Talking Turkey

I don’t know why we have never gone to a Turkish restaurant. We both follow a Turkish YouTuber chef we love (You can see Refika here). Nearly everything she makes I’d eat. Although I don’t recall that she’s made anything with anchovies but I would not eat those if she had, just to be clear. Anyhoo, we decided on a nearby Turkish restaurant last week—there are many conferences here right now and restaurants are hard to get in to. This one was not an exception. It was packed.

We would have made reservations but you can’t make them online and I certainly have no intention of calling a Turkish restaurant in Germany. Can you imagine the terror that wells up in me at just the thought?? We managed to get a seat squeezed in between some papyrus and some other people to whom we were close enough to kiss, but did not even acknowledge. This is very European. Or hostile. I am not sure which.

Whether it was hostility or not, the waiters were super fun, the wine excellent and the food OMG!! I have not been able to stop thinking about it. Our first course was some very thin, tearable bread that made an excellent transportation device for the panéed spiced cheese and chopped salad. (Panéed is a cajan word that seems to fit this situation better than fried or sautéed). Really this could have been dinner. But we’d ordered kebaps (is how they spell it) and while we ate them with some semblance of gusto, our appetite was seriously dulled by the mezes (gettin’ all familiar with the Turkish words here. Next I’ll be wearing a fez and those baggy pant things. Or maybe that’s Egyptian.)