{"id":933,"date":"2015-03-23T16:01:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T20:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/?p=933"},"modified":"2015-03-23T16:02:06","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T20:02:06","slug":"between-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/2015\/03\/between-cats\/","title":{"rendered":"Between cats"},"content":{"rendered":"

I almost skipped my last supper in Istanbul, having had a late lunch with cauliflower and cat over in Orhan Pamuk\u2019s neighborhood and knowing I had one more big breakfast to tuck away before the long, long ride home. But I would have missed an experience that had everything: great food, good wine, excellent service, a dramatic setting, cats to shoot on the walk to and from and, best of all, proof that bitches act the same all over the world. When I walked into Aheste<\/a>, having had my lunch date reserve for me (cuz you can\u2019t just walk in), the host\/server offered me two tables, one awkwardly positioned in the center of the narrow room and the other in the window, where a scarf and bag were arranged in one chair, as if the owner had just stepped away. I didn\u2019t understand that the latter was really available and settled for awkwardness, only to watch as a couple entered shortly afterward and the waiters started to remove the bag and scarf to a high stool. The young woman next to that table grabbed both, angrily, and then apparently instructed her husband\/date to get the check even though they were still eating. If I had known it would be so easy to evict a princess, I would have chosen my table more wisely.<\/p>\n

But as soon as the menu was set down and the host\/server translated what I could not, I was oblivious to everything but the food and wine. I was actually tempted by the lamb neck but chose grilled mixed (mild) peppers with anchovy \u201caioli\u201d and green olives plus the mutebbel, a combination of smoky eggplant with tahini and walnuts. And I would have been totally happy with those, especially after the sourdough bread with garlic confit in excellent Turkish olive oil. Maybe because I snapped everything, or because I had a little notebook, or because Istanbul, even with a population now of 18 million, 4 million more than my last trip in 2011, is a very tiny town, I was comped sensational ceviche, of buttery sea bass with red onion, dill fronds and orange. That made me order the chard with smoked yogurt so I could taste more of what the generous chef was cooking up, and I am here to report that \u201cdried rose\u201d actually could outperform bacon bits as a garnish. I couldn\u2019t finish any of it, but I was then comped the craziest pumpkin dessert all week: crisp, crunchy, slightly sweet slices of squash set over ice cream and dusted with chopped walnuts. If I got it all straight, the cucumber cousin is being cooked via centuries-old molecular gastronomy — limestone does the trick.<\/p>\n

As my own private Baedeker said: Eating at Aheste \u201ctastes like being here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I almost skipped my last supper in Istanbul, having had a late lunch with cauliflower and cat over in Orhan Pamuk\u2019s neighborhood and knowing I had one more big breakfast to tuck away before the long, long ride home. But I would have missed an experience that had everything: great food, good wine, excellent service,… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-istanbul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}