Sunday, 17 February 2008

istanbul food tour ciya



Istanbul Food Tour: Ciya

The New York Times warned us to bring a Turkish friend since there's

no English menu, so we memorized a few names and double-checked that

the Ciya at number 43 was the correct address.

Lots got lost in translation.

Is it better to re-tell how we saw it? To quote? Or, rather, to

imagine what the staff there was thinking when we forged our ways in

the uncharted silver urns of Anatolian cuisine?

All of the above.

"Self-service" they informed us several times, so up we went to the

dishes of warm starters. We eyed a greens dish, one with browned

onions, the other with red pepper. Pointed at both. Both? he

questioned with a quizzical eye turned toward us and another toward

the server. Waiter pointed, seemed to confirm both, said something

about pilaf and after we agreed to yogurt sauce, I grabbed the dishes.

Eyes raise, again. This time to the woman across the way. Grabbing the

damn dishes, carrying themselves... she seemed to sigh. Frowns all

around. Back to our seats.

Two plates of dark greens and all we can do is moan that this is like

Chez Panisse in Istanbul visiting an ancient cousin. Onions

caramelized to sweetness and browned for depth, greens "cooked to

perfection" (is there a better way to describe when greens are cooked

well?) The yogurt sauce the first I've tasted this good since the days

of Zia's Cafe in San Diego (known prior to 9/11 as Zia's Afghan Cafe).

As I'm pondering the benefits of well-cooked greens, Liam is braving

the self-service cold salads. Suddenly, an English-speaking staff

member appears. Dolmas, meatballs, some dips on his plate when he

returns (plate delivered by staff). I'm not sure if I can explain this

in English without the name of the dish or lacking the knowledge of

Paula Wolfert, but one was an eggplant so snowy white and smoky that

it shimmered like the snow atop the minarets. The other I can only say

was nut, kind of spicy, and so good you didn't want to ruin it with

bread. Dolmas were thin cigarettes of rice and sweet, not chewy like

the ones I usually have - in this country they have displays of "vine

leaves" with the variety of a fromagerie.

"Do you have dessert?" Liam asks our original server, who nods, and

then proceeds to the back of the restaurant to repeat to the

English-speaking staff the word "dessert." We are guided to the

street-facing window where trays of iridescent fruits await us -

except they are not all fruits and I'm not even sure how these sweets

are made (I have a list of research days long about Turkish food that

is not easily done with a few Google hits on 'Turkish sweets').

"pumpkin" he says pointing at huge orange hunks that look jellied,

"tomato" at another, drier, mauve slab. "No olive," I say, pointing at

the large black forms in front of me. "Walnut" sighs the woman behind

me, and so, I pointed to one of most (pictured below).

How quickly I am smitten. It doesn't take much to lure me with

pumpkin, but this was slivered and shivered in your mouth with a

crackle of sweetness. The walnut was by far our favorite, black like

it came from an olive can and sliced at the top as though it hid

pimentos, but when you cut into it it had the star shape of walnut

skin and layers of meat inside with the faint taste of wine or sherry

and slathered in a butter cream that erased all of my neurotic,

self-conscious memories of nods meaning no and questions equaling

statements and a general throwing-up-of-hands of understood

self-service dining norms on both ends.

While we ate, surrounded by write-ups in Food and Wine, Saveur, New

York Times (these are just the ones in English that I recognized), I

wondered how others fared here, and curiously, why this wasn't in any

guidebook. It was despairingly hard to find - a "quick boat-ride to

Asia" sounds romantic and easy enough, but we walked around for nearly

an hour with no map and a simple wish, asking a taxi driver, simit

vendor, and tchochke kiosk before we got directions to led us to the

market street that led us there. These desserts though, almost enough


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