Turkish

Sultan’s Table – When in doubt proceed straight to the oasis

April 2, 2016 by Andrew Christie 1 Comment

As I suspected, Olé, the Portuguese chicken place on the corner was next. However we are getting old and cranky and it didn’t take much to persuade us that this was more of a takeaway joint than we were in the mood for. They sell burgers and chicken, and we have already decided that when we get to the end of Enmore Road, Oporto is not on the Encore menu, It was hard to argue any real difference between Olé and Oporto.

“So, what’s next?”

“The New India Times?” Strop ventured.

“Okay, let’s check it out.”

“Finest Indian Restaurant?” I said, more of a comment than a question. “Next?”

“Sultan’s Table?”

“Oh, yeah.”

We crossed the road, weaving our way through a friday-night gridlock of Mazdas and Hyundais, approaching the fabled Sultan’s Table as if it was some kind of oasis. There were plenty of people hanging around outside, either waiting for takeaways, or for a table inside. Luckily there were a couple of outside tables still free which suited us.

Sultan’s Table is a bit of an Enmore Road institution. It always looks busy and inviting, located on a corner, with the big dining room open to the street and every available surface fringed with lights. When we tell people we are now wending our way along Enmore Road, the places they refer to are Hartsyard, “that cheese place with the funny name,” and Sultan’s Table.

We settled ourselves in, and proceeded to over-order. Again. I’m beginning to think it might just be us.

When the Mixed Dips, Mixed Grill, and Imam Bayildi, were on the way, we thought about drinks. Sultan’s Table is byo and of course, we hadn’t. Luckily there is a serve yourself fridge full of soft drinks. We helped ourselves to some culturally inappropriate Passiona, in place of the the ginger beer we really wanted, but which they didn’t have.

Other punters seemed to be ignoring the drinks fridge and venturing further afield. While we were there, a steady stream of runners headed out to the nearest bottle shop, only to return minutes later with armfuls of six-packs and bottle-shaped brown-paper bags.

Another pedestrian of note was an ernest looking young punk, hustling along with a mic stand under his arm. Enmore Road does have its charms.

The dips were terrific. Eight of them, arranged very attractively. Plenty of hot and crunchy-outside/soft-inside turkish bread to wipe around in them. Yummerific.

Imam Bayildi turned out to be a whole eggplant stuffed with goodness, and the Mixed Grill had the tastiest and tenderest lamb I have had in a long time. The chicken and the adana were pretty good too, and there were plenty of salads and flat bread. Yum and double-yum. We managed to sort out all the protein and most of the dips, but there was an embarrassing amount of sumac-coated onion and red cabbage left on the platter when we paid up.

5/5 Debs – just the right amount of salt. (In other words we didn’t notice.)

3/5 Susans – there is an accessible toilet but you might have to move a car to get to it.

4/5 Wendys – pretty good value for more than we could comfortably handle.

I had been looking across the road at Cow and Moon all night and had noted that the queue had not yet stretched out the door and around the corner. Usually when we are ready for a bit of icy sweetness to finish off the evening, the queue is far too long, so we keep walking, heading for Hakiki, or even Gelato Blue. So even though we shouldn’t, we did.

My coffee and blood orange were excellent. Strop’s fortunes were more mixed. Her caramel popcorn was terrific – although in slurping up a taste, I managed to inhale a piece of popcorn which led to a bit of a coughing fit – but her nectarine was a bit too subtle for a friday night wander home, through the crowds of Enmore Road and King Street.

I think our next venture has something to do with meatballs that don’t come from Ikea. See you then.

