Monday
Haymatlos: Down and Out in the Rumeli Han
When left alone by real estate developers, the late Ottoman-era hans of Beyoğlu are fertile ground for commercial misfits you’d never encounter in more visible locations. Like mushrooms in a dark, damp place, some of the city’s most individualistic enterprises – tattoo parlors, pirated DVD shops, Off-Track Betting parlors, risqué lingerie shops and used bookshops – seem to thrive inside these decrepit old hans.
On İstiklal Caddesi, we’ve watched han after han fall to a swift and merciless wave of gentrification. The courtyard that led to our favorite notary public in the Narmanlı Han is now off-limits as the building awaits a makeover. The Circle D’Orient, home of İnci Pastanesi, seems to be going the same way. One of our favorite places for a beer, the old theater-workers bar in the Atlas Pasajı, is now just a warm memory to us, an office space to others. But just when we thought the whimsy of Bohemian Beyoğlu had choked on the chain stores that line İstiklal these days, we spent some time exploring the last bastion of funky Beyoğlu han life, the Rumeli Han. Continue…
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no responses - Posted 04.04.11
These days, along with döner kebab, Turkey’s biggest export is the soap opera. From Athens to Abu Dhabi, people are hungry for these sultry and often scandalous one-hour dramas. We, too, enjoy some good intrigue, and following the backstory of the Istanbul restaurant scene often plays out like a season ...continue
4 responses - Posted 03.28.11
(Editor’s Note: This guest post is by Jeffrey Gibbs, an American writer and teacher living in Kadikoy whose personal blog can be found here.) (Editor's Note II: Sadly, this spot is no longer open. According to their website, the owner has moved the operation to Montreal, Canada. If you're interested in ...continue
8 responses - Posted 03.25.11
(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 ...continue
no responses - Posted 03.23.11
(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 ...continue
1 response - Posted 03.22.11
(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 ...continue
no responses - Posted 03.21.11
(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 ...continue
5 responses - Posted 03.18.11
Several years back, before İstiklal became an open-air shopping mall and walking down the boulevard past Galatasaray still had a certain kind of frisson to it, reaching old man Sabırtaşı’s streetside içli köfte stand felt like pulling into a safe harbor. Always standing there was the beatific Ali Bey, an ...continue
no responses - Posted 03.14.11
(Editor's Note: We've recently been given access to one of Istanbul's most inner sanctums: the kitchen of Beyoğlu's Sabırtaşı, where we were shown how to make the restaurant's superlative içli köfte, winner of our "Top 5 Street Foods" contest from a while back. We will be sharing the recipe on ...continue
3 responses - Posted 03.07.11
(Editor's Note: Intrepid traveler and eater Sherri Cohen recently gave us the goods on the Tekirdağ köfte 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 ...continue
6 responses - Posted 02.28.11
(Editor's note, 2015: We're sorry to report that Mohti has permanently closed.) “My heart starts pounding when a pregnant lady enters the room,” said Hüseyin, the artist turned owner/operator of Mohti, a new “Laz Meyhane” in the back of the backstreets of the Asmalımescit area. While this might sound to some ...continue