bob and fumie judge istanbul fish

Bob and Fumie Judge the Istanbul Fish Festival

While taking a breather from the Entu Dagakerr gig on Saturday night,

we met Attila Tuna (Attila is a pretty common Turkish name. Tuna means

"Danube" - one of Atilla's ancestors had been the Turkish governor of

Vidin province in Bulgaria) a festival promoter who was originally

born in Skopje, Macedonia. After a predictable round of "Macedonian

Who's Who?" with Attila, Fumie discovered a poster on his Coffee shop

for the 3rd Istanbul Fish Festival, organised by Attila.

As she usually does when confronted by the word "fish," Fumie began

jumping up and down, wildly relating her experiences with various

fillets of bonito and mackeral in painstaking detail. Especially the

part about eating them raw, something which is shocking and outlandish

to Turks. Faced with one of the world's unchallengable champions of

bonito eating, Attila graciously invited us to the festival in Samatya

Meydane to be members of the jury for the restuarant competition.

That's the eminent Bob Beer sitting on my right. Bob has lived in

Istanbul for about fifteen years and is an American musician (adept at

Turkish Alevi baglama saz and song, as well as Black Sea kemen�e) and

a astonishingly talented linguist who works as a translator from

Turkish (he's now working on Kurdish...) who I connected with via a

post on the E-Gullet forums about Turkish cuisine. From an innocent

post concerning kokore� (in which Bob quoted Canadian singer Brenna

McCrimmon calling them "shit sandwiches") the two of us have finally

come to this uniquely elevated moment in our lives: judging the

Istanbul Fish Festival restaurant contest...

First up: fish soup from the Balik Evi fish Restaurant. Light, tasty,

not too salty... a definate 8 on the rating scale of 1 to 10. (Note:

Please restrain the urge to bite my head off because I can't use

proper Turkish spelling for these postings. I'll edit them when I can.

I promise.)

Stuffed mussels from Balik Evi ("Fish House")... Bob wasn't impressed,

but Fumie's was full of pine nuts and rated high.

Balik Evi's Octopus salad... not octopussy enough for Bob Beer, I

rated it as a child-friendly 7 (no visable suckers, no purple skin

coloring) while Fumie simply chowed down both her and my servings. As

Alan Bern once asked me "Does your Japanese girlfriend also think she

is the Owner of All The Seafood In The Universe?" Yes, Alan. We who

live with Japanese women have no right whatsoever to the seafood on

our plates. It all belongs to them.

The mayor of Fatih District and some city councellors tucking very

judgementally into some fish.

I was desparately hoping that some resturant owner would slip me some

bribes to vote in his favor.

Stuffed Squid from Balik Evi

Fish cigara b�rek from Capana Resturant. This was the highpoint for

me... lots of capers, cripsy crunchy...

Fish stew from Antik Seafood Restuarant.

Bonito with shrimp sauce from the Balik Evi

Seafood stuffed into a fried red pepper from Kuleli Restaurant. To

much red pepper flavor overpowering the fish. Didn't do it for me.

Finally a pair of dishes by Ayse, a young woman who gave a tearful

speech thanking the organizers for allowing her to participate in the

festival Ayse is a culinary student, and damn, her dishes beat all the

other restuarant chefs back to the baitshop. Her fish stew (balik

kavurma) managed to take mackeral and fresh anchovies and create a

light dish without the oily fishy flavor that Fumie so loves.

This may be the best stuffed mussel (midye dolma) in Istanbul. Ayse's

stuffed mussel was the best I have ever tasted... huge, fresh and

peppery.

Bob Beer and organizer Attila Tuna conferring over the results.

Unfortunately, none of the restaurant owners took the opportunity of

offering us any bribes, so that the voting was uninterestingly dull

and honest. Obviously, we are not in Hungary any more.

Afterwards, a concert by Entu Dagakerr. this crowd was not comprised

of folks from the Black Sea, and they sat politely while the band

played and sang... in Laz. People smiled and applauded, but no

dancing. But it was a bit like watching a bluegrass band play a Jewish

Old Age home in Brooklyn. Aren't those hillbillies quaint and

authentic. Can't understand a word they are saying, though. They

probably support Trabzon.. It must be the same feeling that I get when

singing in Yiddish to audiences that have no clue as to what I am

talking about. When they finished, the MC announced that "next up, a

pop band that sings in Turkish!"

I still don't know who won the contest. In my opinion, top points go

to the Balik Evi Restaurant with Capana a close second - the b�rek

ruled, and I will be going back to Samatya for more fish. Possibly too

much more fish. Samatya Meydane is easy to reach by taking the

suburban metro train from Sirkeci Train station to the Ko�a Mustafa

Pasa stop along the ocean, about ten minutes from downtown. Walk under

the overpass and you are in the square. Samaya Meydane is cheaper and

more comfortably local than Kumkapi or Kadik�y for fish resturants,