when laced with fresh anchovies, it comes alive, as it did at Mohti. Following the hamsi ekmek came tursu kavurma, a plate of sautéed pickled vegetables, and a Black Sea garden omelette made with kale, leeks, and hamsi filets called kaygana. A skillet of muhlama – a fondue-like dish made out of cheese melted in clarified butter – followed, requiring us to pull and stretch the long glistening strands of cheese which we wound up on a fork as if they were pasta.

And then came the surprise final course in the form of large steaming dumplings. Before Huseyin said the word hinkali, we were already having flashbacks of Georgian feasts we’d enjoyed in Tbilisi, Moscow and Tashkent. Even if dumplings are simple and standard in construction, they always leave a strong impression on us. Dumplings, particularly Georgian ones, have personality and Mohti’s bulky fragrant bundles filled with coarsely ground lamb and stock were supremely evocative of the Caucasus.

Basking in the hinkali afterglow, we should have called it quits but no Black Sea feast is complete without at least one plate of fresh hamsi lightly battered in cornmeal and fried. Ours appeared and were devoured in what seemed like an instant, leading to the arrival of a second order.

The pregnant lady admitted to Huseyin, now sitting at our table, that it was the best hamsi she had ever eaten. He swooned. Pregnant lady excluded, we all had another drink and clinked glasses to the novel concept of a Laz Meyhanesi and to the success of one of Beyoglu’s newest meyhane dons, Huseyin bey.

Address: Orhan Adli Apaydın Sk. No:15/A Kat-2, Asmalımescit
Telephone: 212-249-7181

(photos by Ansel Mullins)

There is not much in the way of farm land, but the Black Sea is blessed with particularly tasty anchovies, or hamsi, that appear in a wide variety if dishes throughout the winter harvest.

What follows is one of our favorite forms of hamsi, hamsili pilav, a savory rice cake cloaked in thin hamsi filets. At Klemuri, a terrific Black Sea restaurant near Taksim, the hamsili pilav, with its currants and pine nuts, is a little dressed up compared with some of the village versions we’ve had, but it is the real deal. This recipe comes straight out of the Laz heartland courtesy of Sevim hanim, the mother of Klemuri’s owner.

Ingredients:

1 kg of fresh, whole anchovies
1.5 cups of white rice
1 large onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup currants
¼ cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup chopped dill
Salt
Black pepper

Preparation:
Sautee the pine nuts in the vegetable oil at medium heat, add finely chopped onions and keep cooking until the onions turn golden but still soft. Add the rice and continue cooking for a few minutes. Add the currants, dill, black pepper and salt. Mix well and add enough water to cover mixture. Cook over low heat until the water has cooked off. The mixture is ready when the rice is still a bit “underdone” or “yarim pismis” (half cooked) as Sevim hanim explains.

Debone the anchovies and remove their guts, patting them flat to create mini filets (or, better yet, ask your fish seller to do the deboning for you). Cover the bottom and sides of a well-oiled oven tray or casserole dish with the anchovies. Spread half of the pilav over the anchovies. Add another layer of anchovies on top of the stuffing and then spread the remaining pilav on top of the fish, as if layering a cake. Finally, add one more layer of anchovies. Add enough water to cover the top layer of anchovies. Drizzle a bit of vegetable oil on the surface and bake at 200 degrees Celsius until the water has been completely absorbed by the rice, or about 30 minutes.

To serve, use a sharp knife to score the pilaf’s top into square portions and then use a spatula to take the squares out of the tray.

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

We were feeling a bit lost for a period, not knowing where to go for a quick honest lunch of hearty Laz fare. 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 Sisore was a great – and affordable – spot to get acquainted with it. We’ve had decent meals there since the split, but it was clear we needed to find a new spot to get a quality fix of Black Sea food.

Then we got a call from Hizir bey, the shaggy-haired owner who left Pera Sisore, taking with him the kitchen’s A team, including the feisty old lady who prepares the Black Sea specialty dishes and the man working the pide oven. This new venture, called Hayvore, is another Laz word, meaning “I am here.” After a quick sampling of the dishes we recognized from Pera Sisore — chickpeas in a glowing red gravy, meaty stuffed chard leaves, large hunks of cornbread and Black Sea sardines lightly fried — we knew we’d be coming here, regularly.