528 Matee Turkish Grill – Can you be finished in an hour?

April 12, 2015 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

We hadn’t been to the movies in ages. The last one we went to was the one about Bletchley Park and the gay genius guy, which we quite enjoyed until everyone spoilt it by telling us how it wasn’t exactly history. Outrage! Who would have thought that Hollywood would mess about with the facts in order to tidy up the narrative? But as anyone who has dabbled around in this blog will know, I’m not all that fond of facts myself. So we were off to another Hollywood movie, having chosen the comfort food option of a romantic comedy, rather than the paleo-diet new Russian cinema classic. Sometimes you have to pass over the kale and go straight for the popcorn. The plan was to have dinner after the movie at Matee Turkish Grill, which I think is probably the last restaurant in the Middle Eastern enclave we have been eating our way through. We got out of the movie a bit early, so I suggested a quick beer at The Bank to while away half an hour until it was a decent time to eat. Little did I know, but more of that later. Strop tends to be a bit of an admirer of your craft beers so I bought her one with a witty, and immediately forgettable, hipster name, while I had a Cooper’s Pale. Despite it’s name, her beer won the taste stakes. My beer just tasted like beer. We whiled away the time sitting in the window, looking out on the passing King St parade, commenting on the length of people’s legs as well as their life choices. Eventually, our wit and our beer exhausted, we continued our journey along King St. I was starting to wish that we had caught the bus when we spotted Matee’s sign in the distance, but before we got there, Strop pointed out the new Pakistani place that has opened up next to Europe Grill. It was only then that we noticed that in what should have been Smash Sausage Kitchen was a new cocktail bar! Apparently soon after our visit, the sausage vendors had packed up and moved out, and over Easter the place got a blue and black paint job, emerging from its drop-cloth chrysalis as Mixology – although the sign for the street hadn’t arrived yet. We had a quick chat with the manager, sporting a thematically appropriate splash of blue in her hair (or it may just have been a bit of paint courtesy of the Easter makeover). She explained that as well as high-tech cocktails, incorporating something called ‘alcoholic bubbles’, they are also doing food, for the moment at least, something to do with the license transfer process. We were gobsmacked as we continued on our way down the road to Matee. Talk about churn. Where will I go for curry mash now? Matee Turkish Grill occupies two shopfronts. One half is the kitchen and takeaway, and the other is the restaurant. Unfortunately due to our procrastination at the pub and the cocktail bar, by the time we got to Matee the place was largely booked out. There was a bit of head shaking, and looking around at the occupied tables by the waiting staff. Then the young woman who seemed to be in charge said “Can you be finished in an hour?” Strop and I looked at each other. Could we? I was thinking that it rather depended on how fast they could put the food in front of us, but before I could think of a polite way to put this Strop had said “Yes.” We were shown to a table at the back of the restaurant, next to a pretty looking courtyard, that opens onto Angel Street. In the end we had plenty of time for two rounds of drinks, a shared platter of dips and salads, and a plate of grilled lamb. I stuck with beer, opting for the culturally appropriate Efes, while Strop moved on to the house red. The Matee Plate came with all the usual dips, tabouli, a kind of salsa, and probably the best falafel I have ever eaten. They were crisp and soft and tasty – triple yum. There was more than enough Turkish bread for the dips but the way they were presented on the plate in rows beside each other, meant that they soon turned into a bit of a muddle in which it was difficult to tell the baba from the hummus. Oh well, it all tasted good. The pieces of lamb in the Yoghurt Kebab were tender and tasty and drizzled with yoghurt. Their juices had flowed out onto a layer of croutons underneath. By the time our hour was up we were stuffed. On the way back up the hill we decided to stop off at the sign-less Mixology for a couple of quick dessert cocktails. We went for what we thought were culturally appropriate cocktails: pomegranate for me, and apple for Strop. They were tasty but were both very sweet. Unfortunately, due to the licensing conditions we had to order some food too. Garlic bread, from somewhere up the road (Europe Bar and Grill maybe?) was soon delivered to our table. After that lot we could hardly move. We had another quick stop off on the way home to watch a jazz band busking in front of the ‘I had a dream’ mural – it’s not every day you hear a euphonium solo on King Street. It felt very Treme and was a lovely foot-tapping reminder of last week at the BluesFest.

490 Pashas – The near-miss euphoria

February 7, 2015 by Andrew Christie 1 Comment

It turns out that Pashas has been around for a long time. Matt (of Jim and Matt fame) can vaguely remember going there when he lived in Newtown as a student. That was in the olden days when Newtown was really Newtown – what I think of as its dog shit and broken glass period. But I digress, Pasha’s is an institution and to have lasted so long in Newtown’s constantly changing restaurant landscape, it definitely must be doing something right. Certainly the use of tiles in the façade speaks of permanence and a disdain for fashion – as well as making it a bit of a landmark. Which is just as well because I am running late again – Newtown Social Club and Summer Ale late – and I don’t want to end up on the wrong side of the road.

Strop and Jim are ensconced at a window table when I arrive, tucking into baba ganouj, and bread and washed down with Efes beer. I have no choice but to join in. Matt is running even later than me, but I think he had a better excuse – something work related. Having broken the banquet barrier last week at Arabellas we decide to give it another go. It also makes ordering much easier and leaves more time for nattering.

