Turkish :: All Things Andy Gavin

Archive for Turkish

Eating Kuşadası – Old Town Tanneries

Apr19

Location: Türkmen, DoubleTree by Hilton Kuşadası Arkası, 09350 Kuşadası/Aydın, Türkiye. +90 543 638 60 60

Date: June 20, 2023

Cuisine: Modern Turkish

Rating: Hotel restaurant, but good

Old Town Tanneries is a restaurant cluster installed in a group of restored tannery buildings. These were in use from the 1930-60s and have been lovingly restored. They are also part of the Hilton and were restored, owned, and operated by the same lovely people who manage Gio.

The net result is a very attractive “neighborhood” of charming stone structures.

Our big 12 person table. We ate here with a big group of family and friends.

Mezze, of course.

Bread.

These “Turkish Spring Rolls” were delicious with the dips.

Beans.

Yogurt with purslane.

Spinach.

Humus with Beef Speck. The crispy beef resembles bacon.

Feta and Walnuts in olive oil with basil. Quite delicious with a bit of a pesto-like tone.

Yoghurt with Spicy Oil. This was actually REALLY spicy, much to my (pleased) surprise. Seriously hot actually.

Asparagus with cheese.

Salad. A touch under-dressed for my taste.

Shrimp with Chili Peppers and Garlic Butter. Very tender shrimp and more or less like “gambas pil pil.”

Fried Calamari. Quite excellent seafood fry. The sauce was more or less like a yogurt version of tartar sauce.

Grilled Sea Bass. Fresh potatoes and baby vegetables.

This time we remembered to have it filleted.

Beef slices with garlic and cheese. I’m not sure exactly what was going on here but it was delicious.

Lamb. Very tender and flavorful.

Pistachio Creme with Ice Cream. This was pretty insanely good. The crepe was stuffed with chopped pistachios (and probably some form of sugar or syrup. The ice cream was made from goat cheese and is very dense.

Fruit.

Turkish Tea.

Overall, a great meal — in no small part because of good company. There were some various Turkish wines as well, fairly generic but quaffable Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc mostly.

For more Turkish dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Eating Kuşadası, Eating Türkiye, Old Town Tanneries, Turkish

Eating Izmir – The Bazaar

Apr17

Restaurant: The Bazaar

Location: Izmir Turkiye

Date: June 20, 2023

Cuisine: Turkish street food

Rating: Hotel restaurant, but good

This meal consists of food from 3 different places in the Izmir Bazaar.

Pictured here is a Pide restaurant that provided the Cheese Pide below. Most of the savory food came from a homestyle place. The desserts from a third.

The homestyle place showed most of its dishes in casserole dishes for selection. They are then plated and heated. Or perhaps they are warm in the casaroles. This is very similar to what I saw in Greece in the late 1980s.

On the table were some peppers.

Artichoke, dill, potatoes etc. This must be the more old fasioned version of the dish we had the previous night.

Vegetables with yogurt.

Stuffed peppers and grape leaves with yogurt. Both were warm and stuffed with seasoned rice and vegetables.

Sour Meat Balls. Beef meat balls in a sour yogurt sauce with a light dill flavor. Quite delicious actually.

Mackerel Soup. This very yummy soup had a strong, but delicious, mackerel taste and a good hit of dill.

Lamb Shank. Doesn’t look like much but the tender and fatty meat was delicious. #Izmir #Turkey #lamb #shank

Chicken au Grfatin. While ugly as well, this “chicken casserole” was quite delicious. Mildly cheesy with a bit of a bechemel thing going on.

Cheese Pide.

This vendor sold what I think are various kinds of Revani (syrupy cake).

Walnut Cake. I believe this is a semolina flour cake with walnut and soaked in a honey-like syrup.

The Walnut Revani was served with a blob of “whipped cream” — more like clotted cream. It was pretty insanely delicious too. It has some taste and texture resemblance to Tres Leches Cake.

A different variant, maybe the one shown in the round pan.

A pistachio variety.

They have the dense Turkish ice cream as well.