Address: Turnacibasi Sokak 4, Beyoglu
Telephone: 212-245-7501

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: Although the new year is already upon us, we had so many memorable Istanbul dining experiences in 2010 that we wanted to take one last look at the past year’s culinary highlights. So, before we get to the work of further exploring Istanbul in 2011, here’s our top 10 bites of 2010.)

For us, the best bites are often the ones that are most reliable. Before we review a restaurant for this site, we try to return several times to make sure that that best bite wasn’t a fluke.

1. Pera Sisore was always a reliable favorite of ours. However, after a shakeup in management we’ve noticed a dip in quality and consistency. Luckily, half of the Sisore team, including the kitchen staff, recently opened a new place in Beyoglu called Hayvore. We are happy to report that all of the Sisore favorites are on offer at Hayvore. Perhaps one of our last bites in 2010, Hayvore is definitely among the best.

2. Just down the street from Hayvore is another standard in our playbook, Cukur Meyhanesi. Excellent meze and fried liver aside, this is always one of the first places we head to when the hamsi, or Black Sea anchovies, start swimming. A plate of these tiny fish — skewered and grilled — help us understand the hamsi mania that envelopes Istanbul every winter.

3. Another unforgettable fish was set before us just last week at the Arnavutkoy favorite Adem Baba. We aren’t sure how many times we’ve eaten sole at Adem Baba — rolled, skewered and grilled with wedges of tomato and peppers, fried or grilled whole — but every time feels like the first time. After a double portion, we considered abandoning Beyoglu for the restaurant’s Bosphorus-side neighborhood just to be able to eat here everyday.

4. Along with the reliable best bites, there were also transcending moments when we felt we’d stumbled on something Bigger than a great meal. Smearing creamy fava puree on toasted bread, munching fried fish and drinking beer from a can dangerously close to the lapping Bosphorus at Sunanin Yeri in Kandilli was certainly one of these moments.

5. The first time we walked into Fatih Karadeniz Pidecisi in Fatih there was such intense pide-worship going on we thought we’d stumbled into the temple of a secret cult. But we were heartily welcomed into the ritual taking place and it was very special. This too was one of those out-of-body best bites.

6. If a few years ago you told us we’d be craving liver for lunch everyday, we would have laughed in your face. But the truth is that we can’t stop thinking about the Arnavut Ciger – aka “Albanian liver,” tiny morsels of calf’s liver that are dusted with flour and red pepper flakes and then fried and served with thin slices of raw onion – at Beyoglu’s Sahin Lokantasi. We really would be eating this dish for lunch seven days a week if it were not for the fact that Sahin – perhaps in an act of kindness to the other restaurants in the area – only serves liver every other day.

7. The Besiktas-based bistro-like Meyhane Sidika was one of our most satisfying finds of the year, with a great out-of-the-way location and lovingly prepared food. One of the restaurant’s meze specialties is a chunky, light green spread that turned out to be an utterly delicious mash made out of feta cheese and chopped pistachios. Nothing fancy – just good, honest food that was completely memorable.

8. In years past, the exceedingly short growing season of loquats always seemed to pass us by, which meant we usually missed our chance to have “Yeni Dunya Kebab” – a springtime specialty made by wrapping pitted loquats around minced meat and then grilling them on a skewer (in the picture above) until the fruit turns tangy and jam-like, serving as a perfect counterpoint to the fatty meat. This year we made a point of catching this unique and delicious kebab’s limited-run at Samatya’s Develi kebab house and we’re already counting the days until the first loquat appears this spring.

9. We’re all for culinary innovation, but there are some things that need little improvement. Take, for example, grilled ribs – a dish that has changed little since our earliest ancestors started putting meat to fire. Over at Taksim’s Zubeyir Ocakbasi, the kaburga – lamb ribs – are the kind of thing that awaken our inner caveman, an unbelievably satisfying mix of meat, fat, smoke and bone that always finds us ordering a second round.

10. There are several good spots to try durum – kebab wrapped in flatbread – around town, but this year we finally had a chance to try Aynen Durum, a superb joint just outside the Grand Bazaar that we had been eyeing for a long time. While the durum there was great, what we truly loved about this microscopic place was the vibe  and the crowd of hungry bazaar locals chowing down with a kind of reckless abandon rarely seen in other places around town.