This is part of a multi series post on visit to Turkey. This tailor made Trip to Turkey was organized by Veena World. We are so happy how they managed to not just meet all the requests but hugely exceeded expectations. Neil Patil & his team actually gave us a list of food that we should eat & also recommended specific eateries at times.

Please find the earlier links here 

1. Istanbul
2. Cappadoccia 
3. Konya

Summary of our memory & a note on the daily food:

• Our distinct memory of food is turkey that stood out from our Indian food – Many different kinds of olives, Many different kinds of cheese, use of spices occasionally but always celebrate the flavour of ingredients (flavour of spices never overshadowed the flavour of main ingredient), lots of breads with every food, a cereal called bulgur, a dish called dolma imagined multiple ways (potoler dolma eaten by Bengalis) – meat/cheese wrapped in vine leaves or meat stuffed in vegetables, many fresh fruit based sweets & also filo pastry (multiple wheat-sheet) stuffed with a sweet filling.
• Construct of a Turkish person’s daily food at home – a Soup, Main dish – breads/ bulgur, cheese, vegetables & meat (2-3 months in winter people of cappadocia eat seafood). Fruit based sweets & also filo pastry. Multiple tea & coffee.

Bulgur:

• Bulgur is a whole grain made by par-boiling cracked wheat (usually durum wheat). It is then dried, and finally ground into either fine, medium or coarse grains. We personally liked the texture of the coarse grains.

Cheese & other milk products 

• Food includes many milk products – yoghurt, cheese. Eaten as it is or in cooking.
• Cheese is not as popular as say in France but way more popular & regularly eaten as compared to us Indians. Cheese in turkey is mostly eaten in raw form, not cooked. Gozleme is one of the few cooked cheese dishes. We loved the gozleme that we had at the live counter of Hilton Garden hotel, Istanbul. 
• In Kapadocia the people eat Chomlek cheese – hot cheese. They make this cheese at home. First they buy 2 kinds of cheese. One with oil. One without. They put both the cheese in a red clay pot & leave it inside the naturally formed cave house. The cheese pot is kept by turning the face down. In 3 months the cheese is ready.
• Tulumu gelmistir – a popular but expensive cheese that is kept inside skin of butchered animal underground for getting an enhanced taste & flavour. I loved this cheese. My partner totally disliked the ‘smell’ & refused to eat this cheese that we brought home. 

• Ayran is a popular drink ‘made from yoghurt – turned out it is salted buttermilk that we have in India, (without any spices added).

Vegetables

• Raw tomatoes are a favourite. 
• Lots of vegetables are eaten in every meal
• Popular daily eaten vegetables are Beans,  eggplant, squash etc. 
• Pickles are a common food item. Vegetables are usually preserved in vinegar, salt & garlic to preserve for eating in low harvest winter months.

Lentils

• They also drink lentil soup which is same as musur dal (masoor daal) that’s popular in Bengal

• “Çayeli, Rize” white bean dish is one of the recipes awarded the Geographical Indication. Although the white bean is a legume native to the Americas, it was quickly integrated into Turkish cuisine and has virtually become a national dish. When making pot dishes, small and tasty thin-skinned beans that can be cooked for a long time without disintegrating are preferred. White beans can be cooked plain or with pastrami, meat on the bone, and sucuk (a dry-cured beef sausage).

Meats fish & seafood

• The popular forms of kabab are doner, pot kabab (meat cooked in traditional way sealed inside clay pot), Kokorec (meat/ offal stuffed inside intestine of the animal & grilled on fire). 
• Meats are eaten mostly with bread ( any wheat product) or with vegetables. There is often a little meat in every savoury dish everyday. Sometimes there is a meat only dish.
• Fish was popular in Istanbul. Relatively less towards eastern turkey places that we visited. 
• Barley is the most preferred animal feed. Sugar bean waste is used as animal feed too. Animal gets fatter faster. Animals fed in sugar bean makes the meat with different flavour.

Sweets & desserts 

• Sweets are a popular food, mainly made from wheat sheets, milk products, fruits, dry fruits & nuts. 

• The Turkish people love their Sweet – the real fruit based marmalades taste like the fruit based chatni that is eaten in Bengal, India.

