gastropoda/trails

Istanbul is like New York: You can eat really badly just about anywhere. Our first meal included a dreadful “eggplant pie” and some lentil “patties” at a highly recommended vegetarian restaurant, Zencefil, that was redeemed only by its setting, a garden that could have been in brownstone Brooklyn. Our last lunch was at Cezayir, also in a gorgeous garden, this one complete with kittens sleeping on chairs around us, where the smoked aubergine pastries were, in Bob’s words, “bar food,” and the vegetable ravioli with Gorgonzola sauce were gummy and bland. Luckily, we chose our other stops more carefully.

My high point was a late lunch at Tamirane, one of the cafes at the outstanding Santralistanbul, the modern art museum in a former power plant that makes DIA look like “Art.” I sat outside on the deck with good jazz on the sound system, kittens running wild in a hammock and around my table, a glass of typically good Turkish rosé and a satisfying salad of greens, lentils, chickpeas, cucumbers and cheese. All of which were perfect fortification for the three-floor show of abstract paintings, each more impressive than the last. A slide show of the aged artists at work was projected on the ground floor to Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies, and the melody wafted through the building to mingle with the call to prayer. It was the most moving experience since Cesar Manrique’s Jameos del Agua on Lanzarote.

But our lunch at Baba, one of the fish restaurants at the end of our boat ride up the Bosporus, was pretty wonderful, too, at a table overlooking a mass of fish in super-clear water. I chose mullet from the display on ice at the entryway but was also tantalized by blowfish, which the waiter said could be baked with tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese, and it turned out to be superb as well. We also shared fresh anchovies with no fishiness and a chunky, lively spread of tomatoes, peppers and onions, plus a huge portion of typically sweet and juicy watermelon. Just as we were congratulating ourselves again for choosing the best restaurant (farthest from the dock, most sophisticated), a waiter jumped up on the railing with a flag to wave at the cruise ship heading into port. And we realized we were in the same place we had laughed at on our way in.

That night we stopped for a glass of rosé outside at the House Cafe near the hotel and got total contempt from the waiter for not ordering food; he went on to ignore us, so we flagged down a manager to order a second round plus meat, cheese and spinach mini pides. While we were finishing those, I noticed the name on the tiny cafe across the street: Helvetia, which had been recommended just that afternoon as one of the best places in town because it specializes in home cooking. So we paid the tab, without alerting the asshole waiter he had not charged for that second round, and headed over to choose from a counter spread with at least a dozen dishes. Cauliflower salad with great hanks of dill was the best, but the stewed okra ranked at least above average and the meatballs made me want to eat more than I needed. The server misunderstood and delivered two portions of all of those, but the tab still came to about what the rosé cost.

We saved the best for last, though, and emailed for a reservation at what I’d read was the impossible dream: Lokanta Maya. The winsome young chef trained in New York and is making a name for reinterpreting Turkish classics without gouging and without a view. If I was not blown away, it was only because we had had a knockout dinner the night before. Her legume salad was excellent, a cross between tabbouleh and panzanella, with grains and greens and cheese and bread crisps. Her samphire appetizer was overcooked, though, to the point that the sea beans had lost both their crunch and their singular salinity, but crunchy bread crumbs dispersed throughout added texture and taste. Her signature courgette fritters, unfortunately, had Bob blurting on first forkful: “These are like something you made that failed.” And they were soggy on the inside, to the point that he thought maybe bechamel was involved. But the dipping sauce with them was almost like yogurt-dill gelato. The chef described the “lamb shish” so lyrically, particularly the potato puree with it (walnuts, herbs), that I insisted we order it as well as the caramelized sea bass with fig that was calling Bob’s name. He thought the meat was too similar to what we’d eaten on the road, but the potatoes made me realize how much you can add to the experience with anything to break the starchy/creamy monotony. And the sweet, crisp skin on the fish compensated for both the tired lettuce in the salad alongside it and the flavor-free fig. Extra points for the chef coming to say goodbye as we left, though. She’ll do fine without a view and a gouge.

