Our presentation at the All Ohio Counselor Conference is completed,
generally successful, some wanted us to use the microphone, but the
one’s who moved up to hear reported being pleased with how they
spent their hour. One way or another, the deal is done and we have
one more chance to stuff something down our gullets before heading
back north. The Irish fare at Fadó worked well, we decided to stay
with options we don’t have access to so easily at home and strolled
into Café Istanbul. The folks seem very nice and willing to share a
cuisine unfamiliar to many, almost like going to a friends house for
dinner in high school. Just weirder food. |
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Much like the rest of the Easton area, Café Istanbul is much nicer inside than you would expect for most storefront restaurants, particularly those featuring something like Turkish cuisine. I suppose that is Easton, I typically expect something like the Greek place we just visited, rocky environs, typically really solid food. Everything here is bright and shiny, linens, glasses, staff. I started to worry, sometimes all of the buffing removes some of the patina that world cuisines have earned over time. For the most part, just like the rest of our trip, snazzy was met with turns between competent and impressive.
Five of us shared four appetizers, five entrees and four desserts.
It still sort of amazes me how many folks throw in on our goofy
little adventures. The presenter and a comrade from the session on
trafficking we had attended the day before happily passed their
plates around and tried a bit of everything along with us. I didn’t
try one dish, I try hard to be polite, they were unfaultingly
gracious, I still just hate to ask folks I just met. |
Hummus Is Simply Flavored But Ethereally Smooth |
Surprised By Cold. Surprised By Great Meld Of Tastes |
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Sigara BÖrek |
Simple, Addictive. |
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The lentil soup with garlic, celery, carrots and onion was probably my least favorite dish of the entire meal. Lacking some of the depth I would expect, it had an additional flavor, much like epazote (kerosene-like) I didn’t enjoy at all. A squeeze of lemon helped but not enough to consider ordering it again. The other hot appetizer, Sigara BÖrek, is something I would order again and again. Crispy phyllo pastry cigars were filled with feta cheese and parsley. Simple, succulent, salty and fresh, that’s what we were looking for. We had considered trying the calf liver cubes sautéed with herbs and spices and topped with an onion/sumac combo, but there were enough sour faces around the table we decided to go another route.
Our two cold apps were hummus and eggplant
with sauce. I was surprised by the eggplant. The veggie cubes are
fried and then combined with red peppers, onions and garlic in their
tomato sauce. I didn’t really expect it to be cold, when I
discovered it was I didn’t expect to like it, I was wrong on both
counts. If you have ever had pizza that tasted better out of the
fridge than out of the box, that’s what this brought to memory. The
chill seemed to amplify the eggplant and the veggies in the sauce,
all of which had been metered to a sublime balance. Their hummus is
chickpea central with a little garlic, sesame, lemon and olive oil.
What made it stupid tasty was the texture, almost as if it had been
whipped, nearly cloud-like in smoothness, I want to know exactly how
they achieved that particular feat. |
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Still Preferred The Flavor Combination On The Chicken More Than Okra |
Karniyarik Is A Rich Beauty |
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The entrée I didn’t try was the Döner Kebab, carved gyro (lamb and beef) meat with rice, sauce and a little veg. It looked like what you would expect. The side of vegetables were done with respect on all of the dishes. Not raw, not baby food, warm through with a just enough crunch remaining. All is right with the world. Our southern compadre violated one of my rules. Namely, no okra that is not obliterated or fried. I have never been able to get over the snot. Wrong again.
The pods in this dish were tiny juvenile buggers which seemed to
emerge without the boogers after a sauté with onion, garlic and
tomato sauce. Similar to the mix on the eggplant, turns out its
tasty hot as well. We also had a chicken sauté with similar
vegetables and I think you could put almost any protein or no
protein into this aromatic and spiced sauce and end up with
something enjoyable. |
Trumped Only By Dairy Addition In Mousakka |
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The Mousakka and the Karniyarik entrees featured similar ingredients in different formats. Both were excellent. The Karniyarik was a stuffed eggplant, loaded with ground beef and lamb with chopped tomatoes, peppers and herbs. Rich and wonderfully seasoned, these sorts of dishes make me sad for folks who are averse to trying different people’s cuisines, the things they’ll never experience. The Mousakka is the same meaty stew, this time layered between slices of eggplant like a lasagna. The difference flavor-wise here is the addition of a béchamel and mozzarella cheese. The two dairy components made the dish ever richer and added some additional nose and taste from cinnamon and other spices. Delicious.
Two of the entrees came with a complementary Sutlac or rice pudding
which was nice enough. Set so thick, I think if you smacked it to
see if it jiggled, it might slap you back. The dusting of dark
cinnamon helped the lightly sweet mixture but two of the other three
desserts would blow this cup clear from the sea. We tried Kazandibi, a
homemade milk custard topped with cream and grape sauce. The sauce
was interesting but for me the custard was so stiff I had trouble
enjoying the whole thing. I am usually not a texture guy but there
was just something about this wiggly log that didn’t work for me.
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Rice Pudding Is Alright, Really Needs The Cinnamon |
Kazandibi Milk Custard Has An Interesting Texture But Nice Sauce Combo |
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Almond Flavored Keskul Significant Improvement Over Rice |
A Completely New, Mind-Blowing Combo. This Kind Of Thing Is Why We Are Past Our 400th |
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Keskul, the homemade almond pudding topped
with almonds and cream achieved what the rice concoction could not.
The nuttiness added needed flavor and the whipped cream atop allowed
you to loosen the thick set custard a bit and enjoy the almonds. The
most surprising was called Kunefe. As soon as I saw it on the menu I
knew we would be trying it. It didn’t look like what I expected, I’m
not sure what I did expect it was just different. A hokey puck of
baked shredded phyllo dough was resting in a clear and sweet sauce,
which was studded with what look like saffron threads. Don’t see a
lot of that stuff in desserts. What’s another thing you don’t see
often in desserts? Hmmmmm. Oh yeah, goat cheese. The hockey puck is
stuffed with a sweetened goat cheese. All together you have a heady
clear broth with definitive notes of honey, crusty brown crispy
shreds of dough and just enough sweet to notice against the hefty
tang from the cheese itself. So strangely scrumptious. Makes me even
more sad for overly cautious eaters. |
Ratings | |||||||
Food |
Service |
Ambiance |
What's Best |
What's Worst |
Overall |
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B+ | B | B | A+ | D | B | ||
More Than One | Soup & Couple Desserts |