• Sugar beans is used for making sugar, unlike we use sugarcane in India. This turns out to be a Cheap sweetener.
• Throughout the markets in Istanbul, we saw very elaborate, large portion, creamy, indulgent, visually attractive western cakes.

Alcohol

• We got to know that raki (an alcoholic drink, in a 95% Islamic country) – father & son drink together once when son becomes 18. The social justification given by many is that it is had as medicine for better digestion. Raki is a traditional ‘made in Turkey’ drink.

Coffee & tea

• Turkish Coffee is famous & i really liked it. The roasting of this coffee happens in a particular way. Bean of coffee comes from South America. Roasting differentiates Turkish coffee from others. most restaurants serve Turkish coffee made in traditional way – the roughly ground coffee beans actually get into the mouth. It’s a strange feeling usually till one gets used to. I bought for home, a pack of Turkish coffee. I fine grind it myself & make the coffee in mocha pot. I personally like this better. 

• We heard that in Istanbul most people  drink tea 7-10 times a day.. We heard that at homes, usually tea is the first preference. 
• Tea is older than coffee in turkey. Coffee came later. Tea used to be imported form other counties historically. In 1921 the Russians got tea plants & set up tea plantation on the Black Sea coast. 

Miscellaneous 

• salt & pepper dispenser – 3 dots bottle contains salt & 2 dots bottle contains pepper
• Most mezze platters come from Hatai region near Syria. Example – Hummus.
• Earlier people were only eating local region food. Now all food from all regions eaten. Restaurants made other region delicacies popular as well. Example – Adana kabab from Adana
• East turkey has a lot of grass. People have 10 to 50 animals per family at home. In Kapadocia it’s less vegetative. So less cattle at home. They have to buy feed. Dairy product is very popular all over turkey.
• We heard that in East of turkey meat is most popular. In the West , vegetables are also as popular.

The following section is a list of specific eateries where we ate during our trip. It’s not a review in its true sense but kind of a commentary. 

Istanbul

Section 1 – Cart food

Roadside carts across Istanbul were selling these 

A) Roasted chestnuts – we were very exited to see this. Bought a pack of freshly roasted chestnuts. Nothing added. Simple. Nice. A good, filling (healthy) snack.

B) Simit – This popular bread called simit is being sold all over Istanbul & other locations in carts & in shops. Very popular it seems as we saw people buy these & walk away eating. The bread is dense (vs fluffy), the sesame flavours are bold & enjoyable. The bread can be enjoyed just as it is, with cheese or with olives or with any dip.

Section 2 – Food Market walks

A) Kadikoy Market, Asia side of Istanbul

Kadi (similar to काज़ी in India ) means judge & koy means village – earlier this was a village where many judges used to stay during the late Ottoman period. The entire market had restaurants lined on both side initially & then the vegetable, fish & meat shops on each side. 

Vegetables

We saw many herbs & vegetables that were new for us.

We saw many vegetables that we also get here in India. We saw very different shaped tomatoes that were much bigger. 

There were many roots that were unknown to us

Dried aubergines & peppers were being sold everywhere 

Vine leaf bunches were available, both dry & wet. These are used to make dolma. In India, the Bengalis eat a dish called potoler dolma – meat/fish/ chhena/ anything else stuffed inside a summer vegetable called potol (परवल). 

Meats

We saw huge meat shops where butchering was happening but they had already displayed Meat in different cuts that one could directly choose from. 

There was a huge section in the meat shops for offals.

 We also realized that in the meat shops they had almost every item (cold cuts, smoked ham, pepperoni etc.) that the other Europeans make with pork, but in this case made with beef / lamb. 

Fish market had a very wide variety of fish – almost everything was sea fish. We heard that fish is expensive & every middle income family is unable to buy fish for daily consumption. 

Section 3 – Savoury food at restaurants 

A) Kizilkayalar, Taksim Square

The person who helped us with luggage at the Hotel, suggested this shop. He said this was his favourite eatery in the area. He also recommended that we try ‘Wet burger’. 

Wet burger, a popular dish around taksim square is a burger dipped in a freshly made tomato sauce. It’s different, u expected & nice for one time. A fresh in-house made cream was really nice & it balanced the strong tartness of the tomatoes. I would not have it again & again as the tomato masked the meat taste & flavour a bit. 

Iskender kebap was essentially thin sliced meats (doner kabab) with a freshly made tomato sauce on top. 

