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 of their egg dish with bread.
Menemen or melemen is a simple yet very delicious egg dish cooked with onions, tomatoes (lots), pepper, butter the better. These are the main basic ingredients, at Lades you may even add pastrırma, sucuk, cheese, chicken as well… There are lots of tricks to this simple dish beyond the ingredients’ freshness. You must cook the onions, tomatoes, peppers first then leaving the tomatoes as juicy as possible, cracking the eggs and continuously stirring then taking off the heat just before the eggs cooked. All you need is a loaf of bread of two!
The photo is the one I cooked at home, the finished product, before I literally gulped it down with bread and the video is how the menemen ustası cook it at Lades 2 Lokantası…