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FOOD AND DRINK |
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At its finest, Turkish food is one of the world's great cuisines,
yet prices are on the whole affordable. Unadventurous travellers are
prone to get stuck in a kebab rut, but everyone apart from the most
dedicated vegetarians should find enough variety to keep budget meals
interesting.
Food
These days the Turkish breakfast ( kahvalti ) served at hotels and
pansiyons is usually an open buffet, offering bread or toast along with
butter, cheese, jam, honey and olives. There's usually unlimited
quantities of tea, but coffee is generally extra. Many workers start the
morning with a börek or a poça , pastries filled with meat, cheese or
potato that are sold at a tiny büfe (stall/café) or at street carts.
Others made do with a simple simit (sesame-seed bread ring). The
traditional eastern Anatolian breakfast is a bowl of mercimek çorba (lentil
soup) served with lemon and chilli powder.
Later in the day , vendors hawk lahmacun, small "pizzas" with meat-based
toppings, and, in coastal cities, midye tava (deep-fried mussels).
Another option is pide , or Turkish pizza - flat bread with various
toppings - served at a pideci or pide salonu . Another snack speciality
is manti , meat-filled ravioli drenched in yoghurt and oil.
A restaurant (lokanta) serves more substantial hot dishes in rich tomato
sauces, while a kebapci specializes in grilled or roast kebabs. Most
budget-priced restaurants are alcohol-free; some places marked içkili (licensed)
may be more expensive. A useful exception is a meyhane (tavern), which
usually serves meze - an extensive array of cold appetizers - as well as
grilled kebabs and fish as the focus for a full evening's eating and
drinking.
Prices vary widely according to the type of establishment: from $3 a
head at a simple lokanta , or $10-20 at regular resort restaurants , up
to $50-100 a head at flashier places. Many don't have menus ; you'll
need to ascertain the prices of most main courses beforehand. Meze , or
appetizers, come in all shapes and sizes, the commonest being dolma (usually
peppers stuffed with rice), patlican salata (aubergine in tomato sauce),
and acili (a mixture of tomato paste, onion, chilli and parsley), as
well as seafood salads and pickled fish. Main courses served in lokantas
include a number of vegetable dishes such as green beans or baked beans
in tomato sauces, though they're invariably prepared with lamb- or
chicken-based stock. Meat dishes include several variations on the kebab
(kebap) , for example Iskender kebap (slices of meat on pide , with
spicy tomato sauce, yoghurt and salad), köfte (meatballs), sis (grilled
meat chunks) or çöp sis (small bits of lamb). Fish and seafood are good,
if usually pricey, and sold by weight more often than by item. Budget
mainstays include freshly grilled sardalya (sardines), palamut (bonito),
iskumru (mackerel), kalkan (turbot) and kefal (grey mullet).
Finally, those with a sweet tooth will find every imaginable concoction
at a pastane (sweet-shop): best are the honey-soaked baklava , and a
variety of milk puddings, most commonly sütlaç (rice pudding), which is
consistently available in ordinary restaurants too. Other sweets include
asure (Noah's pudding), a sort of rosewater jelly laced with pulses,
raisins and nuts, and the best-known Turkish sweet, lokum or "Turkish
Delight" - solidified sugar and pectin, flavoured with rosewater and
sometimes pistachios, and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Drink
Tea (çay) is the Turkish national drink, served in tiny tulip-shaped
glasses, with sugar on the side but no milk. Turkish coffee (kahve) is
also common, served in tiny cups; don't drink the last mouthful (it's
the grounds). Instant coffee is thankfully losing ground to fresh filter
coffee in trendier cafés. Fruit juices (meyva suyu) can be excellent but
are usually sweetened. Mineral water, either still (su) or fizzy (maden
suyu) , is found at the tableside in most restaurants. Mesrubat is the
generic term for all carbonated soft drinks . You'll also come across
ayran , watered-down yoghurt.
Alcoholic drinks (içkiler) are available without restriction in resorts
and in most other places, though you may have some thirsty moments in
smaller interior towns in the east. The main locally brewed brands of
beer (bira) are Efes Pilsen, Tuborg and, as a likely newcomer this year,
Carlsberg; imported beers are available, but at a horrendous mark-up.
Turkish wine (sarap) varies alarmingly in quality; the commonest labels
are Kavaklidere and Doluca, which both offer a variety of vintages. The
national aperitif is anis-flavoured raki - stronger than Greek ouzo.
It's usually drunk with ice and topped up with water.
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