The penny has dropped, the cobwebs have cleared; that cold, dark light bulb floating over my head is finally switched on. I now understand why meze taste so much better if you help yourself from the dishes in the centre of the table rather than politely wait to have the waiter serve you. The answer is straightforward, but, as with all spiritual truths, the simpler the quest, the further the journey to find the answer. In this case, I had to travel to Narlikuyu, a pleasant inlet east of the Mediterranean town of Silifke and the perfect place to pause while exploring the region’s many classical sites. It is also an easy outing from the city of Mersin, which makes it a favoured destination for families migrating for a late Sunday lunch, attracted by the sparkling clean water and the numerous fish restaurants perched around the tiny bay. These are the simplest of establishments and no offence is taken if you slip off for a pre-prandial dip. But be prepared for a modest shock. The same icy streams that drip through Heaven and Hell the name given to the calcium-pillared caverns of the nearby underground caves well up here through the sand. The pleasant surprise is the food. I was at the Mavi Yunus Balik Lokantasði (the Blue Dolphin fish restaurant), a guest of the organisers of Mersin’s International Music Festival, a fortnight of high culture that takes place in early autumn. I suspect, however, that Mersin’s high gastronomic culture can be sampled around the deceptively unpretentious wood tables of Narlikuyu. Fish, of course, is the centrepiece. Orfoz and lagos are different varieties of grouper a dense, flavourful fish, easily boned, which is generally served fried. There was also grilled sea bream (çipura). The fish is brilliantly cooked and adorned with nothing more complicated than fresh onion or lemon. But the meze, too, are unadulterated flavours though you can’t get any more unadulterated than the plate of raw garlic which I was served once at Lagos, another Narlikuyu restaurant across the bay. At Mavi Yunus the garlic is baked in foil and not quite so pungent, but the other dishes are a palette of strong tastes. There are green chilli peppers, sweet tomatoes with sweet and sour pomegranate molasses, spicy radish, peppery rocket, pickles that include a fleshy-leafed plant called kayakorugu (stonecrop, or sedum) which has a lemony taste. The fish meze include squid, flash-fried or grilled, and a large fried red mullet, flaky and sweet. The whole art of eating here is to balance one flavour or colour or texture with the next. Then, of course, there is the added factor of what to drink. It is all a complex improvisation and you have to do it yourself. It just wouldn’t make sense for the waiter to whisk away the bell-shaped lid with a flourish to reveal a slice of onion underneath. That night we listened to Bach and Elgar, but by day we feasted in gastronomic jazz. I would choose to go back to Mavi Yunus. Inci Balik was also recommended to me. I remember enjoying the meal at Lagos several years ago, but I also recall thinking the eponymous fish a bit overcooked. The restaurants around the bay may differ in modest particulars but I suspect there are no great differences overall. This is food as craft, not art, and the antithesis of a kitchen that produces a highly conceived finished product which you hesitate to disturb with your fork. And what is true in the pleasant shade of Narlikuyu is probably true of the more elaborate, although not necessarily better, meze you find in Istanbul. Which is why, when the waiter tries to plop a spoonful of aubergine salad on your plate, he is really doing you a disservice. Once again searching after truth, I made another roadside discovery about the enigmatic essence of tripe. Turned into soup, tripe is the staple dish of Turkish night-owls nursing their hangovers, but the fact of the matter is that, on its own, and as long as it is cleaned properly, it doesn’t really taste of much. I have always assumed tripe soup was simply a vehicle for eating lots of garlic and that its ability to conceal liquory breath was mistakenly assumed to be a cure for a fuzzy head. But there I was, on the road from Istanbul to Bursa, sober as a judge and in the company of a man who is something of a tripe-soup apostle. Mustafa Karakaya owns a chain of tripe-soup kitchens (the Bursa Iskembe Salonlari) on approach roads around that city. Mr Karakaya’s enthusiasm for tripe extends to having invented a process for thoroughly cleaning and cooking the stuff. How we happened to be travelling in the same car has little to do with tripe, but the reason he was in Istanbul was certainly tripe-related. He was hoping to have his method patented in the US and was returning from the American consulate, where he has applied for a visa. For some reason the consular authorities in their current mood of caution seem to think that tripe is a weapon of mass destruction and had, to his and my surprise, turned him down. | The reason I was going to Bursa is also not very exciting but had to do with a lecture I was about to deliver. It might be ungracious to confess, but this was the last thing I wanted to do. Mr Karakaya was in surprisingly good humour, despite his recent rejection, but I was tired and fluey and just wanted to turn round and head home to bed. Mr Karakaya insisted on stopping along the way at one of his roadside inns, certainly a superior sort of rest-stop that serves delicious tomato-stewed haricot beans and very tasty Bursa-style köfte, and lots of really nice things that have absolutely nothing to do with the nether bits of sheep. However, I wasn’t going to go to a tripe-soup shop without tasting the soup. It is a whitish broth and it tastes sort of pale and blah. Of course, I put in some red pepper and a generous ladle of garlic bits in vinegar and then it tasted pretty good in fact just like tripe soup. So why not just eat the pepper and the garlic and forget about the tripe? It was only when I got to the car that I noticed my head was clear, my nose was dry, and that, far from dreading the impending ordeal of addressing a crowd in my not-always-perfect Turkish, I was suddenly kicking my heels with all Mr Karakaya’s cheerful disposition towards life. Could it have been the tripe soup? I am not sure, but I am grateful at least that there are still a few of life’s mysteries to explore. Mavi Yunus Balik Lokantasi
Narlikuyu Silifke;
tel 90-324 723 3298 Bursa Iskembe Salonlari
Sube 01: Ankara Cd 88, BP Yani
(next to the BP station),
Yildirim, Bursa;
