Monday
Urfa Şark Sofrası: Bleating Good
On a narrow alley just beyond the back gate of the Hırdavatçılar Çarşısı in Karaköy, we distinctly heard the bleat of a sheep. Turning the corner, we saw men wearing coveralls and vests with “Makita” stitched over the breast seated at low tables laughing through mouthfuls of flatbread. “Me-e-e-e-eh,” one of them bleated again as blueish grill smoke belched out of the restaurant enveloping the bleating man, the street and then us, in a hazy barbecue dream.
This was supposed to be a quick run down to the Karaköy hardware market for a faucet and some sandpaper, but our culinary backstreets antenna, always up, automatically changed the the afternoon’s priorities. So we followed the commotion to a tiny restaurant called Urfa Şark Sofrası and pulled up a stool outside of this humble kebab shop. Continue…
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no responses - Posted 09.28.11
A recent first-time visit to Merih Restaurant, a deservedly well-loved meyhane just outside Beyoğlu's Balık Pazarı, left us wondering what took us so long to discover this place. The restaurant’s location is partly to blame – with so many mediocre and touristy meyhanes to be found in the Balık Pazarı, ...continue
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
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
7 responses - Posted 05.16.11
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no responses - Posted 05.09.11
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
no responses - Posted 04.04.11
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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
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 02.14.11
We agree wholeheartedly with the advice of EatingAsia: “If you're parking yourself here [in Istanbul] for more than a few days, find 'your' esnaf lokantası.” To this we would like to add, “But if you live in Istanbul, find ‘your’ esnaf lokantası in every neighborhood of the city.” Take the example ...continue
1 response - Posted 01.03.11
(Editor's Note: Although the new year is already upon us, we had so many memorable Istanbul dining experiences in 2010 that we wanted to take one last look at the past year's culinary highlights. So, before we get to the work of further exploring Istanbul in 2011, here's our top ...continue