For some reason I end up doing the ordering again. “Four of your best banquets please squire,” I quip to the waiter, “and another round of Efes, while you’re about it.”

“And a bottle of pinot grigio,” Strop adds.

Matt arrives just after the beer but before the dips, which turns out to be a fairly narrow window. The dips are served on a big platter, and they are generous and varied. There is more baba, hummus of course, chilli and walnut, cucumber and yoghurt, spinach, and carrot. Along with the dips, are eggplants, grilled zucchini and a salad with pomegranate. As usual the bread runs out quickly, but it is rapidly replenished. With our food cravings being quelled, we get back to the chatter. This includes, in no particular order: anthem singing antics at Jim’s school, Matt’s chaos over colonial barrack design, Strop’s acting-up anguish, and my gateway feature fiasco. For some reason we then drifted into an erudite discussion of the best place to buy soy-burgers in the 1990s, and also something about ‘Dixie spoons’. At least that’s what my notes say. No, I have no idea either – thankyou Mr, or Ms auto-spell.

As the waitress tries to clear enough room on the table for the next round of the banquet, Jim quickly wipes up the last of the dips with the last of the bread. The next round is The Meat. In this case, chicken kebabs, lamb kebabs and spicy rissoles. Very nice.

Pasha’s has a good atmosphere with plenty of décor-ey bits and pieces including low hanging coloured glass lanterns (below head height as it turns out), and travel posters. It is a double-wide, occupying two shop fronts, separated by brick arches. There are low tables for those with ambitious knees, and some high tables for the rest of us. Tonight it is buzzing with plenty of punters and lots of Friday night conversations.

When the sound of happy dining is suddenly shattered by blaring music, I assume that it is a mistake and that the volume will soon be adjusted. But my optimism is misplaced. The music heralds the arrival of that scourge of middle aged white men, The Belly Dancer. An apparition in blue arrives between the tables, with a smile set in red concrete, and belly rolls that won’t stop rolling. A discernible tremor of terror spreads from table to table, as each man realises what this means. Yes, audience participation. Our table is backed into a corner with no means of escape, but luckily it is also the furthest from the threat. Perhaps the music, or the will to embarrass, will run out before she gets to us. But no, conversation is suspended as she gradually gets closer, leaving behind her a trail of bewildered and embarrassed men, and a couple of women who really got into it. When she gets to our table she quickly works out that Strop is the only one there who might have the courage to take up the challenge, the terms of which are being laid out in great detail, by the mesmeric undulations of the her navel. Not tonight though, Strop isn’t in the mood.

As she lifts her gaze to the rest of the table, I take a sudden interest in making sure that I am getting down complete and accurate notes. I don’t know what Jim and Matt do, but it works. The dancer turns away, vibrating imperiously, and obviously disgusted that none of us is man enough for her.

Matt and Jim definitely not looking at the dancing

When the music ends, normal transmission of conversation gradually resumes as a rush of near-miss euphoria takes over the room.

Dessert is baklava and Turkish delight, accompanied by apple tea, Turkish tea, or Turkish coffee.

So what’s the verdict? We have been having a bit of a middle-eastern sojourn lately. I think that Pasha’s has easily the best atmosphere of all the Turkish and Lebanese restaurants we have been to on the quest – a very pleasant buzz. On the food front it is a near run thing, but Arabellas clarity and complexity of flavour, probably wins.

Next week we’re going African! I have no idea what to expect.

480 Yenikoy – It’s Turkish for Newtown

January 24, 2015 by Andrew Christie 3 Comments

It’s Friday night, there’s a long weekend in the offing, and I need another beer. Those two Peronis before I left the office were never going to be enough.

I’m running early but as I said, I need another beer, and I’m sure Strop said Yenikoy had a bar. So I’m heading straight there, not bothering to stop at one of the pubs or bars on the way, because frankly, they’ve been a bit disappointing lately.

When I get to Yenikoy, 20 minutes early, the place is smattered with early diners. It is quite a big place, wrapping around the ground floor corner of a three storey, 1980s/postmodern brick residential atrocity. The restaurant makes good use of its location next to the school, with lots of outdoor spaces. Some friends have expressed interested in checking out Yenikoy with us, so we have a large table booked. Or we thought we did. Neither of the two notepads the restaurant uses, seems to have any record of us. Hmmm.

“How many was it for?” The maître d asked.

“Eight? I think,” I said, quickly trying to remember who was supposed to be coming, knowing that I should have paid more attention – but really, Strop’s supposed to handle all the social stuff.