tel 90-224 363 28 55
www.bursaiskembe.com The boho’s new clothes
By Hettie Judah Not so long ago Istanbul’s international bohemian set were the kind of chaps to hold a serious opinion on tripe soup, fasil music and the occasions on which it was now acceptable to wear a fez. Sometimes their sandy-coloured costume (linen in summer, corduroy in winter) was supplemented with items of Central Asian finery. When not engaged in whatever it is that international bohemian types actually do, the abiding quest of their time in Istanbul was for the authentic: the grimiest teahouse, the most family-run fish restaurant, the ultimate artless ocakbasi. Any institution, in fact, that was so deliciously unselfconscious and untampered-with that our International Bohemian friend could be sure that very few other International Bohemians had been there before, and definitely God forbid no tourists. The old-style International Bohemian is now on the wane, or perhaps he has had to forage so far afield to find the ultimate Albanian liver shop that he no longer features on the map. Whichever, the streets of Pera now ring to the tread of a somewhat different animal, the New International Bohemian. Like his old-fashioned cousin, the New Bohemian delights in wearing clothes of an almost heroic ugliness and lack of concert. I came across a posse over the summer decked out in tweed shooting caps, nylon waistcoats and fingerless driving mittens. In this case, however, the outfits have been sourced from impossibly exclusive little kiosks in Antwerp or Milan. Unless they were actually purchased in Istanbul, in which case they were designed by a close friend. Or worn ironically. The New Bohemians are part of a global community of stylish, peripatetic young things who work in hard-to-define but terribly on-the-edge jobs; for them, Istanbul is the latest stop on the hunt for the next excellent place. Excellence is defined by cheap beer and accommodation, inspiring architecture, an energetic youth culture, a nascent arts scene and a will to party; this is Istanbul as they found it. Istanbul as they will leave it, however, will be a very different city, for they carry with them the kind of design sensibility that makes the old-style International Bohemian go running for the hills. We’re talking cafés and bars with uncluttered lines, smooth colours and architectural flow; beautifully mismatched 1960s furniture, Scandinavian wooden tables and ambient lighting; clean plates, food that tastes good and paint that doesn’t peel. We’re talking modern European here, and not in the menu-jargon sense. These are places that could actually be in Amsterdam or Berlin. | On a good night, going into Café Smyrna or the House Café, you are greeted by an ocean of underpants sticking out of trousers, forty-three different shades of hair dye and way too much retro-styled nylon. In the mornings these places will be full of people having the kind of business meeting where it’s OK to drink beer at 11am. Sit earwigging on a table by yourself and you’ll hear about film scripts, fashion shoots, advertising campaigns, parties, concerts and illicit affairs. And in every accent and language you might care to recognise. What needs to be explained to our old friend the International Bohemian (if one manages to grab the back of his Uzbek jacket as he sprints out of town) is that these new cafés and bars are not a horrible invasion, but actually something authentic; they are the face of young, creative Istanbul. Bina
A meticulously restored building on a street full of grudgingly hip meyhanes, Bina does rather stick out like a debutante at an art-school disco. Built, on a rather optimistic scale, over a couple of floors, the architecture is full of flat planes, glass and open spaces. The colour scheme and lighting do at times have an unfortunate whiff of prison chic to them. As well as the usual beer and coffee, Bina does cocktails and serious food at (for the time being) not-so-grown-up prices. Many of the staff came from the now defunct Refika and are exemplary in their charm and general wonderfulness. Sofyali Sok 11, Tünel,
Beyoglu, Istanbul
tel 90-212 245 7610 The House Café
This is the mummy and daddy of the hangout scene. A first-floor apartment, you enter as if going into a private flat. The space has been converted into two dining rooms, a bar, kitchen and lavatory. It is filled with nice little touches: well-designed water jugs on each table, stealable mid-century furniture, a welcoming kitchen. House has a strong, regular fan base that keeps the place filled with a mixture of bright young things and girls in pearls (well, this is Teþvikiye). The food is a mix of Turkish and international but very good, and they do excellent coffee. Atiye Sok 10/1,
Tesvikiye, Istanbul;
tel 90-212 259 2377 Simdi Café
Although not the most deliberately designerish of the new cafés, Þimdi is the best piece of restaurant design to have appeared recently in Istanbul. You enter into the first of a series of small, homey rooms which rise up gently from one another, like a little staircase of old-fashioned cube-shaped spaces. Then you walk in through the first intersection and realise that the small room in the centre of the café has a ceiling seven storeys high. A very special little space, clever without being self-conscious, stylish but still warm. The menu is noncommittal: sandwiches, omelettes and pasta. Asmalimescit Sok 9,
Beyoglu, Istanbul
tel 90-212 252 5443 Soda
Istanbul is not yet sure that it is ready for Soda, which currently seems to have more admirers than actual customers. Part of the problem is its basement location, which makes it very much a winter evening venue. Another issue is the design, which is uncompromisingly North European long communal tables, lots of blonde wood and fashionable but unflattering lighting. Food is fusiony, and the brunches are popular but pricey. Come with a tribe, not a date. Mesrutiyet Cad 151,
Tepebasi, Istanbul
tel 90-212 251 6126 Café Smyrna
A perennially popular hangout with a clientele a whisker older than that of the other cafés, Smyrna is a charming little white room with a junk-shop/coffee-house ambience. The waiting staff are indistinguishable from the clientele; that is to say that their waistbands are low and their demeanour insouciant. Food is international but good for the price. Wine comes in tumblers. Heaven is if you walk in and know people on half the other tables; it’s that kind of sprawling neighbourhood place. Akarsu Cad 29,
Cihangir, Istanbul
tel 90-212 244 2466 |
