ISTANBUL: EATING EYTAN’ S WAY

It takes a big man to admit he is wrong.

In which case, call me Mr Big, because, it would appear that I misjudged Istanbul.

If you look at my last, slightly dispirited, post on this city, you will see a long list of suggestions from estimable DH reader, Eytan Behmoaras about where and what I should have been trying.

Well, if someone is prepared to make that kind of effort, so should I be to try and follow up at least some. In this case, that effort included a fifteen minute ferry ride to the Istanbul neighbourhood of Kadikoy which, on a fine May day, was no real hardship at all as I sat on the boat, sipped on a cup of and watched The Blue Mosque fade into the distance.

Kadikoy is a bustling, fully formed neighbourhood in its own right, packed with shops and, more importantly, many restaurants sitting alongside a lively market where I saw displays of fish as fresh and tempting as anything I have seen on the whole trip so far.

Eytan had suggested a place for lunch called Ciya which I found on the same street as the market. There appeared to be three options, one for kebabs, another for pide and lachmacun and a third, larger space, for pre-prepared cooked dishes, soups and salads. However, the way that food was being whizzed across the street from each location made me think that it was all pretty interchangeable.

I was, it would be fair to say, a bit kebab’d out so decided to make a selection from the wide range of pre-prepared food with the help of the waiter. The pictures do not do them justice, but each dish was very different in texture and flavour and each dish was, in its own way, deeply delicious.

Particular favourites were a slightly sour dish of lamb cooked with plums and lots of garlic and, inevitably, a dish of lamb’s intestine whose spicy stuffing reminded me of haggis. That is, by the way, no bad thing.

I fınıshed wıth two small,comped shots of herb and sumac sherbet.

Each dish here was better than anything I had tried to date in the city so far

There was much more on offer in the area. Fish restaurants selling Turbot or simple snacks of mussels on sticks, pots of yoghurt being drizzled with honey from the comb, excellent looking lahmacun to be rolled up and eaten on the hoof and slabs of borek filled with cheese and spinach.

Unfortunately, I only have one stomach to give and this particular one is attached to a body that developed a weariness induced cold in the middle of the night. So, post a small treat of a couple of pieces of baklava and some more Çay at a local café, I headed back to the ferry and back to bed.

However, I saw enough to make me want to go back again, enough to make me realise that there is more to Istanbul than dry grilling and enough to make me realise, if I did not already, the benefit of local insight.

Thanks, Eytan





P.S
So´I know how many of you wıll have had sleepless nıghts worryıng ıf I have recovered from my cold. To set your mınd at rest I managed a sımple breakfast of eggs(two) cheese (wıth honey and thyme) olıves tomatoes and cucumber before headıng out to eat

Elevenses was the aforementıoned hamburgers ın Taksım square. They are greasy´and nasty and entırely wıthout merıt and I loved every last bıte of the two of them I managed to squeeze down.

Then to Hamdı to try the much vaunted kebabs. The truth ıs I stıll was not ımpressed. The kebabs themselves are undoubtedly of hıgh qualıty but the rest ıs medıocre and you cant help thınkıng you are payıng for the vıew. The servıce too ıs so humourless you feel lıke you are on a plague shıp rather than ın a place of enjoyment

Ho Hum

Stıll I leave Istanbul wıth a much better vıew of ıts food than I would have done

Next stop Sıcıly

ISTANBUL: NOT CONSTANTINOPLE

If I could bring back any three places from the restaurant heavens, where good eateries go to die, they would be, in no particular order

High Holborn, a short lived high-end place which garnered a well deserved Michelin star and then closed almost immediately to become a chain pizza restaurant.

The Sutton Arms, where Rosie Sykes cooked so splendidly that DH ate there over one hundred times between us in the two years she was behind the stove.

And, last but certainly not least, The Angel Mangal, the much missed and never bettered uber-Okabasi, where superlative grilling, combined with huge salads and pungent context wines, made Turkish food a staple of the DH diet.

We still bemoan our loss of it and its charmingly taciturn owner, Mustapha whose lips would twitch into a micro smile at the mention of his beloved, but under achieving football team, Besiktas.

So, because of that, I had high hopes for Istanbul, which makes it even harder to report that it has been such a disappointment, on the food front at least.

You could say that, thirty countries in to the EAT MY GLOBE trip, I am just jaded. But, the same was true in Madrid last week and yet, at the first sight of Jamon and with the first whiff of frying Puntillitas, I still did a strange, but oddly erotic, little dance of delight.

You could ask if I have not “gone native” enough, and stayed too close to my guesthouse slap bang in the middle of Sultanahmet and two minutes walk from The Blue Mosque. But, the fact that my favourite pair of calfskin Merrill’s are now worn out and consigned to the bin should be a testament to the fact that I have traipsed over half of Istanbul, Old and New cities in search of decent grub.

You could even ask if a cuisine based predominantly on grilled meats is ever going to be that good. To which I would reply “don’t be so bleeding stupid” and point you towards pictures of Morocco, South African Brai and just about everything I ate in Argentina and America.

I have had a couple of Pide, which just confirm my “snot on toast” opinion of the pizza genus and, I have supplemented the grilling of more standard meats such as chicken wings and lamb chops (all served with the rather odd double starch combo of rice and chips) with the “sadakat” option of offal and still found it lacking any spark.

It should tell you all you need to know, particularly if you are aware of my “fish does not make a meal” philosophy, that the best thing I have had to eat has been a Balik Ekmek, a sandwich, served on the edges of The Bosphorus in the early evenings, which combines freshly grilled mackerel, a good slosh of lemon juice and sharp, raw onions. Delicious, but hardly the keystone for a six-day trip.

In the end, the ingredients are simply not good enough and the techniques not good enough to cover the failings of the ingredients.

If the food is mediocre, then fortunately, there is much in Istanbul to distract me from a disappointed belly. Its monuments are rare treasures and I have filled my time happily wandering from extraordinary sight to extraordinary sight. I have seen The Topkapı Dagger and The Alexander Sarcophagus and I have even let a large bearded Turk beat me up whıle I was good and sweaty.

Yet, this is not a trip about the joys of antiquity. It is about the food and, on that basis, Istanbul, like Besiktas, must rank amongst the also rans of the EAT MY GLOBE adventure.

Sorry Mustapha.