Deadpoet’s Cave

Alaturka is a wonderful little restaurant along Bussorah Street. My colleague, whose husband is from Turkey, attests that this is the place for a Turkish meal that is almost as good as home-cooked. Warning Their website has a very slow-loading Java applet.

If this is home-cooked Turkish food, I want more!

I went there is a Uni mate of mine. We ordered two dishes and a serving of bread. The Iskender kebab was thinly sliced lamb on pieces of pide (a type of Turkish bread), with a big dollop of yoghurt. The tomato-based sauce and yoghurt work well together, sandwiching the tender and juicy lamb slices. Add the harder texture of the pide cubes, and we’ve got a winner.

If there’s one thing that can be improved, it’s the lamb slices. Not the flavour but how they are cut. I like my meat chunky. But that’s just me. Those that find lamb overpowering might find the sliced meat more palatable. In any case, the Iskender kebab - apparently named after Alexander the Great - comes in chicken too.

Musakka. Remember that name. Musakka.

Musakka is a hotplate eggplant dish which comes in lamb or chicken sauce. Since we had lamb Iskender kebab, we plonked for the chicken sauce. What I didn’t know until my first taste was that Musakka had two of my favourite foods: cheese and potato.

Eggplant is a very easy vegetable to do badly. And one that is difficult to do well. Alaturka does Musakka exceedingly well. It’s a riot of flavour. Truly truly amazing. I should be using exclamation marks, but using them in every sentence about this dish would diminish the wow factor. I used the Musakka sauce as a dip for the Tereyagli ekmek (butter bread).

Alaturka itself is small and not air-conditioned. Still it wasn’t unbearable. In fact, Alaturka is quite cosy. And if you have a group of about 10 or so, I believe there is a private area which can accomodate the group quite nicely.

Alaturka is located at 16 Bussorah Street. (Bussorah Street at night is a hive of activity. The topic of a possible future post.) Reservations are recommended. Their contact number is 6294 0304. Click the following link for a couple more photos.

Iskender kebab

Alaturka’s interior

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