February 13, 2000
CHOICE TABLES / By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Istanbul, Where Fussy Eaters
Demand the Freshest Fare
HE BOSPORUS is just one of
several waterways that lap the
shores of Istanbul.
The city and
its suburbs sprawl from the entrance to the Sea of Marmara to
the southern edge of the Black Sea and along
the inlet called the Golden Horn.
No wonder
Istanbul is a mecca for seafood lovers.
Though the city's lively restaurant scene
offers a dizzying array of Turkish cooking
styles and a cosmopolitan choice of other
cuisines, including some, like Bosnian, that
are hard to come by in the United States, its
fish restaurants are perennial favorites.
| 
Staton R. Winter for The New York Times
|
Balikci Sabahattin, a charmingly decorated restaurant that serves fixed-price, all-inclusive meals.
|
The Turks are fussy eaters, endlessly
debating the merits of this or that kebab
house, and they're just as picky about fish.
When Turks want to eat seafood, they inevitably head for a place that serves little else.
And most of the fish comes from Turkish
waters. Some high-end and non-Turkish restaurants, especially in fancy hotels, import
fish like salmon, but Turks prefer their
own seasonal catch. Freshness is what
counts.
Our visit in early fall coincided with the
arrival of palamut (bonito), levrek (sea
bass) and the season for lufer from the
Bosporus, a kind of bluefish, less strong and
oily than America's sturdy dark-fleshed Atlantic bluefish, but otherwise similar. These
were the fish we saw in gleaming displays in
seafood markets like the Balik Pazari adjacent to the Flower Passage near Taksim
Square in Beyoglu. And they were the varieties available in the restaurants where you
are expected to choose your fish before it is
cooked.
Menus are irrelevant. It didn't take long
for my husband, Richard, and me, and two
friends from New York with whom we were
traveling, to grasp a system that was reasonably effective even with our limited
knowledge of menu Turkish and most waiters' rudimentary command of English.
To start, out would come a tray or two of
meze, the inviting cold appetizers and salads in little dishes, all ordered -- or often, in
our case, overordered -- by pointing. Next,
we would manage to communicate our preference for a hot appetizer, like grilled or
fried calamari. Then we'd be presented with
the fish and would choose between the firm
palamut, the sweet-fleshed sea bass and the
moist lufer.
Except for the main course, most of the
food is meant for sharing.
As for what to drink, though Turkey is a
Muslim country, alcohol -- generally wine,
beer and raki -- is served in most restaurants. The national drink is raki, a potent,
somewhat sweet anise-flavored spirit that
goes from clear to milky when diluted with
water. It is usually sipped as an aperitif and
sometimes throughout the meal. Ayran, another Turkish option, is a tart, tasty non-alcoholic drink made of diluted yogurt.
Modest Turkish white wines, $10 to $13 a
bottle, were preferable to the rustic reds.
Because of heavy tariffs, imported wines
are not worth considering: the prices are
about triple what they might be in the
United States. Thick, sweet Turkish coffee is
available, but the Turks tend to drink tea,
from tulip-shaped glasses.
Korfez
eading my list of seafood restaurants,
Korfez is one of Istanbul's most romantic
spots. It attracts tourists who enjoy an
evening that begins and ends with a boat ride
across the Bosporus from the base of a castle
to a cove on the Asian side, where the
restaurant is situated.
The candlelit waterfront setting, with a
view of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge
beaded with lights, has about 10 tables on a
terrace and about 10 inside. The four of us
found the restaurant elegant, sophisticated
and not at all touristy, though a little too
dimly lighted. The servers went out of their
way to be helpful, even bringing a
couple of extra candles.
Among the meze were tender
marinated octopus, cabbage leaves
with a seafood filling, little wedges of
the ripest tomatoes strewn with
shards of onion, artichoke bottoms in
a creamy dressing and an irresistible shredded carrot salad in a mixture of mayonnaise and tarator, the
Turkish garlic, yogurt and walnut
sauce. Grilled calamari on wooden
skewers had a nice charcoal finish.