A huge scoop of Chocolate Ice Cream.

For more Turkish dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Bazaar, Dessert, Eating Izmir, Eating Türkiye, Turkish

Eating Kuşadası – Gio

Apr15

Restaurant: Gio

Location: Türkmen, Double TREE Hilton, Atatürk Blv. No:5, 09400 Kuşadası/Aydın, Türkiye. +90 530 957 77 57

Date: June 19, 2023

Cuisine: Modern Turkish

Rating: Hotel restaurant, but good

On our first night in Kuşadası, within “striking range” of Ephesus, Aphrodisias and more we ate at the gorgeous rooftop restaurant atop the Hilton. P.s. it should be noted that the Aegean was named after Theseus’ father Aegeus.

Gio Rooftop Restaurant offers not only a splendid view of the Aegean but a hybrid of the fish and meat restaurant types with a bit of internationalism. Yes, they have the mezzes, but they aren’t displayed in hotel pans by the entrance and they have a more international style of appetizers and entrees.

The menu.

Bread — this is Turkey after all.

Muhammara. Pretty, with a bit of fresh cheese and olives. A touch dry and medium spicy.

Basically the local white wine choices are Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. There are some local grapes but they are hard to find.

Haloumi Cheese wrapped in Grape Leaves with Yogurt.

Yoghurt with Spicy Oil. This was actually REALLY spicy, much to my (pleased) surprise. Seriously hot actually.

Feta and Walnuts in olive oil with basil. Quite delicious with a bit of a pesto-like tone.

Spicy Feta with Tomatoes. Not particularly spicy but nice.

Green beans and Tomatoes. This is a classic.

Marinated Artichoke with peas, carrots, and potatoes. Very yummy.

Fried Calamari. Quite excellent seafood fry. The sauce was more or less like a yogurt version of tartar sauce.

Shrimp with Chili Peppers and Garlic Butter. Very tender shrimp and more or less like “gambas pil pil.”

Marinated Red Beet Carpaccio. Mediterranean Greens, Cottage Cheese (they mean literally, not UK/US style), walnuts and balsamic vinegar.

Penne with Red Sauce.

Porcini Mushroom Risotto with cream and Parmesan cheese. A bit heavy as I don’t think the rice was propper Italian short grain rice.

Grilles Sea Bass. Fresh potatoes and baby vegetables. We wish we had them filet it.

Some mixed seafood including octopus and more calimari.

Slow-Cooked Duck. Phyllo, hoisin sauce and plum sauce. Sort of a Turkish take on Peking Duck, The meat itself was a little closer to braised, but was marinated in a hoisinlike sauce and very sweet and tender. Real hoisin strips adorned the plates. Overall very enjoyable with and without pancakes.

The pancakes were Turkish-style lavash — but they worked.

The D menu.

Chocolate Dome Cake. Inside was a dense mouse with a biscuit layer underneath and a very strong raspberry-jelly-like sauce.

I’m normally a little wary of hotel restaurants in the United States as they tend to be corporate and generally awful, but abroad they can be a bit more modern and vibrant. This one was a lot of fun and quite delicious.

For more Turkish dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Eating Kuşadası, Eating Türkiye, Gio, rooftop, Turkish

Eating Iznik – Nihat’ın Yeri

Mar23

Restaurant: Nihat’ın Yeri Balık Restaurant

Location: Selcuk Mah, Gol Sahil Yolu, Iznik 16860 Turkiye. +90 542 475 38 99

Date: June 14, 2023

Cuisine: Turkish Fish Restaurant

Rating: fried fish

Daytripping to Iznik / Nicaea we stopped at a lake restaurant.

This was an interesting local experience not far from where Constantine and crew haggled out the status of the father, the son, and the holy ghost…

Outside seating on the lake.

Local olives for sale.

Nap time.

Here are the local olives, which were good.

Olive oil and tomato sauce.

Bread.

Fries – found at nearly every Turkish lunch resteraunt.

Grilled lake fish.

Fried lake fish is what they are famous for. It was… well… fried fish.