Dinner by the Bosporous. The Ortakoy Mosque. Right by the European of the bridge in the video below. (Didn’t dine in the mosque of course!) Wonderful meal consisting of mezze — small appetizer plates similar to tapas — then a salad and some fish.
I had bluefish, good oldpomatomus saltatrix, tailor-sized 8″ with the heads on, lightly grilled with olive oil. Delicious and better than any recipe I’ve ever concocted. A glass of raki, the anise flavored variant on ouzo, and all was well with my world. Yeah, yeah, travel half way around the world for the most common fish on Cape Cod, but I had to see it to believe it.
Photos to follow, but I ate a “wet burger” for my breakfast in Taksim Square — standing in the shadow of Anthony Bourdain in his recent No Reservations episode set in Istanbul. It was good, not gotta-have-another-great, but okay. To be precise it was a Kizilkayalar burger.
I was in Cihangir looking for a breakfast spot profiled in the New York Times, but alas, it was closed. and I made do with a glass of tea and a couple pastries called Pogaca, followed by the aforementioned wet burger.
Food pictures are so attractive.
Quoting from the hamburger’s website:
“After a few years, doner becames a sector and Kizilkayalar becames the founder and the leader of this sector.
The name of the doner was heared in all Istanbul and people knew that they can eat doner in Taksim whenever they want. Anymore, doner became important fast food of Istanbul. Doner was the innovation from the Kizilkayalar to Istanbul. The important reason of the fame of Kizilkayalar Hamburger is being the first presenter of doner.”
More meetings today and tomorrow, then some time for sightseeing towards the end of the week. Snowfall was kind of interesting yesterday — glad I brought along my waxed Filson coat with the zip-in wool vest and my Merrill snow clogs. This is full on winter and more snow than I’ve seen yet this year on Cape Cod.