Korfez features fish baked in a salt
crust, and our sea bass for two,
boned at tableside and drizzled with
olive oil, was moist and delicious.
Istanbul has discovered chocolate
desserts, notably soufflés, but at Korfez they were outclassed in our opinion by more traditional apricots
baked to the texture of jam and
served topped with kaymak, a dense
clotted cream. A similar quince dessert ran a close second.
Park Fora
et in a flower-filled garden at the
edge of the Bosporus on the European
side, Park Fora is one of Istanbul's
newer seafood places. The spacious
covered terrace, which seats about
100, is equipped with heaters to temper a seasonal chill. The bright interior is equally large.
| 
Staton R. Winter for The New York Times
|
Gurnard on display at Park Fora
|
We started with ripe wedges of
melon with salty white feta-like
cheese, a favorite combination here,
stuffed mussels, marinated sea bass,
and two smoky eggplant preparations, one chunky and one a purée.
Calamari cloaked in a gossamer batter and paired with garlic sauce came
next, then good, simply grilled sea
bass and bluefish. Because the restaurant had run out of bonito, one of
us ordered fish kebabs with peppers,
which were dry and disappointing.
There was good baklava for dessert.
Boncuk
rom the Cicek Pasaji, the Flower
Passage filled with noisy brasseries
in Beyoglu, we entered the Balik Pazari fish market, which leads to a
street of casual little fish restaurants,
most with tables set out under the
arcade. Boncuk (pronounced bun-jook), which specializes in Armenian
and Black Sea cooking, is worth finding. The unusual meze included a
mashed fava bean salad, a ruddy and
forcefully spiced tomato purée, and
topik, like a potato cake with raisins,
cinnamon and onions.
In addition to the usual fish, there is
an emphasis on fresh anchovies, best
when fried, and uskumru dolmasi, a
tricky mackerel dish made by stuffing the skin of the fish with the deboned flesh, parsley, pine nuts and
onions, then breading and deep-frying
it for a rich-tasting tour de force.
Another attraction was delicate little
fresh sole. And not to be missed is the
baked honey-soaked bread, ekmek
kadayifi, served with a generous dollop of kaymak.
Talip
n Kumkapi, another fish market
district, several streets closed to traffic at night are lined with restaurants.
Food snobs dismiss the restaurants,
which are more or less interchangeable and serve adequate fare, but the
scene is boisterously good-natured,
music-filled and popular with Turks
and tourists. We strolled the streets
before dinner, and, as if it were a
bazaar, every restaurateur did his
best to persuade us to try his place,
offering lower prices and even free
wine.
We chose Talip because its owners
have a respected home-style place,
Hunkar, near Suleyman the Magnificent's mosque, the Suleymaniye. The
meze, salad, grilled fish and fried
anchovies were quite good, though the
restaurant was more subdued than
some others, despite the live zither
music. We left convinced that it probably did not matter which of the
places one chose in this neighborhood.
Balikci Sabahattin
alikci Sabahattin is a venerable
restaurant in a narrow, multistoried
wooden house charmingly decorated
with ceramic plates, old copperware,
slightly worn carpets and crisp embroidered curtains in the Cankurtaran Sultanahmet. It is convenient to
the Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque and
Topkapi Palace.
The meal is unusual in that it was
an all-inclusive fixed-price affair; it
was reasonable and well prepared to
boot. After glasses of raki, the food
rolled out. Typical meze (melon and
cheese, marinated beans, eggplant
purée, roasted peppers, a fresh tossed
salad of greens and ripe peeled tomatoes) were followed by hot appetizers
such as shrimp with tomatoes and
peppers sizzled with butter in a terra
cotta dish, grilled fish and finally, ice
cream or a plate of figs and grapes.
