where to eat

Turkish food
from typical menus
Starters (cold)
SHRIMP COCKTAIL KARIDES KOKTEYL
STUFFED GREEN PEPPER WITH RICE 'DOLMA'
STUFFED VINE LEAVES WITH RICE 'SARMA'
ARIKANDA SPECIAL KÜFEOGLU
GREEN BEANS IN OLIVE OIL ZEYTINYAGLI PILAKI
EGG PLANT WITH SAUTED TOMATO AND ONION
FRIED SUMMER VEGETABLES WITH SAUCE
RUSSIAN SALAD IN MAYONNAISE RUS SALATASI
WHITE CHEESE OR YELLOVV CHEESE
Starters (hot)
FRIED CALAMARI WITH SPECIAL SAUCE
ÖZEL SOSLU KALAMAR TAVA
STEWED PRAWNS WITH VEGETABLES
KARIDES GÜVEÇ
FRIED LIVER WITH ONIONS ARNAVUT CIGERI
PAN FRIED SAUSAGES SOSIS TAVA
FRIED SHRIMP WITH GARLIC KARIDES DERYALI
FRIED YELLOW CHEESE IN BREAD CRUMBS
KASAR PAN E
CIGARETTE BOREC (CHEESE ROLLS)
SIGARA BÖREGI
SAUTED MUSHROOMS IN SAUCE MANTAR SOTE
GARLIC MUSHROOMS WITH YELLOW CHEESE
KASARLI MANTAR TAVA
TRADITIONAL TURKISH BOREC AVCI BÖREGI
GARLIC BREAD TEREYAGLI SARIMSAKLI EKMEK
TRADITIONAL GRATED AND FRIED MARROW
KABAK MÜCVER
FRENCH FRIES OR RICE PILAV CIPS

TRADITIONAL STEWED LAMB IN EARTHENWARE POT
FIRINDA KUZU GÜVEÇ
TRADITIONAL STEWED CHICKEN IN EARTHENWARE POT.
PIRINDA TAVUK GÜVEÇ
TRADITIONAL SAUTED LAMB WITH ONION & CHEESE
ÇOBAN KAVURMA
SURF n TURF (STEAK & PRAWNS & MUSHROOMS)
BIFTEK JUMBO KARIDES VE MANTAR
ARIKANDA KEBAB (LAMB PARCEL & MUSHROOMS)
BOHÇALI KEBAP
LAMB CUTLET KUZU PIRZOLA
LAMB SHISH KEBAB KUZU SIS
MEAT BALLS IZGARA KÖFTE
HOT ADANA KEBAB ACILI ADANA KEBABI
TRADITIONAL ALA NEZIK KEBAB ALI NAZIK KEBABI
GRILLED CHICKEN PILIÇ IZGARA
CHICKEN SHISH KEBAB PILIÇ SIS
CHICKEN KIEV TAVUK SARMA
CHEF KEBAB CHICKEN, ONION, GARLIC & CHEESE
SEF KEBAB TAVUK SOGAN SARIMSAK SOYA SOSU
GRILLED CHICKEN VVITH SAUTE MUSHROOM
MANTAR SOSLU TAVUK IZGARA
SPECIAL TURKISH MIXED GRILL
TÜRK USULÜ KARISIK IZGARA
SPECIAL ENGLISH MIXED GRILL
INGILIZ USULÜ KARISIK IZGARA
FRESH DAILY FISH TAZE BALIKLAR BULUNUR
PEPPERED STEAK BIBERLI IZGARA BIFTEK
STEAK DIANA KIRMIZI SARAP SOSLU BIFTEK
BEEF STROGANOFF
BEYAZ SARAP SOSLU DANA SOTE
SPECIAL CHICKEN CURRY
KÖRI SOSLU TAVUK SOTE
CHICKEN SCKNITZEL TAVUK SINIDZEL
TRADITIONAL SAUTED VEGETABLES VVITH CHEESE
YÖRESEL SEBZE YEMEGI
TRADITIONAL ROAST LAMB TANDIR

