Kaymak

We left the house. The plan was to be out for the rest of the day, we were not planning to return until the morning. (or late night).

and it was raining – armed with umbrellas, Nurdan lead us down her road to the main street. We crossed, I think we jaywalked, but am not sure (I bring this up here for a reason, read a few more sentences to understand). I think we waited for some light, but i'm not sure... it sticks in my head because on day 3, when we were r-enavigating the same route w/o Nurdan, crossing the street seemed a lot more complicated

We hailed a couple of cabs and headed towards what I will term the 'Besiktas Market Area.' Besiktas is the suburb of Istanbul that Nurdan lives in (She also supports their soccer team). We got out of the cabs and proceeded to follow Nurdan to breakfast!

We entered a small shop with about 5 or 6 tables, a place that could perhaps handle a capacity of ~20 people. There was a black board showing the 4 or 5 different items on the menu.


Given our large group, we were split up into two tables: Nurdan, Tam, Chris and Dutch Chick in the first table; Kubs, Christine and myself in the second. We each had our own Turk!

Nurdan and Kubs took charge and started ordering. Some words made sense, e.g. panir, but the majority just buzzed bye. We all got a serving of Kaymak, beautiful rolls of bread, a combination plate of Feta Cheese, Tomatoes, cucumbers and Olives, Chai ( we all learned that Chai means tea in Turkish, Vietnaese and Farsi), and a scrampble of eggs with beef salami.

The meals are served and enjoyed family style, so we all dug in.

The kaymak was served with honey and was beautiful.
I can still recall the flavor. We ordered a second set of tomato/cucumber/feta/olive plate. Oh yea, the olives were brilliant as well, slightly bitter, and the perfect amount of salt. We got more bread, more chai and kept eating. I think we may have even ordered more Kaymak...



The proprietor of the joint (I wish we would have gotten his name), was a very pleasant old man. He was very jovial and proud. He indicated that the shop had been within his family for about 140 years. There were pictures of Ataturk (the revered founder of the Turkish Republic, whose picture is on the Lira as well as on every wall of every restaurant), the proprietors father, and perhaps grandfather and a picture of the dude in his younger years.




The gang started to take some snaps and our buddy started to join in the fun. He posed with all the ladies, quite the cassanova!



The meal was epic! As I sitl back and think about it, it was one of the most satisfying meals that I've ever enjoyed... The simplicity, quality, ambviance and most importantly, the company!