Refik
his authentic and popular local
hangout is an informal meyhane, or
tavern, in an area with unpretentious
antique shops and galleries not far
from the Tunel funicular. In good
weather seating out on the street is a
pleasant alternative to the rather
gloomy fluorescent-lighted dining
room, even though an occasional car
or taxi may drive down the little side
street, right between the tables on
both sides.
In addition to the salad-style meze,
which included an excellent though
simple toss of purslane in garlic and
yogurt, Refik also serves borek, pastry triangles filled with cheese or
meat. There are several Black Sea
dishes, including pungent baked anchovies. The custom here is to nibble
and chat, ordering more food as the
evening progresses and the appetite
demands. Just about everybody
drinks raki from start to finish.
Pandeli
n the second floor near the entrance to the wonderfully exotic
Egyptian or Spice Market, Pandeli is
a well-known Greek-owned restaurant that is open only during the day.
The walls of its many rooms are
covered with beautiful Iznik tiles;
groups of tourists at long tables devour the food piled before them.
Though the menu emphasizes seafood, it's more varied than most.
There are a number of meat dishes,
including the spiced dried beef pastirma, skewers of flat kofte (meatballs) and flaky squares of su boregi
(pastry) topped with well-burnished
pieces of doner kebab, lamb sliced
from a giant spit. Sea bass baked with
butter in parchment is another succulent specialty at this place, which
deserves its popularity.
Where pointing is de rigueur
Dining in Istanbul, especially when
it comes to seafood, rarely involves
ordering from a menu. Selections are
made from the dishes or ingredients
displayed. A fully enumerated bill
will be presented at the end of the
meal.
Prices, calculated at 550,000 Turkish liras to the dollar, are the same
for lunch and dinner. Service is not
included, so an additional 10 percent
in cash is usually left on the table,
even when paying with a credit card.
There is plenty of smoking in restaurants frequented by local residents, but in season many have outdoor seating, which makes it easier
to take. Jackets and ties are never
necessary for men.
Each of the addresses below includes the section of the city in addition to the street. The local area code
is 0212 for all restaurants except
Korfez, where it is 0216; when dialing
from abroad, drop the zero and precede the local code by 90.
Balikci Sabahattin, Cankurtaran
Sait Hasan Kuyu Sokak 1, Sultan
ahmet, 458-1824. Open daily from
noon to midnight, serving lunch and
dinner. A complete meal, including a
raki aperitif, is $22 a person, a bottle
of Turkish wine, about $10. Reservations are advisable for dinner.
Boncuk, Nevizade Sokak 19, Beyoglu, 243-1219. Open daily from noon to
midnight for lunch and dinner. A
meal averages $15 to $20 a person
with wine. Reservations are necessary, especially in summer if you
want to sit outside.
Korfez, Korfez Caddesi 78, Kanlica, 413-4314. Open daily except
Monday for lunch from noon to 3 p.m.
and dinner 7 p.m. to midnight. An à la
carte meal with wine and aperitifs
should average $40 to $50 a person,
including the boat ride across the
Bosporus. Reservations, including an
appointment to be met by the boat,
are necessary for dinner.
Pandeli, Misir Carsisi 1, Eminonu,
527-3909. Open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
daily except Sunday.
An à la carte
meal, with wine or beer, averages
about $20 a person. Reservations are
advisable.
Park Fora, Muallim Naci Caddesi
134, Cemil Topuzlu Parki, Kurucesme, 265-5063. Open daily from
noon to midnight for lunch and dinner.
An à la carte meal with wine will
average $50 a person. Reservations
are necessary for dinner.
Refik, Sofyali Sokak 10-12, Tunel,
243-2834. Open daily except Sunday
for lunch and dinner from noon to
midnight. An à la carte meal with
raki or wine averages $15 per person.
Credit cards are not accepted. Reservations are a good idea for dinner.
Talip, Capari Sokak 47-49, Kumkapi, 517-2271. Open daily from noon
to midnight. An à la carte meal with
wine averages $20 a person. Reservations are not necessary.
