Anthony Bourdain

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I’m in Konya, and it has nothing to do with coffee. Bummer. I was told this is the business section of town and they don’t see many foreign tourist. Sure, okay. And then Dan and I went for a walk.

“Hello”
“Hello”
“What is your name?”
“Where are you from??”
All the little kids want to know. I believe that is all the English they know because they don’t answer back when you talk to them.

The men look. I wave. They discreetly smile and wave back.

We wonder into a few shops. No English, no prices.

We go into a Pastry shop. A young male says “Guten tag” and ask where are we from? I tell him USA. He asks New York or California. “California” I say, it’s easier that way. He then proceeds to tell us all about his pastries in perfectly good German. And then we order what we wanted to try using a mix of Turkish & German. “Beer, dort das” I say. (One, there)
The other men in the shop come and look. I believe they are looking at me. Maybe Dan, but somehow I don’t think so. We paid less than two bucks for two turnovers, one filled with honey, the other apple and we got a big piece of chocolate cake to share. I know, I know it’s not the traditional baklava but trust me, we’ve had that every single night and it’s to die for. We just wanted to try another dessert.

Let’s talk about food. Food is a huge part of travel. Tell me, last weekend when you went out, what did you do? (two second pause.) Okay, you just remembered what you ate? Correct? We remember food either it good or bad. One of the thrilling parts of travel aside from packing and actually getting there is the food. Without further ado, here’s the run down on the food.


First, yogurt. Everything comes with yogurt or it’s a yogurt sauce. The national drink is Ayran. It’s watered-down plain yogurt. It’s served at all meals.

Breakfast is typically tomatoes, cucumbers, yogurt, olives of all types and a wide assortment of honey. Honey with cherries‘, honey with apricots (my personal favorite,) honey with yogurt, honey and more honey. Yes, you put the honey in your yogurt, also we get bread. I smoother my bread with the honey as well.

Lunch is doner anything. Doner is meat cooked on a spindle. It can be lamb, chicken or beef or a mix of meats. I have even seen doner with veggies in them. A doner can be a complete meal with rice or more typically it’s a sandwich with yogurt sauce and the strangest thing to us is cold French fries. Cold French fries are usually in the sandwich. And if you want to eat light it’s beans, rice and yogurt soup. (which is good as well.)

Dinner, the typical: More tomatoes (now mixed with mint and its soooo very good), more meat covered (you guessed it) yogurt and rice or beans. (And surprise, no pork here.)

Now the stuff that really matters to me.

Beer. The national beer is Efes. If you want a beer, you go the EFES shop to purchase a variety of beer however, you only buy Efes (or so I’m told and I always do what I am told.) Regardless, I can spot the blue sign of Efes blocks away.

Raki is the national Liquor. It taste like ouzo. You drink it cold and water it down. It’s served often after dinner even without asking.

Turkish tea or Cay (sounds like chai). It’s served for Breakfast, lunch & dinner. You drink it all day long. Serious. And people here are crazy for it. There is no special time for Cay for it’s always time to drink cay.

Turkish coffee, only an afternoon treat. Looks like a shot of espresso with mud in the bottom.

Baklava. It’s wonderful! It’s a honey covered pistachio delight served in little diamond shapes. And I don’t even like pistachio. And you can find a pastry shop on just about every corner. Did I tell you how wonderful Baklava is??? Never pass up a chance to try it. Serious. Run out and find some now. Go on.


That’s it for food and experience for today. Tune in tomorrow for vacation update and travels.


Until then, Prost.

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Photos

honey bar
for breakfast

olive bar
at breakfast

breakfast plate
yumm

Efes
the local beer

dinner bar
something with cheese

last nights dinner
chicken and rice

prost
snow behavior

coffee blogger
at a random rest stop