Turkey Trip: Food

We ate well in Turkey, including some new treats I had never had.  Some of the highlights for me were:

• Poğaça, a bread roll that we had with various fillings including olive and olive paste and peynir cheese, and plain
• Mantı, Turkish dumplings similar to ravioli or aushak, filled with minced meat or potatoes and served with delicious yogurt sauces
• Pide, Turkish flatbread pizza with a wide range of toppings including eggs, pastrami, and peppers
• Börek, pastries made with phyllo dough and stuffed with spinach, cheese, etc.
• Gözleme, which were basically Turkish crêpes.  We had savory (cheese, spinach, minced meat, etc.) and sweet (apple and cinnamon, chocolate, etc.)
• Testi kebab, a Cappadocian specialty of meat and vegetables cooked for about three hours in a clay pot that is broken at the table
• Simit, available everywhere and basically like a Turkish soft pretzel
• Puddings - I had no idea pudding was so popular in Turkey
• Dondurma or Turkish ice cream, which has a texture that's an interesting combination of the smoothness of gelato and the elasticity of chewing gum.  I read later that is because it includes mastic gum

We also had lentil soup everywhere, partially because it was delicious and warming on cold evenings, and partially because it came with bread for our carb-loving Geek Girl.  I got to indulge my taste for döner kebab with fries, which is an old habit from Zurich days.  We had tea everywhere, and baklava, and of course Turkish delight.

Three places stand out in my mind:

• Nazar Börek Cafe in Göreme.  We had börek, pide, gözleme, and lentil soup here, all of which were delicious.  The owner, Refik Ciftci, and his main assistant were really friendly - telling us stories, showing us books of things to see in the region, and generally making us feel welcome.  Refik even offered to make us the apple/cinnamon gözleme when he was out of the börek listed on the menu. 
• Ficcin Restoran in Beyoğlu, Istanbul.  We had Carcissian cuisine (food from the Caucasus region), which we had never even heard of before.  Delicious mezze, mantı, liver, and a special meat pie that we really enjoyed.  We must have liked it -- we went back twice.
• Cuma in Beyoğlu, Istanbul.  We indulged in one Turkish breakfast out, and this was it.  Geek Girl was thrilled to get her usual Sunday pancakes, Mama Geek got to enjoy salmon and eggs and my olives, and I got a fun Turkish spread including several different cheeses and yummy bread.  

I can't resist some pictures, so here you are - selected culinary pictorial highlights.

Crew working in pide restaurant, Göreme

Testi kebab in Göreme

Refik and crew at Nazar Börek Cafe, Göreme

Ashure (Noah's Ark dessert) from Saray Muhallebicisi, Istanbul

Breakfast out at Cuma on a sunny Sunday in Beyoğlu, Istanbul

How to Make Dumplings

Another guest post from Geek Girl:

Yesterday I made dumplings for dinner. Here are some pictures:

Starting.

How to make the dumplings.

The finishing touch.

Darn Good Pizza in Falls Church: Flippin' Pizza

After The Crisis-Laden Visit to the Zoo, we were all hungry and grumpy. Not a great combination, but in the end, we found a great way to fix it.

We decided to try a new pizza place in Falls Church, Flippin' Pizza. It's the local branch of a small chain of New York-style pizza places, and is located in the "Flower Building", the same new building on Route 7 (Broad Street) that now houses the Falls Church Post Office. The address is 800 W Broad St, Fall Church VA, 22046, open 11-10 Sun-Thu and 11-11 Fri/Sat. No delivery, but they do carry out. Dine-in, they have six four-person tables inside and two outside. Just in case you want to make a visit -- which we highly recommend after last night.

Mama Geek has certain standards that must be met by places selling allegedly New York-style pizza, the most important being a thin and crispy crust. She has been seriously disappointed in the pizza offerings we have tried so far in northern VA, all of which have had the wrong crust: too thick, too soggy, and/or too chewy. I also have tests for good pizza-by-the-slice: slices must be foldable along the long axis, must come from an 18" pie, and must have good, simple toppings.

Flippin' Pizza passes the Mama and Daddy Geek tests with flying colors -- it is darn good stuff! We each had a slice of Whitestone (ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, fresh garlic, and a bit of basil) and a slice of Brooklyn (pepperoni, meatball, mushrooms, garlic, red sauce). I also tried a slice of their Triboro (pepperoni, meatball, sausage). They have herbs, pepper flakes, and cheese in shakers available by the drinks machine, and they earn my bonus points by having soda water available from the drinks machine, something I find far too rare at restaurants these days. They also have great music -- we walked in and they were playing "Spirit of Radio" by Rush, and followed it with lots of good mid-1980s stuff.

It also earns the Geek Girl Seal of Approval: she at a full cheese slice, raved over it, and then requested and ate a full second slice! That essentially never happens.

The capper: it's cheap. Seven slices of darn good pizza and three drinks ran us around $18. Oh, yes.

The restaurant is also just within walking distance with Geek Girl, but only just, so we won't be tempted to go back too often.

Even though we already did -- Geek Girl and I had lunch there today. Oh, dear.

In short, Flippin' Pizza is darn good stuff, on a par with Escape From New York Pizza in Portland, OR and Bronx Pizza in San Diego.

Highly recommended by The Geeks. Come visit us and we'll take you there.

Copycats

Whenever the President visits a local establishment, it's usually mentioned in the press -- so we have a good idea where he's eaten. So far we've been to two of the places he's visited recently.

A couple weeks ago we went the Ray's Hell-Burger in Arlington. Even at 5:30 pm on a Saturday it was quite busy. The burgers are tasty, but *really* big, so I'm not sure we'll be going back too soon.

Friday night we visited the Dairy Godmother in Alexandria. The line was quite long, so Geek Girl and I took a little walk around the neighborhood. We found the cheese shop Cheestique which I've been wanting to visit. However, as soon as we were inside, Geek Girl insisted on leaving because the stinky cheese smell was a little too much for her. Hmmmm.... five more weeks until she's back in school. Anyways, but the time we got back to the shop, Daddy Geek had a chocolate custard for Geek Girl and we shared a very good peach sorbet.

I'm not sure we'll be able to go to all the places that our fearless leader visits, but we can visit the cheap eats.