Tuesday
Istanbul Eats on the Road: Mystic Liver in Antep
Editor’s note: In Salih Seçkin Sevinç, creator of the fantastic Turkish-language food blog Harbi Yiyorum (roughly translated as “Eating, For Real” in English), we’ve found a kindred spirit and a source for great eating tips. We’ve asked Salih to share with our readers some of his culinary wisdom this week. This is his second post about the mind-blowing food scene in Southeast Turkey’s Gaziantep.
If you ask for directions to Ciğerci Mustafa in Antep, everyone will show you where it is (right inside of the city’s bazaar). And what makes Ciğerci Mustafa such a destination is the current conductor of this place: Asef.
He is such an interesting and colorful person that if you stretch your imagination a little bit you will probably say, “This guy is Şems-i Tebrizi or something.” He never holds his tongue, saying whatever comes to his mind. His heart and brain work simultaneously. When we first stepped into his place to eat liver kebab, the first thing we asked him was, “What are the traditions of this place?” As you can see, we were getting used to being in Antep, understanding that here one asks about tradition first. His eyes shined like crazy and started to tell us his secrets for how to eat liver, Antep-style. Continue…
All entries filed under Reviews (Eats)
6 responses - Posted 10.11.10
Editor’s note: In Salih Seçkin Sevinç, creator of the fantastic Turkish-language food blog Harbi Yiyorum (roughly translated as “Eating, For Real” in English), we’ve found a kindred spirit and a source for great eating tips. We’ve asked Salih to share with our readers some of his culinary wisdom and this ...continue
4 responses - Posted 10.04.10
The chill of fall is in the air in Istanbul, which also means that good stuff is happening in the waters near the city. More specifically, it means that hamsi season is about to kick off in the chilly Black Sea. Hamsi, of course, are the minuscule fish (Black Sea ...continue
1 response - Posted 10.01.10
Around lunchtime, the phone at Hamov never stops ringing. The little pink delivery scooter and its tireless driver stay in perpetual motion in order to feed a neighborhood full of loyal customers good home-style lunches where they seem to prefer it, in their homes. Most seem to call in for the ...continue
3 responses - Posted 09.24.10
For breakfast lovers, the experience of arriving in the eastern Turkish city of Van is akin to what a gambler might feel upon showing up in Las Vegas – overwhelmed by the options and the promise of a serious payout. Van, of course, is the home and birthplace of the monstrous ...continue
1 response - Posted 09.20.10
After a while, some Turkish food, like mantı, can become repetitive – serving after serving of the same tiny, boiled dumplings with yogurt. Deeply conservative when it comes to food, Turkish cooks and diners alike generally don’t like any fussing around with traditional recipes. So, distinguishing between a good mantı ...continue
3 responses - Posted 09.13.10
“What would you say if I offered you a very tender lamb filet marinated in garlic?” a voice boomed from behind the grill, its source obscured by an ornate copper hood decorated with a scene of kebab heaven – sheep, shepherd and steppe. Was this Saint Peter in kebapci disguise ...continue
no responses - Posted 09.08.10
We recently wrote about the emergence of the “esnaf nouveau,” a new class of restaurant in Istanbul that puts a more sophisticated spin on the classic esnaf lokanta (or “tradesmen’s restaurant”), the place where working stiffs come to get their daily fix of traditional Turkish comfort food. To the list of ...continue
1 response - Posted 09.03.10
(Editor's Note: This review of one of our favorite places in town originally appeared on May 4, 2009.) One of the big downsides to Istanbul’s otherwise great food scene is the lack of a credible Mexican option. We’re not asking for anything special, just a place that serves simple, tasty tacos ...continue
1 response - Posted 08.30.10
We like to think of İnciraltı, a laid-back meyhane in the sleepy Bosphorus-side Beylerbeyi neighborhood, as a destination restaurant – not so much because of the food, but because of the destination itself. Not that there’s anything wrong with the food here, which is reliably well made. The meze tray at ...continue
5 responses - Posted 08.27.10
In the rapidly developing Istanbul district of Beyoglu, a new concept restaurant is born everyday – Korean fried chicken, construct your own canapé, a restaurant claiming to serve the widest variety soups in the world, etc. If a place makes it past infancy, pirated versions of the original are sure ...continue