Meal #38 - Turkey

We fought them on the beaches…but that was a while ago. Now Australia is friends with Turkey, which is brilliant, because there is nothing more Australian then finishing a big night on the booze by stuffing one’s face with a huge Turkish kebab! (just like in that VB ad)

Meze
Turkish Restaurant
250 Glen Eira Rd, Elsternwick
Open Monday – Saturday
5:00 – 10:00pm

Melbourne is famous for its many wonderful Turkish restaurants, especially on Sydney Rd. However, that was too much of a schlep for us, so we went to one that was much nearer to where most of us live. Meze is a small eatery located in a small group of shops which included a store that comprises solely of two vending machines filled with kosher snacks – we really didn’t travel all that far to get there, did we? (In fact it is only a 5-20 minute walk for many of the diners!)

Most of the restaurant comprises the cooking area, including a large, traditional, earthen oven at the front of the store used for cooking pides. The tremendously talented Turkish tasters for this week: Caroline, Rami, Paul, Deb, Helen and Nick, managed to get a table at the back of the restaurant, in the incredibly small, “main” dining area.


Entrée:

Soslu patlijan – Slices of oven baked eggplant with yoghurt and tomato paste
Vine leaves dolma – Rice wrapped in vine leaves

Mains:

Shish kofte – Burger on skewer (5 per serve)
Karisik izagara – combination of grills
Aciki pide – Ground beef (spicy), onion, capsicum spread on thin pastry base
Sucuklu pide – Turkish sausage
Ricotta Salad – Turkish fetta cheese, tomato paste, cucumber, lemon, onion, tomato and sweet paprika

Desserts:

Lokum – Turkish delight
Baklava – Flaky pastry in syrup with walnut filling

Drinks:

Ayran – Beaten yoghurt
Turkish cofee

The Meal:

All the dishes arrived at pretty much the same time, so there was no real distinction between entrée and mains. The dolmas were lovely, but nothing special and the salad was overly focused on onion. One of the more interesting dishes was the sucuklu pide, with its Turkish sauage, plus eggs, on pide bread – it was a fried English breakfast pizza!

The ground beef pide, aciki pide, was enhanced by the addition of lemon juice – such is the case with many meat dishes from that region. This was also the case with the shish kofte and the combination grills; both of which were received favourably.


The highlight of the meal was the dessert – which is where Turkish food excels – with the Turkish delight and baklava bring joy to the heart of any sugar-lover.


Unfortunately the other staple of Turkish cuisine, the Turkish coffee, wasn’t that good. This was made up for by the subtle flavours of the beaten yoghurt drink.


Overall:

For what Meze is, a small Turkish eatery in suburbia, it makes for an enjoyable experience. The food is tasty and well priced; the staff are friendly and attentive; and the atmosphere is friendly. However, to experience the preeminent Turkish cuisine in Melbourne it is probably best to make the effort and trek over to Sydney Rd in Brunswick.

Next Stop: Turkey

Turkish cuisine inherited its Ottoman heritage, which could be described as a fusion and refinement of Turkic, Arabic, Greek and Persian cuisines. Turkish cuisine also influenced these cuisines and other neighbouring cuisines, as well as west European cuisines. The Ottomans fused various culinary traditions of their realm with influences from Middle Eastern cuisines, along with traditional Turkic elements from Central Asia such as yogurt. The Ottoman Empire indeed created a vast array of technical specialities. It can be observed that various regions of the Ottoman Empire contain bits and pieces of the vast Ottoman dishes.

Taken as a whole, Turkish cuisine is not homogenous. Aside from common Turkish specialities which can be found throughout the country, there are also region-specific specialities. The Black Sea region's cuisine (northern Turkey) is based on corn and anchovies. The southeast—Urfa, Gaziantep and Adana—is famous for its kebabs, mezes and dough-based desserts such as baklava, kadayıf and künefe. Especially in the western parts of Turkey, where olive trees are grown abundantly, olive oil is the major type of oil used for cooking. The cuisines of the Aegean, Marmara and Mediterranean regions display basic characteristics of Mediterranean cuisine as they are rich in vegetables, herbs and fish. Central Anatolia is famous for its pastry specialities such as kashkak, manti and gozleme.

The name of specialities sometimes includes the name of a city or a region (either in Turkey or outside). This suggests that a dish is a speciality of that area, or may refer to the specific technique or ingredients used in that area. For example, the difference between Urfa kebab and Adana kebab is the use of garlic instead of onion and the larger amount of hot pepper that kebab contains.

One of the most famous and common traditional stone baked Turkish specialities is pide (or Turkish ‘pizza’). Pides consist of a base of rolled out dough which is covered in various toppings. Like pizzas, pide toppings are extremely versitile and can be made with minced meat (together with onion,chopped tomatoes, parsley and spices), kashar cheese, spinach, feta cheese, pieces of meat, braised meat (kavurma), sucuk, pastirma and/or eggs.

For more information go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_cuisine