Had we previously known the sound of the zirh blade’s rhythmic roll over large cuts of lamb, we could have followed our ears through the side streets, past the jewelers near Atik Ali Pasa Mosque to the brisk lunch in progress at this little kebab shop. In his open kitchen Vaha usta works the zirh, a scimitar-like heavy curved knife, on a thick wooden slab and it sounds like a steam engine chugging at full speed. Each day starts here with a pile of choice cuts of beef and lamb, the place closing down around five PM when the meat runs out. It has been that way since the mid-1970’s, when Şeyhmus  (pronounced “Shay-muhs,” like the Irish poet Heaney) himself was still working the counter.

Vaha usta cuts the meat fresh for each kebab depending on the customers preferences – fatty or lean, spicy or not – before wetting his hands and working it onto long skewers.  We chose the Mardin kebabi (fairly lean and spiked with green peppers) as a nod to the southeastern Turkish hometown of the late Şeyhmus usta, both of which are celebrated in large framed photos and posters all over the dining room.

Vaha usta, working at a frantic speed, barked an order at a young waiter playing with his cell phone. The boy pocketed the phone and quickly came to Vaha usta’s side with a napkin and cleaned up shreds of meat that had gone flying from the blade onto nearby tables. (Note to readers: select your table carefully or wear a raincoat.)

We enjoy swordplay at the lunch counter for the sake of entertainment, but a few bites of our Mardin kebab told us that this was not just a gimmick. The meat used at most kebab shops may be of fine quality, but it has usually been smooshed through a grinder once or twice leaving it a limp, pliable mound. Vaha’s zirh-cut lamb/beef combo came off of the skewer springy, with great textural variation. At certain points it still seemed to have a grain. People speak of zirh-cut meat having a particularly fresh taste and we got that. But it was the texture that impressed us most. This kebab made the average street-side Adana look like an Oscar Meyer wiener.

So entranced were we by the properties of this Mardin kebabi, the heavy roll of the zirh on the chopping block, the slap of fresh tirnakli ekmek (flatbread) coming out of the oven, the sight of meat flying through the air that we forgot to ask just how it was that an Irishman ended up making kebab in Mardin.

Address: Molla Fenari Mah., Medrese Sok. No:2, Çemberlitaş
Telephone: +902125261613

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

The sign out front read “Mehmet Usta” and the hand-written menu board with no more than four or five items looked promising. Then nearing the humble eatery, we saw the most homely and delicious-looking doner we’ve encountered in quite some time. Most small restaurants and bufe order their doner log from a factory and advertise its brand with pride – “We serve Bereket doner.” For some businesses, this is a sign of quality and consistency (remember that stories of doner made from seagulls or donkeys are well-known in this city of a million spits) but not to Mehmet usta. He buys his meat from a butcher, cuts it into flat filets and skewers it according to his own methods. Mehmet has been preparing his doner like this for 40 years as all donerci of his generation did. The result looks like a vertical cag kebab, loosely packed cuts with much greater variation than the uniform doner of his competitors. Mehmet usta’s doner isn’t shaved, it is carefully carved and the result are not ribbons so much as morsels of doner.

We hold a deep respect usta like Mehmet who cling to the old ways, not for the sake of nostalgia but because it results in better food. In this case, it certainly did. We took a seat across from an older fellow in a postal worker jacket and followed his lead with a pilav ustu doner. Unlike a sandwich, which can hide the quality of the meat, doner over rice bears all. The French fries on the side of our plate were cold and stiff – something so consistently true of donerci French fries that we can only assume it to be an act of protest against the French, or the potato – but the heap of doner over buttery rice was an excellent break from the norm.

We finished up and thanked Mehmet for his delicious doner, while he sat in the sun drinking a tea and getting a shoeshine before the lunch rush. “I make good soup too,” he said.

Note taken, Mehmet. We’ll be back.

Address: Buyuk Karaman Caddesi #3, Fatih
Telephone: +90212 533 8665
(Across from the gas station on the corner)

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

We’ve tried many traditional Turkish cakes, but none we encountered measured up to the beloved pop kek. That is, until one recent visit to Fatih Sarmacisi, an Ottoman-era shop making our new favorite cake, sarma (the word means “wrapped” or “rolled up” in Turkish). Sarma is a particularly light sponge cake that is loaded with apricot marmalade, soaked in a thin syrup and rolled up, hence the name. It is served chilled with a sprinkle of coconut and pistachio shavings. The syrupy cake chilled the mouth, with each bite grabbing our attention to the small bit of apricot jam hiding in the folds. The sponginess certainly reminded us of a good pop kek, but this Sarma was a much cleaner, headier experience.

As we sat with our sarma at one of the two tables, an errand boy wandered in and ordered a full sarma roll, a few kilos according to the scale. “What is this sarma, ya? You don’t have a branch in Cyprus?” he asked, explaining that his boss was sending this to a client in Cyprus.

Adnan bey, who watches the till, is the third generation of his family making and selling sarma from the same shop in Fatih. They don’t have a branch in Cyprus, or anywhere else. He carefully wrapped the sarma and tied a ribbon around it. According to Adnan, his grandfather, Ibrahim bey, left the Ottoman palace kitchen and opened this shop making sarma.  His son Necmettin carried on the tradition and now his sons, Adnan and Arkan run the business.

“We’re the oldest around here. Well, not as old as the medrese,” he said pointing to the big stone building across the street, a part of the centuries-old Fatih Mosque complex.

We were so busy dredging our plate for sarma crumbs, we felt completely free of the culinary legacy of the Ottomans, whose fondness for elaborate dishes usually hangs around the dinner table like a dark cloud, obscuring the simple pleasures of a meal. The goodness of this cake isn’t too hard to access. Maybe that’s how Ibrahim really ended up on the outs with the Sultan – he was ejected from the palace kitchen for making a cake that is too easily likable, not quite odd enough for the Sultan’s taste. It certainly worked for us and a steady stream of the post-prayers crowd from the nearby Fatih mosque.  We resolved that next time we buy a bus ticket, we’ll take a cue from the Cypriot businessman and stop in here for a slice for the road. Leave the pop kek for the uninformed.

Address: Favzi Pasa Cad. Aslanhane Sokak 14, Kucukmustafapasa, Fatih
Telephone: +90 212 251 4085

(photo by Ansel Mullins) 

Curious to find out what was going on, we returned several nights later, armed with nothing more than a notepad, pen and an empty stomach. As we made our way up Ataturk Bulvari, a busy road in the Fatih neighborhood that runs through the Byzantine-era Valens Aqueduct and down to the Golden Horn, the cart – and the crowd – were again there at the same spot. The cart, it turned out, serves up a pilaf of rice, chickpeas and chicken along with ayran (a salty yogurt drink) – comfort food that comes at a very comforting price.

There are probably hundreds of pilav carts crisscrossing Istanbul every day, but this one seemed different. While the owners of other carts usually roll along trolling for business, this one stays put every night, letting the crowds come to him. “We’ve been in the same spot for 15 years,” said the cart’s operator, a hardworking man in a starched white chef’s smock, who would only give his first name, Ayvaz, for fear of getting in trouble with the authorities. “We’re famous – that’s why there’s always a crowd here.” (Click here to read the rest of this archived review.)

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)

Click here for a list of some of our favorites.

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/

(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.”)

Erzincanlı Ali Baba

According to historians, Tiryaki Sokak – Addicts Alley – got its name from the opium served up in its coffee houses in Ottoman times. Though that substance has been long banned, since 1924 Ali Baba has been ladling out something equally addictive from a great copper pot: Erzincan-style baked beans. Ingredients such as onion, tomato and chili pepper are more recognizable in the soupy base; the bean bigger than its Black Sea counterpart. Though we remain junkies of the Black Sea variety, the Erzincan preparation is a nice change of pace and there’s no better place to try a bowl than sitting on Ali Baba’s squat stools in the shadow of the minarets of the sublime Suleymaniye mosque.

Address: Prof. Sıddık Sami Onar Cad. No:11 Süleymaniye/İstanbul
Telephone: 212 – 513 62 19
Web: http://www.kurufasulyeci.com

(Editor’s Note: A recent article about a spat between Turkey and Greek Cyprus over who owns the rights to claim lahmacun as their own got us thinking about those minced-meat covered discs of dough and how, when done right, they really are something worth fighting over. So, prompted by the Turkish-Cypriot food fight, we’ve decided to officially declare this week “Lahmacun Week in Istanbul,” where we’ll be looking at five of our undisputed favorite spots in town to get a taste of how the contested savory delight should be made. Today’s post takes a look at Öz Kilis, a spot on a Fatih backstreet serving lahmacun (and kebab) as its made in southeastern Turkish city of Kilis.)

In Turkish popular lore, the denizens of Kilis, a town in southeastern Turkey right near the Syrian border, are known for several things: kebab and lahmacun making and smuggling. We haven’t been to Kilis, so we can’t vouch for the smuggling bit. But we did recently have lunch at Öz Kilis, a wonderful little spot on a quiet back street in the Fatih neighborhood run by two Kilis natives, and can report that the kebab and lahmacun making reputation is well deserved. (Click here for the rest of the review)

We love this itinerant liver man and his sandwiches for many reasons, including his wisdom. Of all the wandering food vendors, the cigerci has the niftiest gear. Lutfi usta, a wandering cigerci for more than thirty years, carries a large metal and glass lantern-shaped case which holds fried cubes of liver and grilled peppers in the bottom and whole tomatoes in an upper compartment. It is at once a cooler and an attractive, portable vitrine complete with foggy windows.

But a man in this economy cannot survive on looks alone. Lutfi’s “Albanian-style” liver sandwich is a delightful mid-day snack. We took a seat next to him and ordered a ceyrek, or quarter loaf. He pulled a pre-cut 5-inch fresh loaf of crusty white bread from wicker basket and started loading it up with a generous spooning from each compartment of the liver case – first the liver, then the peppers and tomatoes and finally a dash of salt – before handing it over.

The liver, bulked up with cubed potatoes and laced with onions, was warm and tasted less like the liver from some of our favorite grill spots but more like a hash. The liver’s batter barely gave way to a peppery oil bath it sat in, softening the loaf and the pepper and generally creating unity within the confines of the sandwich.

We handed over the three lira for the sandwich and thanked Lutfi usta, saying we’d see him again soon.

“Inshallah,” he said. Apparently, not even the will of an Istanbul street hustler can challenge that of fate.

Address: IMC Blok 1 (Near the bank machines), Ataturk Bulvari, Unkapani
Hours: 10-2pm (Inshallah)

(photo by Ansel Mullins)