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Posts Tagged ‘ kebab ’

May 18
Monday

Kenan Usta Ocakbaşı: Skewers at an Exhibition

Filed under Reviews (Eats)

Kenan Usta Ocakbası, photo by Monique Jaques

If Istanbul had a city museum, in the 20th-century exhibition we’d expect to walk into a life-sized recreation of Kenan Usta Ocakbaşı, a seminal grill joint in the Beyoğlu district. As visitors descended a few steps into the exhibition, sensors would trigger the harsh light of fluorescent bulbs overhead, illuminating a room covered in photographs of husky men with mustaches posing with a stout man in an apron, grill master Kenan Usta. The somber, groaning warble of the great Arabesque singer Müslüm Gürses would cue up in the visitors’ rented headsets and ducts inside the replica grill would belch out smoke scented authentically by grilled meat. Arrows on the floor would encourage visitors to sit down at one of the seats surrounding the large grill in the center of the room, across from a skewer-wielding rendering of Kenan Usta himself. As the earphones filled with Kenan’s voice telling his own story of migrating from an Anatolian village to Istanbul as a boy and the hard-won modest success of this outsider – one that is as significant to contemporary Istanbul as the Hagia Sophia is to the skyline – the visitor to this exhibition would start to feel a mixture of pleasure and pain, amplified by an anise-scented sedative chemical released from the ducts.

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All entries filed under this archive


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no responses - Posted 05.05.15
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no responses - Posted 04.21.15
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no responses - Posted 03.17.15
In Turkish popular lore, the residents of Kilis, a town in Southeast Turkey near the Syrian border, are known for two things: kebab-making and smuggling. We haven’t been to Kilis, so we can’t vouch for the smuggling bit (although these days the town is featured regularly in the headlines as a ...continue
Şehzade Erzurum Cağ Kebabı: Gaucho Kebab Rides Again
no responses - Posted 10.06.14
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Spring (Food) Break 2014
no responses - Posted 04.16.14
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Grills and Thrills: Istanbul’s Top 5 Kebab Restaurants
no responses - Posted 03.06.14
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1 response - Posted 12.23.13
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no responses - Posted 09.18.13
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2 responses - Posted 07.15.13
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Hatay Has Kral Sofrası: Kebab’s Krib
no responses - Posted 07.02.13
In our imaginary primetime lineup, a reality show called “Pimp My Kebab Salon” transforms a drab kebab shop into a grill palace suited to the tastes of the latter-day sultans. Surfaces are suddenly gilded in gold, fountains appear and everything is reupholstered under the watchful eye of the boisterous host ...continue

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