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Posts Tagged ‘ Istanbul Eats ’

Aug 01
Monday

İlkadım Lokantası: Hospital Food

Filed under Reviews (Eats)


For an Istanbul restaurateur, to count among your regulars a cadre of doctors appears to be a sign of achievement worth bragging about. Among the many restaurant tips we have received is one that led us to the subterranean İlkadım Lokantası, backed up by the promise that doctors are known to eat there. In fact, at lunchtime at İlkadim, a humble esnaf lokantası in the Çapa district, there were so many doctors, medical technicians and pharmacists that it seemed that there was a “lab coat required” policy in effect.

Located across the street from Çapa General Hospital since 1975, İlkadım’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? Continue…

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All entries filed under this archive


Govinda’s Vejeteryan Evi: Veg Out
4 responses - Posted 07.25.11
(Editor's Note: Unfortunately, this restaurant is now closed.) Step out of the dingy stairwell of the Rumeli Han and into Govinda’s Vejeteryan Evi and you will feel as if you’ve crossed a cosmic divide. The warm and cozy room has café tables, pillowed floor seating, walls covered with a friendly looking ...continue
More Sultanahmet Dining Secrets
5 responses - Posted 07.22.11
(Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by “Meliz,” an intrepid explorer of Sultanahmet’s culinary backstreets who would like to keep her anonymity.) The neighborhood around Sultanahmet and the Grand Bazaar introduces an interesting plot twist into the slow-cooked Choose Your Own Adventure that is the esnaf lokantası experience. As described ...continue
Büyükada Hi-Lo
no responses - Posted 07.15.11
(Editor's Note: Since the New York Times ran a wonderful article in last Sunday's Travel section about Büyükada, the leafy island near Istanbul, we've decided to rerun a previous post containing some suggestions on where to eat on the isle.) If it’s because of showing visitors around or simply a desire ...continue
Lagmania: Eating with the Uighurs of Zeytinburnu
5 responses - Posted 07.11.11
(Editor’s Note: In almost a decade of intrepid eating in Istanbul, we still miss the immigrant community restaurants we know from the American big cities where language barriers and foreign customs make a lunch into a real adventure. Istanbul has foreign communities and it has foreign restaurants but the two ...continue
Meşhur Unkapanı İMÇ Pilavcısı: The (Rice) Freaks Come Out at Night
no responses - Posted 07.06.11
One recent late night, zipping down a busy Istanbul thoroughfare in a taxi on our way home from the airport, we passed by an intriguing scene. Huddled around a brightly lit food cart was a large group of men stuffing their faces in a kind of zombie-like frenzy. It almost ...continue
Istanbul Eats on the Road: Putting the “Pit” Back into Pit Stop
1 response - Posted 07.01.11
When traveling by bus in Turkey, we tend to get anxious as the dinner hour approaches. As the bus downshifts, through the mesh shades we see a gleaming rest area/cafeteria/gas station/carwash facility specifically constructed for cross-country bus traffic. We feel trapped, robbed of the chance to eat at a local ...continue
Ehli Kebap: Slurper’s Delight
no responses - Posted 06.27.11
Southeastern Turkey’s culinary mecca of Gaziantep is best known for its baklava and kebabs. But lately we’ve been thinking that it's soup that may actually be the city’s real crowning glory. Not just any old soup, mind you, but beyran çorbası, a stupendously delicious lamb-based broth that is usually slurped ...continue
Istanbul Eats on the Road: The Magic Meat of Keşan
2 responses - Posted 06.20.11
Editor’s note: This guest post comes courtesy of Salih Seçkin Sevinç, author of the great Turkish-language food blog Harbi Yiyorum (loosely translated as “Eating, For Real”). On my last two journeys to the Gallipoli region, I made sure to make a stop along the way for satır et, an awesome dish ...continue
Istanbul Köfte Week: #1 – Meşhur Köfteci Recep Usta
no responses - Posted 06.10.11
(Editor’s note: Over here at Istanbul Eats, we like to think of ourselves as köfte savants. While to the untrained eye köfte 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. ...continue
Meşhur Köfteci Recep Usta: In a Category All its Own
no responses - Posted 06.10.11
From a seat on the deck of a Bosphorus ferry, the little neighborhoods of the Asian side seem to have the same idyllic layout: a platoon of fisherman with long casting rods on either side of a small white boat dock in the foreground; a minaret poking through the foliage ...continue

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