Ciao for Now

Do you know how hard it is for a meat-eating male to travel in Europe for nearly five months without eating a kebab?  It’s extremely hard.  They’re on nearly every street corner, tempting you with cheap awesomeness.  Did I give into this temptation?  No way.  I ignored these delicious hunks of meat on a stick with unrivaled willpower, determined to experience my first kebab in the world’s kebab mecca, Istanbul.

On one of our travel days a little while ago, Anna and I were watching the Istanbul episode of “Anthony Bordain: No Reservations.”  He raved about this hole in the wall kebab place that made both of us drool on our computer, and I thought, “Yes…this is where I will have my kebab!”  With some flimsy directions, we headed down a couple side streets, up a couple alleys, and finally made it to Durumzade.  Let me just say, it was worth the wait.  We ordered a spicy lamb durum (Turkish kebab wrap), which is the specialty of the house, and watched the grill master work his magic.  The best part was that he would periodically smother the cooking meat with the bread, soaking up all the juice and spices.  He wrapped the meat up burrito style with some tomatoes, onions and more spices and delivered it to our table.  I tore into this thing like a five year-old into his first present on Christmas morning.  It, like nearly every single thing we’ve eaten in Turkey, did not disappoint.

How can a place with smiley faces for U’s be bad?	Choice of meats on skewers in the window

Cooking up our lamb on the grill	All the fixin’s

One happy camper…who looks a little pooped from staying out ’til 4:00am the night before

Posted on October 23, 2011 at 8:04 pm in Food & Wine, Turkey   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL