A migrant from Malatya in Eastern Turkey who hustled tea near the Egyptian Bazaar as a boy, by the mid 1990’s he lorded over an empire of kokoreç stands – 33 at its peak – walked his own production floor, drove a white Mercedes (“when that model was in style,” Vahap Usta pointed out) and counted more than 50 tuxedos in his closet. Beyond the financial gain, though, Vahap Usta was a cult figure – the Willy Wonka of kokoreç – who helped make this street food iconic. And then he disappeared. “Vahap Usta is like a kite without a string. You never know where he will end up,” said Vahap’s old neighbor, optician Bilgin Bilgic, to the Aksam Newspaper in 2003.

The legend of Vahap Usta lives on in Facebook pages (“Vahap Usta Neredesin?/Where are you Vahap Usta?” asks one) and through claims of recent sightings and nostalgic blog posts of encounters long past. But for quite a while no one seemed to know what exactly happened to the kokoreç King himself. Our attention was brought to this story by friend and fellow trencherman Salih abi, author of the great food blog Harbi Yiyorum. We followed false leads for a year before we finally found Vahap Usta, working at his kokoreç counter on a commercial strip in the Sisli neighborhood.

So what happened to Vahap Usta? He sighed and removed his reading glasses, which, we noticed, were missing one arm.  “Nobody can lose money the way I can. It is an art form,” he said flashing a grin.

Though he says that he was the first to grill long thick rolls of kokoreç over coals as a street food, we’ve found evidence to the contrary. And there is no way to verify the claim that he sold around 12,000 kokoreç sandwiches and a truckful of ayran every day from his cart, because, like many things about Vahap Usta, his books are not available for review.

But we do know that Vahap Usta’s boom coincided with a wave of kokoreç popularity, when its image transformed from a somewhat obscure street food into a staple of Turkish pop culture. At the time, conflict in Eastern Turkey raged, Turgut Ozal, then prime minister of Turkey, was selling state assets like hot potatoes and Istanbul’s population doubled (again). As Turkey’s largest city and economic powerhouse, Istanbul was rapidly modernizing and experienced serious growing pains. Fortunes were made and lost along the way. On the streets of Istanbul, meanwhile, a revolution was taking place, with the business principles of western fast food meeting the flavors of traditional Turkish street fare to create a wholly unique hybrid. Did Vahap Usta start the revolution? Did he ride a wave originated elsewhere (at Hamburger University in Oak Brook Ill, perhaps)? What was the situation of street food in Istanbul, and Istanbul itself, in the 1980’s and 90’s that would encourage a man with no experience to declare himself a master of an old trade and model his business on Colonel Sanders?

The answers to these questions lie within the story of Vahap Usta. In this series we’ll try to unravel the rise, fall and possible rebirth of this ambitious culinary entrepreneur, the P.T. Barnum of grilled intestines, and see what created the kokoreç king and, beyond that, his kingdom.

In the meantime, if you’d like to drop in for a kokoreç, Vahap Usta is set up in front of Emek Kebabi in Sisli:
Address: Abide-I Hurriyet Caddesi 124, Sisli
Telephone: +90212 2341065

(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)

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.)

Click here for a list of some of our favorites.

(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. We start today with Tophane’s Ismael Kebapcısı, an Istanbul Eats standby.)

Where Beyoglu slopes down towards the Bosphorus in Tophane, a rough-around-the-edges district named after a nearby Ottoman-era cannon factory, there’s not much in the way of swanky eating. Judging by the great piles of husks on the sidewalk, sunflower seeds are the dietary staple of the neighborhood. Well, that and a spicy flatbread called lahmacun (pronounced lah-ma-joon).

Over at Ismael Kebapcısı, owner Ismael smiles broadly from his post by a blackened stone oven. He’s always got a little dough on him, and at lunchtime he’s making it hand over fist. Ismael grills up mincemeat kebabs and chicken sheesh, but he clearly takes most pleasure in plucking a small handful of dough, dusting it with flour and rolling it out matzo-thin on the marble slab before him. He pats on top of it a fine spread of ground meat, tomato, onion, red pepper paste and spices and then shoves it deep into the hearth with a long paddle. That’s about all there is to a preparing a lahmacun.

There have got to be a dozen other lahmacun makers within a four-block radius of Ismael. You may ask, “Why is thislahmacun different from all other lahmacun?”

“Because I think positively!” Ismael explained one day, twinkling eyes lit by a clear sense of duty.

We’re not inclined to doubt Ismael on that point. Positive thinking goes a long way in the kitchen and the proof is sitting right there on the end of his paddle. (Click here to read the rest of the review)

We were recently lucky enough to be allowed into what felt like one of Istanbul’s most inner sanctums – Mrs. Sabirtasi’s kitchen – and observe her work her culinary magic firsthand. Below is the recipe for the family’s award-winning icli kofte, truly one of Istanbul’s top culinary delights.

Ingredients:
½ kilo lean ground beef
¾ kilo white onion
½ kilo fine, or “koftelik,” bulgur
100 grams walnuts
½ bunch parsley
1 teaspoon black pepper
½ tablespoon salt
½ tablespoon red pepper flakes (preferably from the city of Maras)
½ tablespoon tomato paste (“salca”)

Preparation:

1. Filling: Finely chop onions and parsley. Crush the walnuts.
In a large pan or skillet, brown the onions with the beef continuously mixing over medium-high heat for about 15-20 minutes.
When browned and crumbly, remove from heat and add parsley, walnuts, and spices. Mix well, cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. Shell: Put the bulgur in a large mixing bowl and pour very hot water over it – enough to cover the bulgur. Mix in 1 tablespoon of tomato paste and a bit of salt. Allow the bulgur to sit in the water until it cools and the bulgur expands fully. When cool, knead the bulgur by hand thoroughly for 20 minutes. This is hard work but essential for the consistency of the shell. When it reaches a slightly elastic pasty consistency it is sufficiently kneaded.

3. Assembly: Here’s where the technique comes in. Take a small handful (about 100 g) of bulgur and make a ball. Make a hole in the ball with your index finger while rotating the ball with your opposite hand. As you hollow out the ball it should lengthen in your hand and start to take the shape of a small cup. The walls of the shell should be firm and consistently around 2mm thick. Once the shell is evenly hollowed and about 8cm in length, gently fill it with the filling (about 1.5 tablespoons) but leave a little room at the top so you won’t have trouble closing it.

Now comes the second trick – closing the kofte. Moisten your hands with water and slowly spin the open kofte with one hand while gently tapering closed the open top on top. As you continuously spin it you can remove any excess shell that may appear. This process somehow reminded us of watching cigars being rolled. What results should be a firm little football shape about 8cm long and 4 wide.

4. Frying: At Sabirtasi they use a deep fryer, but any deep pot will do for frying. Heat enough vegetable oil to 350F so that once you put the icli kofte in to fry they will be completely submerged. Fry until golden brown.

Recipe makes 20-25 icli kofte, 130-150 G apiece.

(Editor’s Note: We’ve recently been given access into one of Istanbul’s most inner of sanctums: the kitchen of Beyoglu’s Sabirtasi, where we were shown how to make the restaurant’s superlative icli kofte, winner of our “Top 5 Street Foods” contest from a while back. We will be sharing the recipe on Friday, but as a warmup, we’re rerunning our original post about Sabirtasi’s icli kofte.)

For years on Istiklal Caddesi, just beyond Galatasaray High School, in one calm spot stood the beatific Ali Bey, an angel in a white doctor’s coat offering salvation in the form of golden fried icli kofte.  Though he passed away recently, Ali Bey left his post and his streetside stand — as much a part of the Istiklal streetscape as the red trolley cars that run up and down the boulevard and the belle époque apartment buildings that line it — to his son, who fills it with the same panache, white jacket and all. And thanks to Ali bey’s wife, Fatma hanim, the icli kofte lives on.

Known as kibbeh in the Arab world, icli kofte is a savory snack consisting of a bulgur wheat shell that holds a filling of ground meat, onions, parsley and spices. These little torpedoes are handmade upstairs by Fatma hanim, who spends most of the day at a large table with her daughter-in-law working the stuffing into the casing before passing them on for final preparation. They chat and laugh as they work, their hands working by what appears to be instinct alone — a scene more reminiscent of a rural family kitchen than a dining room with a view of one of Istanbul’s best-known streets.

(Click here to go to the full review)

(Editor’s Note: Intrepid traveler and eater Sherri Cohen recently gave us the goods on the Tekirdag kofte scene. Today, once again on the road, she brings us news of the historic rebirth of an almost extinct street snack in Izmir.)