 

B) Ozturkler Taksim Square

We saw a huge machine of Doner kabab here. So we were excited. We saw two grills. We asked which one is what. The man looked at us & said ‘lamb’ & ‘chicken’. We were expecting some good beef. Anyway, we said yes to the lamb. Turns out later that it was beef only. The man either could not translate in English properly or he understood we are Indians & said ’lamb’.

The first plate we asked without bread. It however came with vegetables & fries. We asked for only meat & nothing else when we ordered a second plate. 

Juicy, bursting with meaty & Smokey flavours , perfect balance of taste. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. 

 

C) Breakfast at Hilton Garden

We stayed at Hilton Garden Istanbul. We had breakfast there on all the days & we loved many bits of it – 

• the huge spread of different kind of cheese &  olives (we would pick little bits from many varieties & munch).

• Fresh egg station – we requested the chef to make us different versions of Turkish eggs on different days & this is what we got

• The marmalades made from fresh fruit
• Chat with the lady who came to make fresh golzeme – a Turkish speciality dish with cheese / vegetables / meats stuffed inside very thin layers of maida. We loved the paste of it & specially the texture – reminded us faintly of the moglai porota of kolkata (which is deep fried vs just tawa cooked with no oil in case of golzeme).

D) Lokanta by hotel Divan (Istanbul)

At this restaurant we had done the rating while eating. Hence publishing it. 

This hotel was next to our hotel. We had heard great things about their restaurant Lokanta. So we went for dinner here. An elderly gentleman was playing the piano. Service was classic white glove in style, but with a genuine warmth typical to most Turkish people at least in service industry. 

We had Taze Baharatli Karakilçik Bulgur Salatasi – Fresh Spicy “Karakilçik Bulgur” Salad with Forest fruits & fresh almonds. All the ingredients (fruits) were cut into small pieces & mixed. Could not visually tell one from the other. However every bite showcased the different fruits. The crunch was retained very well. There was a feeling of ‘fresh’ in the salad. Loved the fresh almonds. Herb based sauce with which the salad was mixed, gave a greenish colour. Rate it 4.25/5

 

Next dish we had was Zeytinyagli Dolmalar Erken hasat Ayvacik – Olive Oil Stuffed Vegetables. Without our server’s suggestion, we would have never ordered this dish. These were 5 different types of seasonal fresh vegetables wrapped in vine leaves. Dolma of vegetables. Each had a unique taste & texture. Loved till the last drop. Rate it 4.5/5

 

Baklava Yufkasinda Kuzu Etli Börek! – Lamb Stew Pastry in “Baklava” Dough, red pepper marmalade, purslane salad. 

This was essentially freshly made baklava with minced lamb filling – wow. Paper thin super crisp layers of filo pastry, juicy & immensely flavourful (meaty) filling, just too good. Rate it 4.5/5

 

Karides ve Ispanak Dolgulu Ege Kalamari

Sarimsakli domates ezmesi, limon köpügü – Aegean Squid Stuffed with Shrimp and Spinach

Garlic tomato paste, lemon foam. Loved every bit of super soft & nice stuffed squid. Rate it 4.5/5

 

Izgara Balikesir Dana Bonfile – Beef Tenderloin Sweet patato purée, morel mushroom ragu, demi-glace. What a dish. Super meaty flavours, soft & juicy meats, excellent taste. The mushroom added umami. Rate it 4.75/5

 

Khadmer – this was like a sweet samosa – flat, super thin layers, mild sweet reduced milk filling & just too good. Rate it 4.5/5

Overall rating averages out to 4.5/5

RECOMMENDED IF YOU WANT A CREATIVE MODERN SPIN ON TURKISH FOOD. PREMIUM PRICING. 

E) Ross kebab house (sultanahmet , Istanbul)

We went for lunch here. It’s a place with a vibe & a certain coolness factor. And the good news is that they serve excellent food as well. 

They have both Outside seating & Indoor seating. 

 

We did not order but they got us some hummus. It was not smooth & pasty. It was not tight & dry  in texture. Rather it was lumpy, grainy, juicy & terrific to taste. We realized we were fed with fake pretentious hummus in most places in India. This was the second best hummus we had in the trip. 

We first had Adana kabab – turned out to be the best we had in the whole trip. Juicy, robust, rustic & just too perfect. 