“Doesn’t matter, we can fit you in.”

“Okay. Great. Just let me call my wife. And…”

“Yes?”

“I’d like a beer.”

“Sure, sure.”

So I sat outside and called Strop and sipped a nice cold Efes. That’s better, but there’s no answer from Strop. Oh well. The beer is very good. I wonder what’s happening on Twitter? Eventually Strop got back to me, confirming the numbers, sort of. The booking was for eight, but now we’re expecting nine.

“Sweet,” says the maître d, and a spare table for eight is rapidly transformed into a table for nine, and I settle down happily to wait, drink beer, and tweet. Wittily, of course, beer tweets are always witty. A carafe of iced water loaded with a sprig of mint arrives unbidden, and I’m having a pretty good time.

I have just succeeded in enticing @JohnBirmingham into following me – by saying I was reading his book and calling him a bastard – when everyone arrives. Well, Marie and Chantal, her sister from Canada, arrive first, followed soon after by Mark and a red faced Strop. She had just made a forced march from the Marly where she had been downing Dogbolters with a mate, and not paying attention to the time. She felt the need to do some sorting out about the reservation, despite the fact that I had negotiated a perfectly good table – we were back to eight by this time, Mark’s housemate couldn’t make it. As far as Strop was concerned there was a point that needed to be made. “I rang them on Monday…” she said as she disappeared in the direction of the maître d.

“She’s got her cranky on,” said Mark.

Eventually we got Strop settled down with a glass of water, just before Ashleigh, Paul and Ned arrived. Introductions were repeated, connecting lines drawn. Marie we’ve known since long past group-house days, Paul, Ashleigh, Ned and Mark are dog-park friends, who as Strop points out, have graduated to being real friends. Chantal is new to all of us except Marie, and luckily she turns out to be very nice, and very tolerant of the fact that most of us aren’t speaking French.

Some time later Strop noticed that we didn’t have menus. She deployed her eyebrows and one of the staff scurried off to fetch them. There was a lot of riffling of pages and I decided that I would leave the food ordering to everyone else and concentrate on the wine list, as my beer seemed to have disappeared.

After some rapid negotiations a consensus was reached. “We’ll have all the entrees, plus a cheese and spinach gozleme for Ned,” Strop told the waiter, after waving him over to her end of the table. Obviously he hadn’t realised who was in charge here. Going for all the entrees meant that we would get plenty of variety, the vege-aquarians would be catered for, and we could always order more if we needed it. The only possible drawback was that each dish might not extend to cover the eight of us. Fear Of Missing Out reared its ugly head – but once we were able to convey the concept of FOMO to the waiter he was able to reassure us. On the wine front we split down the middle between SauvBlanc and Grigio camps, so we got both.

Then the food started arriving – and at this point I have to make a confession. Unfortunately I didn’t make any notes on the actual dishes, thinking, quite reasonably, that the menu was bound to be on their website, and that would be enough to jog my memory. It was a good theory and it meant I could spend more time talking about dogs new and old, children, the fact that Canadian French is the real proper French that the French don’t speak any more, and whatever other topics we talked about. I really must take better notes. Anyway when I checked the Yenikoy website, there was the Menu, right there at the top on the menu, but when I clicked it: Error 404. So I’m afraid we’re all going to have to rely on my memory.

First up there were dips, as you would expect, but these were generous serves in bowls arrayed on a board, and the bread was good too. The fried haloumi was excellent. There was a cold collation board with melon and a cured meet, fetta, stringy cheese that everyone thought was shredded cabbage at first. There were pastry things that might have been called ‘lady fingers’ – very crisp and tasty, eggplant stuffed with cheese, and another dish a bit like a ratatouille. And of course Ned’s gozleme, which I don’t think he saw a lot of. There were probably a few others in there as well, but it was all pretty good, tasty and crisp when it was supposed to be. The only disappointing dish was the little pizza things that included meat so unfortunately there were plenty of them for the carnivores among us. We had to ask for more bread a couple of times, and Mark was disappointed that although his display of Turkish language skills delighted the waiter, it didn’t bring the bread any sooner.

When it came time for dessert it was clear that Ned had his eyes firmly fixed on the display of Turkish Delight and bakalvas at the front of the restaurant. The rest of us decided to follow his example. We trooped up to the display and picked out the variety of sweet, nutty pastry that most called out to us. There were a couple of dessert type innovations too: choclava and whiteclava. Some amongst us thought these were abominations, without actually trying them. The braver and more progressive of us thought they were interesting but that the traditional baklava won hands down. And the coffee was excellent too.

