OH and I have recently returned from 3 weeks in Kalkan and had 41 meals out (we did manage one lunch at home
).
So, I can give my views on the restaurants we visited this year (in no particular order).
SadeStill good, but probably not in the very top rank. Very busy, even at the start of the season. As usual, Erhan and Ayhan were rushing round like mad things, but remained absurdly cheerful – even when dealing with an obnoxious English couple who arrived late, with no booking, but nevertheless expected a table on the edge overlooking the street to be found for them immediately.
Chocolate fondant still well up to standard.
This year, they have wines from a new vineyard (as do some of the other restaurants): Maki. I believe it comes from near Elmalı, so is very local indeed. We tried red, white and rose and all were good. Red is rather like a Beaujolais, white is fairly weak (11.5% alcohol), so good for lunchtime quaffing. Rose was very dry and aromatic – more a dinner wine than lunch, we thought.
EscudoThis was one of our favourites last year and has maintained its excellence. We had three dinners here. The Persian lamb was very good indeed and, if you don’t like lamb, they will do a chicken version, which I loved. Portion sizes are not huge, which suits us, as there’s nothing worse than being confronted with a vast plate of food, and they don’t clutter up the plate with loads of bits of useless garnishes/salad which no-one ever eats.
Wines are good: they have the Likya wines again. Sauvignon blanc is fine and Patara red is excellent.
Things are still a bit slow in the kitchen and we had to wait a fair while for our main courses, but that didn’t really bother us, as they brought some tasty freebie figgy bread and some dips/olives/nibbles each time.
Işmail is a good host.
Table settings are very elegant, with top quality glassware.
SofraTwo dinners here, both good. We like the atmosphere here, especially on a chilly evening, when they have the “real logged (sic) fire” going – reminded us of being there in November/December.
Service was rather ragged until Mehmet came up from the street to sort them out, but it was early season and they have a couple of new, presumably inexperienced, waiters.
Best of all, they now have a better wine list, with some more expensive, good, stuff. I always used to think that limiting the choice to the Angora/Çankaya/Yakut/Doluca end of the market was a shame and didn’t do justice to the food.
KalamakiTwo dinners here: excellent, as always. This is one of Kalkan’s top restaurants Each time I vow not to have the swordfish skewers, as I usually do, but each time I succumb again when I see them on the menu.
Staff are very professional. As an added and interesting bonus, at the end of the meal, when things were less busy, waiter Coş (some may remember him from Coast 2 years ago) gave us a brief teach-in on classical Arabic orthography (with the help of diagrams on his waiter’s pad) – as you do!
Korsan Meze & Fish TerraceBoth still excellent. The grilled jumbo prawns are still, in my view, the best in Kalkan and, indeed, probably the best I have tasted all over the world!
AgoraWe had not tried this restaurant last year – which was our loss. Two dinners here, both very good. Place was packed out, even at the beginning of the season. We did cause a certain amount of disruption, though (for which we apologised to them), and the reason provides a good cautionary tale. OH ordered a “local” dish of meatballs with apple. This arrived in an iron dish, resting on a china plate and surrounded by flames (quite a few restaurants serve some dishes in this way). OH waited for the flames to die down (by which time the contents of the iron dish were super-hot and bubbling away) and then took out a meatball and put it on the china plate, to try to cool it down enough to eat. When he was able to take a mouthful, he immediately spat it out, complaining that the food was too salty and had a nasty bitter flavour. He tried once again, but was unable to eat any and sent it back. Cue mortification in the kitchen (we have known Gülabı, the head-chef and joint owner, for years), until the waiter thought to ask OH if he had taken the offending meatball out of the iron dish. By doing so, OH had coated the meatball in the rock salt and accelerant which surround the iron dish and is used to make the flames burn bright yellow. So, OH had been trying to eat meatball, apple, rock salt crystals and lighter fuel! Another portion was produced and – yes – tasted delicious. Indeed a cautionary tale and the staff agreed it almost merits a warning, as it was an obvious thing to do: to take the meatball out of the iron dish to try to cool it down. Of course, we apologised to the restaurant and also explained to the people on the next table what had happened, as one of them had ordered the same dish and had been rather disconcerted to see OH sending his back (even though this was done discreetly).
FenerFour of five lunches here. All excellent, as usual. This really is a gem: good basic food, perfectly adequate wines, efficient and non-intrusive staff (we do get a bit fed up with waiters at many establishments who outstay their welcome at your table – especially at lunchtime when they are not busy – and can’t seem to take the hint that you don’t want the entire meal disrupted by clowning around) and, of course, beautiful surroundings and views.
TanzoreVery promising start-up for this new place. The decor & surroundings (in the former Chapter One premises) are very elegant. Menu is standard “English Indian” (ie Bangladeshi), with a very good choice of different strength curries (in fact, no matter what curry you choose, you are asked how hot you would like it). Food very tasty and good wine list. Given that we had 40 Turkish meals during our 3 weeks, this made a refreshing change!
White TableGoes from strength to strength. Yiğit & Derman have expanded the menu a bit, but still do their excellent burgers and salads. Derman certainly knows how to make a cheesecake! Again, Yiğit has sourced some unusual wines.
The place was full on the evening we went, but some of the previous year’s problems with speed of food production from the kitchen seem to have been resolved and they all coped really well.
General: Other good meals were at
Trio and
Aubergine, although we prefer these places for lunch, as they can be a bit pressured at dinner. Special thanks to the waiter in Aubergine who taught us the expression “köpek ölduren şarap” (meaning – animal lovers look away now – “dog killing wine”), a really great term for a rough old wine and could have been invented for the witch’s pee that goes under the name of Angora red & white. (He wasn’t describing Aubergine’s wine, by the way!).
Prices not really more expensive than last year. We (two of us, but we like our wines) were paying around 90 – 120TL for lunch and 180 – 210TL for dinner.
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