Pot kabab – meat was cooked in a sealed earthen pot & it was opened up in front of us. The theatrics were memorable. The meat was good but not wow. Nothing wrong. Just good. 

Lentil soup – we got to know that this is a daily food of the Turkish. They drink it with a spoon from a soup bowl. As we tasted it, we realized that it is simple masoor daal (pink) boiled & salt added. Same as the Bengalis eat with rice. 

Dolma with stuffed meat was juicy & really good to have. We could feel the flavours of the meat. 

Ayran – we also had freshly made ayran (buttermilk, salted. No spices added)

F) Mahalantep, Ramadan menu 

Haakan, who guided us during our trip to Istanbul, joined us for dinner one evening. He had been fasting the whole day due to Ramadan. So we went to this beautiful restaurant to have a Ramadan set menu. The food kept coming one after another in a sequence. 

As soon as the Ramadan fasting iftar time started, the following were served – 

Hurma – date

Zeytin – olive 

Peynir – cheese

Ramadan pide had been freshly made. It had a cheese & vegetable filing. 

Each of the first 3 items was handpicked & really good. 

Meat soup came next. It had a robust meaty flavour. 

For cold appetiser we were also served cig kofte – cig means rolled. So this was a beef kofta which was not cooked on flame!!! Yes. This kofte is made by kneading raw, fat-free minced beef or lamb with fine bulgur, tomato and pepper pastes, onions, garlic, and a blend of spices like cumin, black pepper, and isot. The intense kneading process, combined with the spices, is believed to “cook” the meat without flame heat.

 

The kofte were very hot (high scoville factor). The spices were bold. The bulgur did not make its presence felt. The meat texture had been totally flattened. It retained its flavours very well. Perfect seasoning. We could not have much of it Brie to the heat but it was undoubtedly a memorable experience.

Then came Havuc (Carrot) salad. Carrots in hung curd. 

 

Dry eggplant & dry pepper (we had seen these at the market walk) filled with meat was super interesting. In india there are few dishes where minced meat is filled in a vegetable. The dish at Mahantep was minimally spiced & least additional ingredients had been added to it. 

So we enjoyed the real flavours of both the meat & the aubergine. 

 

Red pepper dolma came next. It was red pepper stuffed with pulav. Really good. 

Icli kofte was meatball with bulgur. Wow. Loved munching on that bulgur. The texture was so new for us. The seasoning & flavouring were perfect. Meatball was made with coarse minced meat & that made it juicier & gave a very nice bite. 

Pacanga pastry – cutlet filled with beef pastrami was pure love. 

 

Lamb tandoori was very good

Grilled chicken was nice but by this time we were super full. 

Grilled meatball was again dripping with juices. 

Ic pilav, rice with raisins peanuts, faintly reminded us of berry pulav at the Parsi joints in mumbai. The richness of the pilav was much more at Mahantep. 

 

For dessert came freshly made Kunafa. Excellent. But we already had better at Hafiz Mustafa shop.

Kadayit was like baklava. 

Guilac was a lovely rose flavored dessert, with a milk base. 

Overall – we were very happy after tasting a complete Iftar menu at a place of his choice selected by Mr. Haakan. This will renown a memory. 

Yanyali (kadikoy market)

This restaurant has been around since 1919. They’re serve ottoman palace food. The food is refined, uses premium ingredients & has influences from all the adjacent regions. Many of the dishes are slow cooked. Flavours & textures of ingredients are celebrated. 

The format is quite interesting. As we entered the restaurant, we realised there were glass showcases on the right side. Inside them were neatly placed different savoury food nicely displayed in plates

No plastic food visual merchandising as in China or Japan, but real food. 

They were all hot food. The slabs were heated it seems. 

As we ordered the dishes, a gentleman started picking up from the heated trays below & serving us the same in fresh plates

We walked in & took a seat. By the time we settled down, the food arrived. 

We tried 4 dishes 

Aubergine karniyarik– this dish was obviously with aubergine. Karniyarık means  “split belly”

(karın = belly, yarık = split/cut). In the middle there was meat minced. The aubergine felt a tad less salt than most of us Indians are used to. It spiced up with additional of a bit of salt. 

The minced meat was juicy, robust, rustic & just too good. 