An explanation

Breakfast
The standard Turkish breakfast includes bread, butter, jam and/or honey, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, yogurt, preserved meat, fruit juice, perhaps eggs, and tea or coffee. It's often set out as a buffet.
Bread (ekmek, ehk-MEHK): standard Turkish sourdough white bread (ekmek), baked fresh twice a day (early morning and late afternoon). Fancier places may add francelâ (shaped like a baguette, but with a denser crumb), bread rolls, whole wheat, and/or simit (Turkish circular sesame "bagels").
Butter (tereyag, TEH-reh-yah): the best comes from northern Turkey because of its fat well-fed milch cows, but you may just get the standard little packets.
Jam (reçel, reh-CHEL) and/or Honey (bal, BAHL): the best is jars of home-made fruit preserves, but you may also encounter the little standardized sealed packets. Same with the honey: the stuff in the packets is good, but Turkey produces excellent honey in places like Mugla and Gokova. A tip: mix your butter and honey on the plate, then spread it on your bread—the Turkish way.
Olives (zeytin, zey-TEEN): black zeytin range from small, luscious oil-cured to rather dry, too-salty ones. Green olives are flavorful but tart, sometimes bitter, and rarely stuffed with pimiento.
Tomatoes (domates, doh-MAH-tess) & Cucumbers (salatalik, sah-LAH-tah-leek): in season, very good. Out of season, maybe flavorless.
Cheese (peynir, pey-NEER): standard is beyaz peynir (white sheep's milk cheese), the best being tam yagli (full fat), creamy, slightly salty and delicious. The worst is dry, sour and/or overly salty, perhaps from having been recycled from one morning to the next. or maybe it's just cheap. You may also get yellow kasar peynir. Taze kasar is fresh (unaged) and mild; eski kasar is aged, a bit sharper and more flavorful.
Yogurt (yogurt, YOH-oort): Usually excellent! It's most often the plain kind, freshly clabbered, not flavored or sugared (add your own sugar, if you like). The little plastic factory-filled containers of embalmed, sugary-fruit-goop-sweetened yogurt are beginning to appear on Turkish hotel breakfast buffets, though, so I guess nothing is sacred.
Meat (et, EHT): Hotels serving an international clientele may serve bacon and pork sausage, but in general you won't find these meats on the breakfast tables of this Muslim country. What you'll find is beef sausage or bologna, mostly cold, mysterious and boring.
Fruit juice (meyva suyu, mey-VAH soo-yoo): usually a disaster, even in expensive hotels. It's either real juice heavily watered down or (gasp!) fake "artificial fruit drink" made from chemical powder—an unutterable sin in a country that produces some of Europe's finest fruits and juices. A very few places, such as Cavus, offer fresh-squeezed orange or other juice worthy of Turkey's reputation for producing excellent fruit.
Eggs (yumurta, yoo-moor-TAH): boiled yumurta with yolks ranging from liquid to petrified may be set out on breakfast buffets. If you see no eggs, ask for yumurta (yoo-moor-TAH). You can often request one boiled to order (three-minute is very runny, five minute is hard-boiled—but you really never know how it'll come out), fried (sahanda yumurta), or an omlet, even peynirli (with cheese).

Tea (çay, CHAH-yee): usually good traditional Turkish tea brewed super-strong and meant to be cut with hot water to your desired color and strength (1:4 or even 1:5). Traditionally served only with sugar, but lemon often available for foreigners. There's always milk for the coffee on the buffet so you can astound the waiters by putting some in your tea if you like.
Coffee (kahve, KAH-veh): breakfast coffee is not usually Turkish coffee but Fransiz (French) or Amerikan, meaning somewhat weaker, without the grounds lurking at the bottom of the cup. Or it may even be (shudder) instant (hazir kahve, neskafe). Surprisingly, non-Turkish kahve is often a disappointment, even in expensive places: often strong but rarely fragrant, with a dark, burnt (rather than roasted) flavor. It's a mystery why. Good medium- and dark-roast coffee is sold in the markets, but brewing in the hotels often fails.
So much for the standard breakfast. If breakfast is not included in the price of your hotel room, you can wander out and breakfast freestyle on su böregi, a big rectangular multi-layered cake of steamed pastry stuffed with white sheep's-milk cheese and parsley. Or a steaming bowl of lentil soup (mercimek çorbasi) with lots of fresh bread.
Pastry shops (pastane) have lots of cakes, biscuits, puddings and sweet treats, sometimes with hot, sweet milk-especially good in winter.

Most Turkish restaurants will have a delicious selection of 'mezes' which are displayed in a glass chiller cabinet where again, you can point to the dishes you want. Most Turkish people would select several mezes and have them placed (on small side plates) in the middle of the table so that everyone can 'dip' in.
A few favorites are:
Arnavut Cigeri: Chopped and fried liver with onions
Pilaki: White beans with carrots and potatoes cooked in olive oil.
Dolma: Wine Leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts and herbs.
Patlican salatasi: Pureed aubergine salad.
Russian salad: Potatoe salad with vegetables and mayonnaise.
Imam bayildi (The priest fainted)!: Aubergine stuffed with tomatoes, onions and garlic cooked in olive oil.
Ezme: This is usually a hot one! Diced tomatoes, peppers and onions.
Cacik: Chopped cucumber with garlic and yoghurt.
After eating a large selection of Mezes with bread, many people find they do not need to order a main course which is why often, your order for your main course will not be taken until you have finished your mezes.

