Hatay Medeniyetler Sofrasi - Istanbul

So, I had quite an eventful weekend this month. It went a little something like this:

Friday: fly to Istanbul, eat dinner (see below).

Saturday: up at 3:30am to fly to Ankara, fly to Ankara, meet brother-in-law's prospective in-laws/friends and try to impress them by pretending to be normal, drink tea, eat meze, eat cake, drink coffee, drink champagne to celebrate b-i-l's engagement to prospective in-laws daughter, go out for dinner, eat dinner, dance, eat more dinner, drink fermented carrot juice with added salt, dance again, go to bed at 1:30am.

Sunday: visit museum (I love a good museum me), eat turkish pede, drink more tea, get on bus, narrowly escape a massive terrorist car bomb by a few minutes, fly back to Instanbul.

Monday: fly home.

Now I know what you're all thinking and yes the fermented carrot juice was pretty horrific, needless to say, I couldn't finish the whole glass. 

In all seriousness, I feel I can't ignore the whole bomb thing as it made quite an impression on the world. Unfortunately, I had close encounters with a couple of life threatening events a few years ago and so I found myself to be filled with a familiarly unwelcome protective anxiety as it all unraveled around us. Perhaps I need professional assistance to try and reduce my perception of risk but I do feel that I am not entirely unjustified in my currently heightened guarded state. Plus, as I like to say; too much of anything is bad for you and in this case that applies as much to terrorism as it does to chocolate. Just perhaps in different proportions.

However, I digress and this blog isn't quite the forum to air such geo-political topics, so I'll leave that to Twitter and move on to the very positive experience I had whilst eating and drinking in Turkey, namely at the Hatay Medeniyetler Sofrasi. 

A quick note regarding the future in-laws of my in-law, they provided a top-notch spread with home made goodies-a-plenty, pede was a new one on me but if you ever get the chance to experience the rolled turkish pizza, give it a go - it's delish.

OK, so let's rewind back to Friday night. A few short hours after stepping off the plane and I was staring down the barrel of this massive tray filled with unknown and exotic potential treats.

I just didn't know what to choose, so I had as many as I thought I could get away with without appearing too rude, greedy or British. Creamy, rich hummous, sharp spicy chillis, tart pickles and proper pulses with vine leaves. It was like a savoury sweet shop which admittedly, is a bit of a weird metaphor to use but it's the best one I can think of. The smoked aubergine deserves an honorary mention as it had  Mrs P swooning at the table and while I must confess that we never eat it at home, I made a quiet little mental note to give that one a go myself. However one dish in particular was particularly good and believe me when say that I have eaten hummous up and down the UK as it's the mainstay of dodgy corporate buffet lunches which I endure by the truckload. But here it was buttery and beautiful, beckoning and bewitching. Essentially I think you get that I can't speak highly enough of this little beguiling bowl of bounty. 

And then this happened.

FIRE! This was a kabap (as opposed to a kebab), and was wheeled out with proper and appropriate spectacle. Mainly grilled minced lamb and chicken chunks with a few lamb chops thrown in for good measure, it came with a greater volume of veg than you would see in the UK. Seasoned grilled onion, tomatoes as well as the odd green leaf of parsley as a welcome fresh accompaniment. The dishes were great, and we polished it all off in very short order. It was exactly the sort of thing we needed after a day's travelling.

Bread was in plentiful supply with puffy, light flatbread proving to be anything but flat. The poppyseed crust also had a gloss sheen coating that crunched magnificently.

But we weren't finished yet, let's not forget a slice of this:

Syrup soaked cheesey cake. You read that right; not a cheese cake, but a cheesey cake. A cake made of actual cheese. During my brief time in Turkey, I noticed that they eat a lot of cheese; cheese for breakfast, cheese for lunch, cheese for snacks etc etc. So, I guess a sweet cheese cake with pistachios wasn't too much of a leap into the unknown. What can I say? It was lovely, gooey with cheese, crunchy with nuts and enough sugar to sate even Mrs P's raging sweet tooth.

In conclusion you can probably tell I'm in two minds. On the one hand, Turkey is full of amazingly friendly people who have an inherent kindhearted helpful nature that we really should develop to make all our lives that little bit better. The food that I ate was excellent, both home prepared and from the restaurants that we visited, a completely different and welcome shift from what we have here. I hope I can learn from this emphasis on simply prepared veg with different techniques that concentrate on keeping the ingredients as natural as possible while maximising their actual flavour. On the other hand, well, you have to go over to Turkey to eat it and at the moment, I'll leave that decision up to you.


www.hataymedeniyetlersofrasi.com
@MedenilyetlerSFR