Guvec – lamb meat cooked with vegetables

Meatballs with potatoes & tomato sauce sulu kofte had a strong flavour of tomatoes but that did not let the flavours of the meat die. The tartness of the tomatoes actually enhanced the taste of the meat. The meatballs were enjoyably juicy & lumpy. 

Lamb shank incik was incredibly good. The texture of the meat was so well expressed while the softness was par excellence. So so good. 

 

Loved the bulgur that was served to us. 

Adella seafood restaurant ( eminonu pier, near golden horn, galata bridge, Istanbul) 

We had a very interesting experience here. As we took our seats at this visually stunning restaurant with a bay view, we met our server. He looked familiar & different. Then came another one. Again looked familiar. Well, they were from Pakistan & we had a wonderful time chatting with the two boys about food in their home town, the food in turkey & their expert in Turkey. 

We had quite a few dishes at this restaurant. 

First came Hamsi Marin Anchovies from Black sea, in olive oil with olives. It had an outstanding balance of taste of the oil, fresh olives & de-boned anchovies. Must mention that the fish had real Strong flavour – so either you love it or you hate it.

The next dish we tried was Fish Kokorec – fish intestine. Well earlier we used to feel uneasy even ordering offals. It seems normal now & we really enjoy eating well cooked (as in tastes good) offals. 

we had the option to choose seafood from a raw fish display. We chose Fener Baligi – Monk Fish. The fish looked enormous but that was due to its huge head. The fish had a large center bone. It was very fleshy. 

We loved every bit of the fish & 3 of us ended up having almost a kilo of the fish (sans the bone).

Rich, layered, flavourful (not too strong like say mackarel or hilsa), juicy & very good to taste.

For dessert we had Oven baked helva – it was rich, juicy when we would bite into it, due to the slow cooking of full fat milk over a long period. The oven baking gave a really good charred but not burnt flavour that stood out. 

We enjoyed the dinner while sipping on to Yeni raki – a locally brewed traditional liquor that even the locals enjoy (in an Islamic state). 

Section 4 – Sweet shops

A) Hafiz mustafa1864, Taksim square

This shop has been around from 1864, just 7 years after our sepoy mutiny. Establishments that run this long mostly have a winning product, high quality (including taste, texture, flavour etc) standards & also smart reinvention with changing times. I don’t remember any shop in delhi that has been around as long.   

The spic & span shop has two sections – the first section (as we entered) had glass counters with different kinds of sweets including the obvious baklava & many other varieties of sweets. 

The second section was a bit ahead. It was in a sit down eating format. 

We ordered kunafa & it was freshly made & served to us. What an incredible kunafa – it came in a wooden tray on which an aluminium plate was placed. The metal was super hot. The kunafa was hot. Our server poured the full sweet syrup on top & then he emptied the pistachio container. There was a white cream on the side. The kunafa was not at all too sweet. It was just sweet with a balance of salt. There was lovely molten cheese in the middle. The cream seems to be made in-house – it was another level : thick, lumpy, full of flavours. 

We also had one of the best Turkish coffees of our trip here . It is an acquired taste. Super loved it. The ground coffee is not fully strained away. Part of that comes in the mouth. Fabulous flavour & taste. Rich, robust, rustic. 

We bought an assorted box of baklava that we kept eating for the next 7 days of our trip. I personally liked the walnut baklava (white) more than the pistachio baklava (green).

THIS SHOP IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 

 

B) Ali Muhiddin Haci Bekir 1777

This shop in Asian side of Istanbul has been around since 1777!!! To give perspective, in 1780 potatoes arrived in India for the first time!!! Asiatic society was formed by William Jones. The Bengalis had not invented sondesh & roshogolla yet. It was just 20 years of British East India company rule (since the battle of Plassey/Palashi), that too in some parts of India. 

The shop has counters on both sides filled with Turkish delights & other sweets. At the end of the hallway there is cafe style seating area.

There were innumerable varieties of Turkish delights – fruit based gelatinous sweets, much softer, less chewy & more juicy than say Karachi halwa of Chaina ram sweets. 

They also had Helva (halwa) in many varieties. 

We had some sweets here & packed many more. Excellent. Very different from the variety at Hafiz Mustafa. 

 

Overall, our taste buds had a ball of a time in Turkey. We came back with loads of culinary memories for the rest of our lives…..