The denizens of Izmir like to think of themselves as the Istanbulites’ laidback counterparts. Life is slower, relationships more intimate on the Aegean. Street food in Izmir is different, too. There the simit shrinks and calls itself gevrek; kumru, rolls stuffed with beyaz penir and tomatoes, multiply and bloom spicy green pepper stems. And the poğaca’s got a new relative: an oily, plain circular bun called boyoz.

Boyoz doesn’t look or sound like a Turkish word and it originally wasn’t. The buns arrived from Spain with Izmir’s Sephardic Jewish population in the early 1500’s, and the city’s Sephardim still use Ladino, their fascinating medieval Spanish-based language of exile, to describe the wide world of boyoz (or boyos, depending on which Jewish cooking source you consult). Similar to borek in ingredients and preparation, a Sephardic boyoz was made with only one thin dough layer wrapped in different patterns around varied fillings: a boyoz de handrajo (literally, handrag, actually a cooked eggplant/zucchini mixture), was square-shaped, while a boyoz de espinaka (spinach) was pinwheel-shaped or circular and a boyoz de patata (potato) was triangular. The filled pastries were oven-baked until golden.  No one is quite sure when boyoz passed from Sephardic to general consumption, but somehow during the centuries-long interchange of Sephardic and Turkish Izmirli cultures, delicate fillings were traded for more dough and significantly more grease. My first sample of streetcart boyoz was disappointing; doughy, bland, and so oil-soaked I could wave to my friend through the wax wrapping paper.

What happened to the Sephardic boyoz of lore? Some well-placed questions among Izmir’s close-knit Jewish community group La Liga elicited memories of mama’s perfect handrajo and quaffs about the buns being peddled on the street. You can still by traditional filled boyoz, I was told. They’re made at home by women producing kilos for personal orders. But for a small breakfast bite? “Go to Oret’s,” they said.

I was taken to Patisserie d’Oret one afternoon by a friend who helped me shout quick questions to the eponymous owner while she raced around the pink-hued bakery stuffing take-out boxes, refilling trays, and chatting with customers. Her curly red hair escaped its loose ponytail as she told me her story. Oret Abulafya was a kilo-producing boyoz phenom who thought of opening her own storefront for years, one in which she could sell sweet and savory Turkish pastries as well as the perfected versions of her mother-in-law’s Sephardic recipes. After 10 years of dreaming and planning, Oret and husband David opened Patisserie d’Oret in spring 2010 on a main street in Alsancak, the busiest, classiest neighborhood of Izmir, and also where the majority of the city’s Sephardim live. A small replica of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew almost escapes a quick glance, hidden between trays of food on pastel-painted shelves. Her customer base, however, reflects the multicultural history of Izmir, and Jews, Muslims, and everyone in between make daily trips for a snack. She did admit that it took a bit of cajoling to convince some customers of the legitimacy of the Sephardic filled boyoz, but once converted they never looked back.

The recipe is simple: a dough of flour, water, salt, a bit of sunflower oil, and a dash of lemon juice is formed into little balls, which soak in an oil bath for an hour. After, the balls are hand-rolled thin, to the thickness of skin (Oret’s words), then wrapped around the filling, shaped accordingly, and baked. But by my mid-afternoon visit they were past their prime. “Come back tomorrow morning,” she said as she cut into a pan of dulse de bimbriyo (Sephardic quince sweets), “when they’re fresh.”

I returned to the patisserie early the next day for breakfast. A quiet young assistant was busy filling trays with freshly-baked almond crescent cookies when co-owner David emerged from the back. In Ladino, David told me Oret was busy transporting pastries between the off-site baking facility and the patisserie and that I should please eat, eat, I look so skinny. From the gleaming browned buns in the window display, I chose a circular boyoz de handrajo, and after a brief hesitation, snagged a large, brown huevo haminado (slow roasted egg) from the register-side wire basket for a complete meal. The first bite of delicate handrajo was a pleasure, the eggplant and zucchini, stewed in a mixture of tomato paste, onion, salt, and a hint of tulum cheese, and almost melting into the dough and light coating of oil, enveloped my tongue in a dainty, velvety layer. I alternated bites of boyoz with huevo haminado, a hard-boiled egg slow-cooked in a pot along with onion skin and pepper until the white of the egg turned a vibrant roasted brown and tasted almost carmelized. Although I was satisfied, David tempted me into trying a boyoz de espinaka, whose deep green filling, visible through the paper-thin dough, delivered substantial mouthfuls of unadulterated cooked spinach.

