Friday
Istanbul Eats on the Road: Gaziantep’s Sweet Dreams
Editor’s note: In Salih Seçkin Sevinç, creator of the fantastic Turkish-language food blog Harbi Yiyorum (loosely translated as “Eating, For Real”) 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 fourth and final post about the mind-blowing food scene in Southeast Turkey’s Gaziantep.
When we were in Antep we didn’t just eat kebab, of course. We asked for the best katmer around. Ciğerci Asef advised us on how to find the lord of the masters of katmer, a breakfast pastry made out of sheets of phyllo dough wrapped around kaymak and chopped pistachios (pictured above). It has been said that the people of Antep eat liver kebab and katmer at breakfast, and then they don’t put another thing into their mouths till evening? Is that true? Absolutely!
Locals describe the kaymak that is used inside katmer as “kaymağın, kaymağı” – literally the “creme de la creme.” The pistachio and kaymak inside the warm layers of the katmer generates an incomparable flavor balance in your mouth and stomach and, yes, you never want to eat anything else until evening. Continue…
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6 responses - Posted 10.13.10
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 this week. ...continue
1 response - Posted 10.12.10
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 this week. ...continue
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 09.27.10
Turkey (the meat) has long been a staple of frozen TV dinners. It appears that soon Turkey (the country) is also going to be a major player in the frozen food department. According to an article in this weekend's Hurriyet Daily News, the ambitious owners of Sahan, a Turkish chain of ...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
2 responses - Posted 08.09.10
Like Turkish foreign policy, we could easily be accused of “tilting east” these days. Just after making our way to Fatih’s Öz Kilis, we soon found ourselves trawling the streets of the nearby Aksaray neighborhood in search of food from another southeastern Turkish city near the Syrian border, in this ...continue
4 responses - Posted 08.02.10
In Turkish popular lore, the denizens of Kilis, a town in southeastern Turkey right 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. But we did recently have lunch at Öz Kilis, a wonderful ...continue
2 responses - Posted 06.30.10
The folks behind EatingAsia, the web's most mouthwatering food blog, are in Turkey and recently made a long journey through the country's southeast region. The blog has several posts up reporting on their finds in the region and are well worth checking out. You can find EatingAsia here. continue
3 responses - Posted 06.21.10
In previous posts, we’ve reported on the unusual eating habits in Turkey’s hot and dusty Southeast. In Gaziantep, we noted the “wake and flake” baklava breakfast. In Urfa it was a morning dose of grilled liver. But in the town of Nizip (and elsewhere in the area), the favored first ...continue
8 responses - Posted 06.04.10
On Saturday afternoon, in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep, our baklava was neatly wrapped with plastic and then paper, tagged “Antebi, Istanbul” in black marker and escorted to the bus station by either Levent or Bülent of Zeki İnal Baklavacısı. While we slept that night, our baklava passed through ...continue