Tuesday, 23 December 2014

Sokak Cafe

This might be my first post about a restaurant on the fish market side of Beşiktaş - meaning on the other side of the small eagle from where the main breakfast streets are.

Just past the small eagle is a very hip cafe (on the corner) called Mamboccino and that little side street is affectionately known by most in these parts as "beer" street.


Here on the right.


Erasmus students aplenty, and always a watering hole, or a place to tuck into some grub. One cute-looking breakfast spot kept on catching my eye.


Beer street has some secret goodies hiding away - there is a very romantic, inviting wine bar there, any Beşiktaş game will be on several screens and there is a serious sense that you're in the heart of the market. It's more intimate than where the fish restaurants are, more down-to-earth.


So, I had high hopes that the Sokak Cafe would be another nice surprise. It opens early and seems very efficiently run.

As if by magic, the husband in the concern appeared just as I was slowing my pace to peer at the menu. How could I not give it a try?

The menu looked right. There was everything in its place, and the prices would make any student put the phone back down as they were ringing mum and dad for a bank account bolster.

I opted for a tested formula and one which often reveals how well a breakfast restaurant performs. The menemen (scrambled eggs and bell peppers) and bal-kaymak (clotted cream scooped over honey) combo. If they can do it decently, with a generous portion, and hot fresh eggs and use creative seasonings, then it's usually a winner.

It came out very presidentially, brought on a little tray by my man. Nescafe, (!) check. Bal-kaymak, exactly right. However, the main thing, the one thing that kind of makes it or breaks it, the eggs, were a watery mess. Hot, they were. There was even a hint of taste in there. But, I'd asked for "sucuklu" which means with sausage, and I'll be damned if I could taste any.

It wasn't an unenjoyable meal. The old dudes over the road caroused with one another, a stray dog made a whimpery appearance, the dawn light magnificently illuminated the lovely narrow street.

But I struggled to find inspiration from my anaemic menemen. It stuck in my craw. It wasn't what I wanted. And I know there is better and it's not only a question of taste - I beg you to consider that good scrambled eggs ought not to puzzle even a rank amateur cook.

The ceremony with which it was all presented did appease me a little. 15 lira for a warming and nourishing petit-dejeuner - let them have it, the dears.

If it is as I suspect: a ma-and-pa operation - then it is a little bit pleasant to think of the satisfaction they might glean from studiously making the same watery eggs for us that they've churned out for their kids and grandkids for years. 

But no real coffee or any wifi? It's a no-brainer.







Next time I'll be returning to the high-stakes world of b
attlefield breakfast!

First one that gives me a real huevos rancheros wins.




Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Balkan Lokantası

Much business is transacted in the early hours in Beşiktaş. Even before the insanity of rush hour, delivery men, bakers, and tradespeople are up scurrying around by 7. I rose early to join them.





Winter is here and stalls that normally brandish sunglasses and bikinis have swapped over to cold-weather wear.






Having decided to seek out more traditional Turkish fare for a morning meal, I went over to the far side of the neighbourhood nearer the buses to enjoy a hot bowl of soup.



As you walk up from the Üsküdar ferry boat terminal, Beşiktaş market appears on your left, after the mosque.

You are inevitably led up to the left along a wide pedestrianised road (this one) and the very first turning on the right is Akmaz Çeşme Sokak (Oxbow Fountain Street).






If you were to go all the way up, there is a cinema under construction, a gaggle of nargile cafes and a Tolkienesque sculpture that wouldn't go amiss as a secret object in the Legend of Zelda.

But go no further! 

As charming as the dilapidated old Ottoman houses and junked out vespas are, the steepness of the hill before you will no doubt shave years from your life. And life is for breakfast-eating as we all know.


Back down opposite the row of paint supply stores is Balkan Lokantası.

I have never seen it closed in the morning. The men who work there all wear hamam sandals and cook and clean with monastic devotion.


One is reminded of the order and heirarchy of a ship at sea under a captain. You walk in and are surrounded by the buzz of greeting, clearing, productivity. If there were a heaven for retired people, exiles and orphans, then this might be it. Simple tasks like portioning puddings into little cups are done with precision and dignity by young and old workers in crisp uniforms.

Every customer is treated with decency and even poorer folk can come up with the two lira for a warming bowl of soup. It is very reminiscent of the Milk Bar cafeterias I saw in Poland.

So, Ezogelin - red lentil soup with spices - the middle one on the right - is the one I had. 

Ezo was a fabled but unhappy bride from the south who made it to please her mother-in-law. And failed.

It's a good hangover cure, some say.

Chicken, rice, yellow lentil, and of course the legendary beef tripe soup, işkembe, are also available. 



Despite being a very male environment in the morning, there is no whiff of gym sock in the air.


For thrifty eaters, they'll do you a half portion for 1 lira with no complaints.






Alas, poor Ezo did a good job and didn't deserve her fate.

With a little dried mint on top and a squeeze of lemon, it's hard to beat on a cold morning. 

And for only 2.20 TL (20 kurus for a hunk of bread) it may be one of my favourite breakfasts in the 'Tash.