There was love in this food; here was the depth of taste and soul that was missing from the nondescript streetcart offerings. Patisserie d’Oret also sells coiled borek and irresistibly poppable mini-borekitas which carry the same fillings, but there’s something uniquely Izmir about the boyoz bun that’ll make you stray from your borek habit. Potato and cheese is their best seller, and give their rose-shaped tahini bun a taste, too. But it’d be a shame to skip their wide selection of Sephardic treats. For an afternoon sugar rush, try the above-mentioned smooth dulse de bimbriyo, mogado (chunky and chewy almond paste), or travado (walnut and cinnamon treats), or make it a full lunch with a plate of raisin-filled yaprak sarma. A wide selection of salty and sweet cookies line the shelves, too, along with a killer tiramisu. Whatever you choose, include a “buenos diyas” and a wink after your “merhaba” to Oret and David and don’t rush through your food—you’re in Izmir, after all.

Ladino to Turkish to English guide

Boyoz de handrajo = patlicanli boyoz = eggplant boyoz
Boyoz de espinaka = ispinakli boyoz = spinach boyoz
Boyoz de batatas = patatesli boyoz = potato boyoz
Huevo haminado = yumurta = slow cooked egg
Dulse de bimbriyo = ayva ezmesi = quince paste
Mogado = badem ezmesi = almond paste

Address:Talatpasa Blvd. No: 64/A, Alsancak, Izmir
Telephone: 232-422-4162

(Editor’s Note: This review originally appeared on May 18, 2009.)
Mehmet Demir may not be one of Istanbul’s better-known restaurateurs, but he certainly is among its shrewdest. In fact, he has the best business plan in town: Demir runs a bustling business that has customers literally lining up in the street to taste his grub, doing so with minimal overhead, zero rent and a staff of two. Of course, working out of a wheeled cart that has no fixed address helps keep costs down (and insures that customers have no place but the street to line up). But it also means that Mehmet can channel all those savings into what he serves, which in this case is a monstrous and delicious breakfast sandwich.

Demir is part of Istanbul’s great food on wheels tradition, with different carts that sell everything from rolls to grilled meatballs making appearances throughout the city at different times of the day, and even according to the seasons. One of our favorite cart snacks can only be had in late spring and summer, when vendors selling peeled and salted cucumbers materialize, only to disappear with the first sign of fall.

Although Demir works from a cart, there’s something more permanent about his operation. For the last 11 years, Demir and his wife Ser have been selling their sandwiches from the same corner off Istiklal Caddesi, the pedestrian-only boulevard that runs down from Taksim Square, starting at 6:30 am and working until about 11 am or until they run out of bread, whichever comes first. The Demirs’ three-wheeled wooden cart is topped with a glass-lined box that holds crusty, bakery-fresh mini loafs on a top shelf, and below that a smorgasbord of breakfast ingredients: feta and string cheese, sliced tomatoes, green peppers, parsley, hard boiled eggs and some mystery meat he calls “chicken ham.” Most of Demir’s customers –hungry office workers on their way to their jobs – get all of the above crammed into a loaf that first gets treated with a schmear of zesty black olive paste (we prefer to order ours “etsiz,” without the meat). The way all the ingredients work together – the salty tang of the cheese and olive paste, the crunch of the pepper, the coolness of the tomatoes, the freshness of the parsley and the pleasing unctuousness of the egg – makes for something very satisfying. More discerning types, meanwhile, order the “bal kaymak” sandwich, a loaf spread with honey and the dreamy Turkish version of clotted cream. A very fine way to start the day. (For more information, check out this earlier post about kaymak.)

A whole sandwich will set you back three-and-a-half lira, while a half loaf – a mini bomb that should leave most office workers dazed in their cubicle – costs only two lira. So, if you happen to be walking down Istiklal during the week, we suggest you drop by Mehmet Demir’s breakfast cart – even if you’re not on your way to work. Day in and day out, this sandwich shop is on a roll.

Address: corner of Istiklal Caddesi and Deva Cikmazi (across from the Malatya Pazari store)
Telephone: no phone

(Photo by Yigal Schleifer)

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)