Exactly a week after I got home, I met a friend for lunch who said her 20-something son had suffered terrible food in Istanbul and been harassed the whole time. Where did he stay? Near the Blue Mosque and the other ancient attractions. Thank allah the workshop my consort was teaching had lodged him over the Galata Bridge, in Beyoglu, in a business/boutique hotel, the Richmond, where everyone had warned we would be so isolated. Let’s start with the huge breakfast buffet: Eggs and potatoes and toast for timid travelers plus the real local deal, too: half a dozen kinds of cheese, meats (anything but pork), cucumbers and tomatoes, olives, jams and honeys, yogurts and fresh and cooked fruits. The best part: a Nescafe machine that turned out perfect coffee on all but one morning, when it needed its white balance adjusted. The second-best part: the view, over city and water.

But this was location, location: We were right at the funicular end of Istiklal Cadessi, the  main boulevard in that district, with shops and restaurants directly on it and alleys lined with endless sidewalk cafes branching off it. Down the center, the “nostalgia tram” ran, loaded with passengers in daylight but towing a music car at night (usually with some band blasting “Ride, Sally, Ride”).

All my meals fascinated me, but the worst transpired where we also had one of our best: Refik, right near the hotel. Bob and I stumbled in on Saturday at lunchtime when it wasn’t open and they said we could have any of the mezes in the display case, but after we’d decided on three they decided we could have fish, too. So we tasted our way around bland eggplant puree, intense roasted eggplant with tomatoes, onions and peppers, plus strong anchovies rolled around olives, all with grilled bread, and then split the good fried red mullet and the swordfish kebabs with bay leaves and charred lemon. It was expensive (70TL?), but the hospitality (and jazzy WC) lured me back a couple of nights later on my own. What a difference a lack of consort makes. The same waiter/manager could not have been more dismissive; a couple who came in after me got a better table, faster water/raki (with ice, no less) and a display of mezes to choose from. I picked from the menu, and the bread in the basket for my broad bean purée was all heels. Ungrilled.

Also disappointing was the wildly recommended Ozkonak in Cinagir, what Bob described as the SoHo of Istanbul. But I have only myself to blame; it’s an old-line place where you go to the steam table and choose what you want, and I was hot, fried and confused and pointed at stuffed zucchini and then braised artichoke hearts, since I’d seen them being tidily trimmed in the markets. Suffice it to say that this is too often what you get when you order Turkish in NYC. All the staff, though, could not have been nicer.

Heeding Istanbul Eats, I made my way to sleek-and-modern Antiochia another night, and what I’ll remember as much as the food was how mellow the waiter was as a hammering rainstorm set in after most of us patrons had chosen sidewalk tables. He just kept calmly and methodically dragging out umbrellas and adjusting them, so while the American woman with a book seated next to me fled inside, I could stay and share my beef kebabs with a very charming cat who politely stood up to tap me on my elbow to beg for more. An outstanding walnut-tomato-pomegranate spread, though, was the best part of my dinner.

Just as good were the two very spicy mezes, one with peppers and walnuts and the other with peppers and tomatoes, at Sofyali, a few barfronts down from Kefit Fail. The waiter’s hand kind of shook “are you sure?” as he transferred the small trays to our table, but we are salsa-conditioned. Three of us also split a grilled sea bass that was fine until the local fixer who had stopped by our table noted that cheaper fish prices on a menu indicated farmed V wild. As I always say, you are what you eat really makes a difference with the chicken of the sea; it tastes like the grain it’s fed. Funnier still was the special salad of the day, which turned out to be arugula, tomatoes and grated cheese plus . . . corn. Houlihan’s, Istanbul-style.

And I thought the cuisine was settling into the coherence the night three cabs’ worth of us headed to the ferry to Uskudar, on the Asian side, for dinner at Ismet Baba, right on the Bosphorus. The food unloaded onto our table, chosen by the fixer, looked familiar: melon and white cheese; smoked/cured fish with slices of raw onion; eggplant purée; roasted eggplant with tomatoes and hot peppers; sea beans with garlic; yogurt with scallions; fried calamari with ricotta-like cheese for dipping; famous fried liver; slices of a phyllo roll filled with potatoes and dill. The main course was swordfish as we’d had it at Refik, with the addition of grilled tomatoes, and dessert was a huge array of fruit with helveh. It seemed like a classic meal.