Out on the street, we had to get the customary group photo. This is traditionally done by accosting a passer-by and embarrassing them into taking the shot. Mostly it doesn’t take much convincing – young people are always happy to help the older generation make fools of themselves. As we formed ourselves up across the footpath, an arm extended itself from the restaurant, and one of the waiters took a photo of us being photographed. I’m hoping we’ll appear on their website, but maybe we’ll just be an Error 404.

433 Ferah Turkish Café – Setting a high bar for the trek into Turkish territory

December 6, 2014 by Andrew Christie 1 Comment

We have just entered a small Turkish enclave on the way to St Peters. Ferah Turkish Café, being our first encounter in this sub-quest, has the opportunity to set the standard by which the rest will be judged. And it does.

Tonight we are four, being joined by Mark, recently returned from Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia, and the Stropolina, recently returned from Randwick.

We have been looking for a new place to gather for drinks before we descend on the quest target for the day. For a while we were going to the Newtown Social Club as it is pub-esque and close to this slippery-slope part of the quest, but we find it a bit loud and a bit dark on these nice warm summer evenings. So tonight we are meeting at 2042, which is light and airy, being open to the street, and while it doesn’t have a hipster-compatible range of artisanal beers, it has enough for lubrication purposes.

Strop, the Stropolina, and I arrive a bit early and indulge in some family catch up time. Strop recounts her traumatic afternoon, trying to rescue a dog that had been hit by a car and was staggering around on the Hume Highway in peak hour traffic. And no one was stopping. Seriously, what is wrong with people? How fucking important is getting home on time? Or to the pub? Or wherever? Anyway Strop ventured out into the traffic, daring them to run her over too, and managed to get the dog to the side of the road – but he didn’t make it. He had probably taken off in a panic during the thunderstorms that were brewing that afternoon. Anyway, Strop is due a humanity award. Another one.

Mark is running a bit late as he is being bent back into shape after a discomfiting bout of jet lag. “From a four hour time difference?” Strop and I mutter and nod knowingly to each other, “Get over it, mate. Try eleven hours, that’s jet lag.” Mark tries to explain that they reckon that short time-zone changes from west to east are the worst, but we’re not having any of that malarkey.

Before things turn ugly, we up-stumps and head for Ferah Turkish Café. This is the second time we’ve been to Ferah recently. The first time was with John and Pauline, for a post north African holiday de-brief and scarf comparison session. I didn’t write about that visit as I didn’t consider myself on duty as a bloggerist at the time. But this time I am definitely on duty, and I have the notebook out, recording the menu choices even as they are being made. Unfortunately, after Mark has gone through the order with the waiter I, having written it all down carefully in illegible scrawl in my notebook, feel the urge to repeat the order. Just to clarify. The poor waiter is Turkish after all, and Mark isn’t. Unfortunately my intervention leads to us ordering twice as much as we thought we were. My only excuse is that I was just trying to help – it was not at all a ploy to get out of ever having to do the ordering, ever again. Soon after this debacle had been sorted out, Mark started talking in Turkish to the waiters. Show off.

We all ordered ayran (salted yoghurt drink, and no, I’d never heard of it before either) to drink which surprised our waiter even more than when I had completely doubled the order.

The food started arriving quickly: hummus, baba ganoush (really nice baba), cacik, vine leaves and felafel. We are all soon dipping away with our bits of bread, and trying to talk with our mouths full. The only slight disappointment was the felafel, which seemed a bit pale and a bit dry. The rest, especially the baba ganoush, was excellent.

Ferah has an accompanying Turkish artefact shop next door with lots of rugs, tiles and lamps for you to buy. If only the food didn’t keep coming so fast, you might have time to go and check it out. A lot of the tiles and glass lamps have made their way into the café along with a water feature, which has taken up residence in the corner.

Our mains are mixed grills to share – an Aussie classic re-interpreted by the Turks. Or maybe it was the other way around. Whatever. They come with skewered bits of chicken, beef and a meat patty that might have been lamb, as well as delicious rice, a salad with red cabbage, and more bread, carefully located beneath the meats to soak up all the juicy goodness.

There was very little talking for while as we demolished this lot. The general consensus was that the beef and the rice were the winners with an honourable mention to the patties which were nice and spicy. It was all good though.

Ferah has set the bar high at the start of our trek into King Street’s Turkish territory. And it’s cheap too.