Gözleme, a village dish made of flat lavas (lah-VAHSH) bread folded over various ingredients then baked on a griddle, has been a popular light meal for centuries in Turkey.
The rage for "authentic Turkish cuisine" has now brought it to the cities, where several restaurants specialize in making it.
In most, a cook sits at a low table in full view of diners, rolling out the dough with a brookstick-handle-thin rolling pin, then spreads the nearly one-meter-diameter rounds of paper-thin dough on a circular griddle to bake.
If left to bake alone, the dough becomes lavas. For gözleme, ingredients are spread atop the bread and it is folded over them. You can order gözleme:
ispinakli = with spinach
karisik = with everything
kasar peynirli = with yellow cow's milk cheese
katmer = plain
kiymali = with ground lamb
patatesli = with mashed potatoes
peynirli = with white sheep's milk cheese (feta)

Beverages
Alcoholic drinks
Raki is the most popular alcoholic drink of Turkey. Meze dishes are typically consumed with the milky-looking drink, the national alcoholic beverage, flavored with anise, and served with water and ice.
Turkey boasts three locally brewed beers as well; Efes, Tuborg and Tekel.
Turkish wines are also popular. Try the brands Kavaklidere, produced in the vineyards of Ankara, and Doluca, turned out in the town of Murefte, Turkey's leading wine producing center near Tekirdag along the Sea of Marmara.

Non-alcoholic drinks
Soft drinks include the usual range of Coca Cola, Pepsi, clear lemon-flavored soft drinks like Seven-Up, orange soda, and others. Shops and restaurants sign exclusive distribution contracts with one company or the other, so you will find either Coca Cola or Pepsi, but never both. Turks just order cola and take what comes.
If you want unflavored fizzy water, ask for soda. Fizzy mineral water is maden suyu (naturally carbonated) and maden sodasi (artificially carbonated).
Fruit juice is a favorite refreshment and can be excellent. These are usually available in paper containers. The best fruit juices tend to come in glass bottles and may be so thick that you will want to dilute them with spring water.
Other traditional drinks include ayran (yogurt and water mixed), which is refreshing and healthy and available in most restaurants and food and drink shops.

Tipping
At restaurants in cheaper places, tipping is not necessary, though some people do leave a few coins in the change plate. In more expensive restaurants, tipping is more usual. Some places will automatically add a service charge of 10-15 % to your bill. But traditionally, it will be better for you leave 5-10 % on the table for the waiter.

The most popular lunch time meal in Turkey is the doner kebab; layered lamb, ground beef and spices roasted on a vertical spit and served thinly-sliced over rice or in a roll with tomatoes, hot peppers and French fries. Pilic Sis, chicken cooked on skewer over a coal fire is especially tasty.
Generally, lunchtime restaurants in Turkey specialize in one kind of dish or cooking technique.
For example, kebab houses serve all sorts of grilled or baked meat dishes. The pideci, another specialty restaurant, serve freshly baked thick flat bread piled high with toppings such as cheese and eggs, sucuk (a spicy salami) or a mixture of the day's offerings. They also offer another favorite noontime snack, lahmacun (a type of Turkish pizza, topped with ground lamb, onions, spices) and served with ice cold frothy ayran, a drink of beaten yogurt, spring water and a pinch of salt.
Dinner
A traditional dinner begins with meze dishes (appetizers), a dazzling variety of cold and hot treasures, ranging from salads to savory melons.
Many Turks make a meal out of these appetizers. Vegetables cooked in olive oil and served cold, make up a large category of meze dishes, such as stuffed-green peppers, tomatoes, grape-vine leaves and mussels. The vegetables or shells come bursting with a mixture of rice, pine nuts, currants, and spices. Small lamb's brains served cold with lemon slices on lettuce are greatly sought after by Turks. There are also a variety of spreads for bread including ezme (a fiery hot tomato and onion paste), haydari (a thick garlicky yogurt dip), and cacik, a thinner version with slices of cucumber, olive oil, and parsley, often served like a soup.

Other salads are also available, such as: coban (shepherd's salad), piyaz (white beans) and karisik tursu (mixed pickles). Diners at traditional Turkish food restaurants should sample the more complicated imam bayildi (literally the priest fainted), a whole eggplant stuffed with onions, tomatoes and swimming in a sweetish olive oil dressing which is often eaten as a main dish.
The main meat dish can be a mixed grill combining bonfile (Turkish T-bone steak), pirzola (lamb chops), ciger (liver) and bobrek (kidneys), served with pilav or sis kebab, made from chunks of lamb.
In Adana, the fiery hot mixture of ground meat grilled on a skewer called, Adana kebab is a must. If a less spicy version is desired, Urfa kebab is also popular. Iskender kebab, named after its creator, the Iskenderoglu family in Bursa, is another Turkish specialty of layered pide bread, slices of doner, spicy tomato sauce, yogurt and burnt butter. Many kebab dishes are cooked in the oven (firin), such as kuzu tandir, leg of lamb cooked slowly until it falls apart and kagit kebab, a lamb stew cooked inside a paper package fragrant with thyme, onions and garlic.
Sweet pastries, such as baklava, bulbul yuvasi (nightingale's nest) and sutlac, a kind of rice pudding, make up the bulk of desserts. Some patrons prefer juicy fresh fruit like water melons, cantaloupes, oranges and tangerines to the fattening sweets.
Dinner is topped off by Turkish coffee, which surprisingly, comes from either the Yemen or Brazil, and not from Turkey. Coffee is served one of three ways: sade (unsweetened), orta (medium sugar) or sekerli (extra sweet).