Kebabarama!
I had quite a Turkish weekend. Saturday night I watched a Turkish movie called Head-On (review [such as it is] above), and Sunday I went out for lunch in a Turkish restaurant, hence the mention of eating lamb just before seeing all those sheep a couple of days ago.
Lamb is really the meat of choice in Turkish restaurants, and I like to make the most of any foreign-food experience. For starters, Wife and I shared four meze: falafel, stuffed vine leaves, calamari, and tarama salata. It was all yummy delicious.
Next, Wife took the vegetarian moussaka (being kind of allergic to lamb, we think), while I opted for the mixed kebab, which included chicken, some sort of spiced lamb, lamb kidney, and lamb's rib. It was served with rice, some salad bits (of which I ate only some of the red cabbage), and a small piece of pitta bread. It was so gorgeous. The only problem: although the meat was so 
tender that it fell apart in my mouth, the knife was still too blunt to cut it! I'll never understand why decent serrated knives don't come as a matter of course with any meat dish. (As an aside, I have been in restaurants where the back of the knife was actually sharper than the cutting edge! Honestly. How fucked up is that?!) Still, that's a minor gripe and not something I should even concern myself with...
After the main course, I thought, "Fuck it, I'll have some dessert, too." I like desserts. I grew up in a household that rarely had desserts on offer (or pudding, as they call it back home). As a result, I find it difficult to go to a restaurant and not have a dessert. I think it's my duty to catch up on all the missed desserts of my childhood. So I went for the baklava, which I like but rarely have the occasion to eat. It's so sweet and gorgeous: honey, nuts, sugar. Grrggllllllll. Just a minute while a wipe the dribble off my keyboard. Okay... and then Turkish coffee to finish. Delish. If you have a sit-down Turkish restaurant in your neighbourhood (and I don't just mean a few grotty plastic tables
in the takeaway) and you've never been, I urge you to go. The food is so much better than the idea of bad doners on a drunken Saturday night. And I love a bad doner on a drunken Saturday night, but it's a horse of a different colour.
Right, long boring post about Turkish food over.
Lamb is really the meat of choice in Turkish restaurants, and I like to make the most of any foreign-food experience. For starters, Wife and I shared four meze: falafel, stuffed vine leaves, calamari, and tarama salata. It was all yummy delicious. 
Next, Wife took the vegetarian moussaka (being kind of allergic to lamb, we think), while I opted for the mixed kebab, which included chicken, some sort of spiced lamb, lamb kidney, and lamb's rib. It was served with rice, some salad bits (of which I ate only some of the red cabbage), and a small piece of pitta bread. It was so gorgeous. The only problem: although the meat was so 
tender that it fell apart in my mouth, the knife was still too blunt to cut it! I'll never understand why decent serrated knives don't come as a matter of course with any meat dish. (As an aside, I have been in restaurants where the back of the knife was actually sharper than the cutting edge! Honestly. How fucked up is that?!) Still, that's a minor gripe and not something I should even concern myself with...After the main course, I thought, "Fuck it, I'll have some dessert, too." I like desserts. I grew up in a household that rarely had desserts on offer (or pudding, as they call it back home). As a result, I find it difficult to go to a restaurant and not have a dessert. I think it's my duty to catch up on all the missed desserts of my childhood. So I went for the baklava, which I like but rarely have the occasion to eat. It's so sweet and gorgeous: honey, nuts, sugar. Grrggllllllll. Just a minute while a wipe the dribble off my keyboard. Okay... and then Turkish coffee to finish. Delish. If you have a sit-down Turkish restaurant in your neighbourhood (and I don't just mean a few grotty plastic tables
in the takeaway) and you've never been, I urge you to go. The food is so much better than the idea of bad doners on a drunken Saturday night. And I love a bad doner on a drunken Saturday night, but it's a horse of a different colour.Right, long boring post about Turkish food over.
permalink posted by * (asterisk) at 10:34 AM
8 Comments:
Cant beat a bit of Turkish.
Nice people some of them anyway.
They accused my wife of being a blue colour 'cos she is so pasty looking whilst on hols there.
Anyone who insults my wife, is a friend of mine!
Don't apologize, I sure enjoyed the meal review. And I can't say I've eaten Turkish food before...well, have had stuffed vine leaves, mousaka, falalfel...so I guess these foods must cbe staples of several countries? What is tarama salata? I am guessing a salad of some kind. Are those the pictures of your actuall food, not stock internet photos? If so COOL! Love the plates! It looks so fresh!
RD: Funny about your wife, you bad man! Most Turks I come into contact with are in restaurants and kebab houses. Terrible really. But even more terrible is the grief they get from ignorant English kids playing the fruit machines. It embarrasses the fuck out of me.
Candy: Yep, actual photos of our meals. You can even see a bit of my tattoo on the right of the pic of the starters! Tarama salata: yes, the name (sometimes spelled as one word) sounds like it might be salad, but it's actually a fish-roe paste, great for dipping as you would with hummus. It's the pink stuff in the first pic.
Sorry * I beat you to it - I wrote a really boring post about Turkish food in March :-P
Turkish food is the best and there are loads around North London where we live - you must have visited a few when you lived in Harringay.
ACT: Let's not get nuts! Turkish food is yummy, but I still prefer Italian. I used to go to Erenler once in a while on Green Lanes, but I noticed the name has changed now. Assume it's been taken over. So, that's your chap who had the reaction to Palahniuk's Haunted?
I misses the whole turkish theme..
I'm trying to learn how to pay attention..
He is indeed -we've both got the blogging bug but have managed to stay civil to each other so far over use of the computer :-P
As for Italian food, I do love it and that shows in the fact that I've been able to eat it every day for 2 months without getting bored of it (which I don't think I could with any other type of food)when I was on holiday with my family. When I say Turkish is the best, it's a fad I'm going through at the moment, I feel like I could eat it every day but would probably get bored eventually. We've only ventured down Green Lanes a couple of times to that huge pub The Salisbury Hotel, but there are loads of Turkish places we should try.
Ah, two computers, that's what you need.
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