But then one of the founders of Istanbul Eats took me to lunch in a Kurdish market and I realized I knew nothing. Here we shared chunks of lamb hacked off a whole animal that had been roasted in a charcoal pit; the bits were mounded over a flatbread that soaked up the amazing fat. Lamb sickens me, but I was actually bummed he ordered only a half-portion; I could have eaten double. To accommodate me, he also had chosen chicken and rice in a pastry crust with currants and almonds and steamed patties with kibbeh inside that were equally dazzling. I also got to experience the salty yogurt drink ayran the right, messy way, from a huge copper mug with a ladle.

Given how good that meal was, I took his and his co-blogger’s advice on their site about Zubeyrir, which was the perfect ending. Bob and I sat alongside the charcoal grill and took so many photos of our food the chef insisted on taking one of us. For some reason, the headwaiter insisted I taste everything we chose from the meze tray before he turned it over to us for good, but the gigante beans were as good as the yogurt-cucumber-tomato-spread and warm eggplant purée and spinach with garlic; the regular flatbread was excellent, too, but then he brought a sort of Turkish tortilla, baked with herbs,  crackly and crunchy. I had a hard time ceding most of the grilled lamb ribs with their amazing fat and a spicy mixed-mince kebab that came with a fascinating parsley-onion salad dusted with sumac. All that went well with a good bottle of Kavaklidere red. And I would have felt bad that we were just hitting our eating stride, but we had one last breakfast to look forward to. . .

Ozkonak, Akarsu Caddesi No. 60, Cihangir
Sofyali, Sofyali Sofak No. 9, Beyoglu
Siirt Seref Buryan Kebap Salonu, Itfaiye Cadessi No. 4, Fatih, serefburyan.com
Antiochia, Minare Sokak, Asmalimesict, antiochiaconcept.com
Ismet Baba, Carsi Caddesi No. 1, ismetbaba.com.tr
Zubeyrir Ocakbasi, Istiklal Caddesi Bekar Sokak No. 28, zubeyirocakbasi.com

We also had mind-changing baklava, two kinds made with pistachios and one with walnuts, at Develi (“since 1912”), outside the Spice Bazaar. I tried two other places that did nothing to convert me to the stuff. We had the best plums of either of our lives from a roadside gardener on Buyukada Island. I got to taste 14 cheeses at the great little Antre shop in Cihangir and several more while walking through markets. We both developed a taste for simit, the sesame-encrusted rounds of bread that are indescribable; they were great whether straight off a vendor’s head near the Spice Bazaar, fresh from a wood-burning oven in a bakery or slightly humidified on the ferry. And I’m here to say Turkish delight could be addictive. It’s not quite Istanbul Chuckles; the flavors — saffron or rose or mastic — elevate it. Finally, Bob warned me off Turkish coffee but hooked me on Turkish tea, served in a special small glass and meant to be sweetened; I preferred it plain. For some reason, though, it always made me want to nod off. The last time I had that reaction was in another city where we felt like ghosts — Turin — and it happened every time I had a chocolate-coffee bicerin.

I had a lot of time by myself while Bob was preoccupied with his students, so I invested it in serious research, investigating “rose wine,” as the waiters called it. The House Cafe had a pleasant balcony and charged 12 Turkish lira for a big glass of fine Lal, from Kavaklidere, apparently the dominant producer in Anatolia. At the sleek cafe in the wonderful Pera Museum with its spirit-lifting Botero exhibit, I tried two other producers’ over two days for only 10 TL a pour and got amazing pistachios to go with them. And one afternoon I invested an hour tasting four different rosés at Sensus, a wine cellar with a cheese counter. I’m not sure how any of them would stack up against something from Languedoc or Provence, but they were beyond impressive there. I see Astor carries some of them in New York, and they’re much cheaper than they were in the restaurants.