Monday

Dogu Türkistan Vakfi Aş Evi: East meets East

With the particularly uncatchy name of Dogu Türkistan Vakfi Aş Evi (or East Turkistan Foundation Food House), it’s clear this restaurant is not aiming for mass-market appeal. Rather, the place functions as a kind of public service agency. Located inside the charming and very pleasant courtyard of a 16^th-century former medresa (religious school), Dogu Türkistan Vakfi Aş Evi (DTVAE from here on) serves up hearty dishes for homesick exiled Uighurs, a Muslim Turkic people who hail from western China’s Xinjiang province, or “East Turkistan” as it is known in Turkey.

Turks and Uighurs share a linguistic bond, and many in Turkey romantically think of the Uighurs as the “original” Turks. But the two people also share a strong culinary bond, with Uighur cooking providing perhaps a blueprint of what “original” Turkish cooking might have tasted like. Where the classic Turkish kitchen reflects a mix various regional influences (Aegean, Middle Eastern, Balkan) and the highfalutin tastes of the Ottoman court, Uighur cooking retains the simplicity of what were originally a nomadic people. So simple, in fact, that the menu at  DTVAE is basically limited to three items – and two of them are different takes on manti, the traditional Turkish dumpling. Continue…