Just a usual morning for me, asking the waiter if I can visit the kitchen and chat with ustas… For me, as I always say, watching the true masters, this experience is more important then the food itself, hence it is them, ustas, who make the food that treasured. Urla katmer…
Have you travelled to East of Turkey? Do you know that particular blue that hangs above you? How crispy the mornings are… How bright the sun shines… How green the meadows and plateau that all surround you… Endless visibility…. I love every inch of my country! At Kars we were…
Don’t know what you think of the phrase ‘köy kahvaltısı‘ village breakfast, I think it is just a perfect marketing tool or a scam, if I may, and I do not buy that. At villages, in Anatolia, locals simply eat what they produce, depending on the season. Also it is…
During his college years, he told me they -5 to 15 people!!!- used to stop at Lades (2) Lokantası (just across Lades Lokantası ) for lunch, just to have this menemen. I can imagine the small place filled with students on a budget, hungry and mopping each and every bit…
Life is good when you have breakfast at Kuzguncuk…
Growing up at a true gourmet mother’s home, our sucuk used to be sent from the famous city Tokat, the brand was Aşık Baba. It was nutty, peppery, meaty, flat rather then round, like the others and stuffed in tülbent -cheesecloth- instead of intestines. Years passed, around 1998 I came across that brand…
One morning we went to eat the best boyoz by far, at this soon to be learnt cheerful bakery at Alsancak. Hungry enough, we grabbed a table and looking around I got up and went inside to pick our share of boyoz and eggs. Ordered one and one for both…
Unfortunately… Pando Amca was evicted from his little shop on September 2014. Could not resist the transformation, the so called development the city is undergoing. It was an institution, a legacy, he was Istanbul, he was our Pando Amca. You and Madam Yuanna will be missed! It breaks my heart…
5.00am, first buzz, snooze. 5.15am again then jumped out of bed around 5.30am remembering why! I was on my way to Ali Haydar for morning liver kebab! How could I forget! I took a taxi and at 6.00am and one minute later I was in front of the small, smoky,…