Authentic dishes of Istanbul
Did you know that Istanbul is one of the chosen European Capitals of Culture for 2010 and to celebrate in Sydney the Istanbul-style restaurant Efendy in alliance with the Turkish Embassy and Turkish Airlines will be helping to showcase the cuisine of this wonderful city throughout the year. Starting with a variety of programs from April to December with a full focus during October SIFF’10.
Want to be a guest food blogger at Efendy?
I'm helping Efendy to introduce and highlight the culinary journey of one of the most ancient capitals with a 'Streets of Istanbul' Food Bloggers Dinner Event on Easter Sunday 4 April 2010. If you're a food blogger that would love the opportunity to be a guest in sampling plenty of authentic and tasty Turkish dishes for free then please let me know your available and leave a comment below with your food blog details and include what Dinner and Dessert dish from the Efendy menu you would most want to try and why. Five lucky food bloggers will be selected to be a guest of Efendy for the night. This lucky draw competition finishes on the Sunday 28 March, 2010 at 11:59pm AEST. You must be 18 years or over. Only 1 person per blog, so if you have multiple contributors you'll need to decide who will come if you're a winner. If you're not available to come on the night but still really interested in other events then please still make a comment and let me know and I'll keep you in mind for other behind-the-scenes events planned to visit Turkish suppliers of Efendy.
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Efendy want to create a menu to reflect the cuisine of Istanbul for this very exciting event for food bloggers which at this stage will include cold mezes, hot mezes, mains, dessert mezes, Turkish coffee and Apple Tea and plenty of raki (Turkish national alcoholic drink) to try. Please find below some dishes I enjoyed at a breakfast while discussing details about the event. The rose petal jam is amazingly delicious and I really enjoyed the crispy Pacanga Boregi with tasty ingredients. The Black Sea style pancake with figs and walnuts in red grape syrup was not overly sweet and complimented the fresh figs. The Haloumi was nicely seasoned and some of the best I've tried. The Poached eggs in garlic yoghurt, had a nice taste although I'm not used to their being so much yoghurt which made it quite rich but apparently that's the traditional way it's served. The Turkish delight is from the Real Turkish Delight shop in Auburn, check out YAYA's YUM YUMs blog about it — it's so much better than that packaged stuff you get.
Other visits to Efendy:
• 4 April 2010 - 'Meze Journery to Istanbul' Food Bloggers Dinner Event
• 28 March 2010 - Turkish Meze, Apple tea, Baklava, Dana Sarma, Fava, Hamsi Marine, Kadayifli Karides, Kazandibi, Koc Yumurtasi, Kofte, Kuzu Tandir, Milky gullach
Pacanga Boregi, Patlican Salatasi, Pilic Sarma, Saksuka, Yeni Raki• 6 March 2010 - Breakfast Meze, Incir Kaygana, Pacanga Boregi, Sucuk, Turkish delight
• 26 July 2009 - Kiymali, Sucuklu, Omlet, Kaygana
SNAPSHOT REVIEW:
PROS: Authentic dishes
CONS: Raki is very strong
MUST TRY: Everything on offer
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Feta
SIMON FAVOURITE :-)
SIMON FAVOURITE :-)
SIMON FAVOURITE :-)
Meze menu
23 comments:
Coincidentally I was having a conversation on friday about this place with a work colleague of mine who is turkish.
She was telling me to make my way down there when I had a chance she as usually goes there when she wants food similar to her home land.
That turkish delight looks soo good! <3 <3 <3
did you get a new camera???
YUM! YUM! YUM! Turkish food looks so good. I'm so drooling over the sausage and eggs, and the figs pancake.
hi leona, that's great timing then. no new camera, just had decent daylight on the day so much easier to take photos i guess.
hi vincent, thanks for the details. will have a look at your website.
hi yen, hope you get a chance to try.
The eggs and the pancakes look to die for. The blocks of halumi look pretty solid but I am sure they are good.
Hello hello!
Great post. Fingers crossed I get to go, it's right up the block!
Oh man what a coincidence - I'm JUST about to do a writeup on Efendy cos I went there for breakfast this morning, ha. The food is amazing.
Oh my Lord that Egg with Garlic yoghurt and burnt chilli oil thing looks Delish!! Not sure about dates for me yet :( oh and that Turkish Delight! That deep orange colour is beautiful!
You know.. I have never had Turkish food before but from those pictures it really looks yummy! I would be available that day so I hope to be able to try some new.
Hmm.. I'm looking through the menu and I'm finding it hard to choose what two dishes would I like to try as they all sound nice! But I guess I have to choose Kuzu Kuzu; there's just something homey and old-school about meals cooked in a claypot. Sweet heavens! There's so many delectable choices for desserts! I'm looking at the gallery section in the website and see something that kinda looks like a pannacotta but with pistacchio in it surrounded by pomergrante. I'm guessing that could be Keskul; if it is that I want to try that! Why? Well it just looks so smooth and velvety and it's screaming "Eat me!" to me... :P
Drool, drool, drool, damn the photos look so delicious I was licking the screen! Thanks for the link back!
Oh my that all looks so lovely! Never really had authentic Turkish cuisine before and would love the chance to. Already have commitments Easter Sunday or else I would have so loved the opportunity to be drawn for the dinner!
Hi Simon, what a fabulous idea - pop me in the draw! Sweet toothed girl that I am, I'm choosing soemthing off the dessert menu. And seeing as though they're just 'bites', I'm nominating two - the 'baby eggplant jam and and the walnut and grape sujuk. But I look forward to the savoury stuff also :)
I've been dying to try Efendy for ages. Hopefully your competition will help :) Any of the lovely desserts would get a guernsey in my book, especially the baklava.
Looks fantastic!
I'd like to try the Imam Bayildi with some of the home made pide bread. I love smokey Turkish aubergines, and I want to know if their bread is as good as the unbelievably wood fired pide I used to eat at my local Turkish in London. The bar has been set very high!
For dessert I'd like to sample the Su Muhallebisi. Turkish delight and rose, could it sound more appealing?
Ooh! The food looks so good. i shouldn't be food blogging on an empty stomach. I am available for that date and would love to join you. These dishes seem to take my fancy: Bodrum Kebabi & Kestane Sekeri. thanks heaps!
I'd love to try Efendy since it has been on my 'to eat' list for too long. I wish to sink my teeth into that nicely-charred haloumi and also sample those black fig pancakes that appear so jammy and juicy. From their meze menu, the karides sound interesting as does the kuzu guvec. Finally, I would finish off with some of those authentic-looking Turkish delight that looks miles different from the artificially-coloured fluro pink ones you normally see, chased by a strong and smooth Turkish coffee. I enjoyed Ottoman's polished interpretation of Turkish food and would like to compare this inner West stalwart to those taste sensations!
It isn't normally a struggle for me when deciding what to choose as a main. Something usually jumps right out at me, though here, after figuring out the flavours in my mind ... my choice for main would be - Elbasan Tava - the braised shoulder of lamb would go perfectly with the burnt yoghurt and bulgar wheat grains. And the freshness of the tomato and onion salad would cut through the richness nicely.
Dessert-wise, the Incir Kaygana takes the cake (so to speak). The nutty and syrupy goodness takes me back to the food streets of Istanbul when I was there 8 years ago. I'd have to also compare the Turkish delight here to the stuff I gorged myself on throughout Turkey. I get goosebumps just thinking about it!
Hey Simon,
Ive been reading the menu and oh my goodness there is soo many things id love to try.
Because of my indecisiveness I cant seem to make up my mind on which main i like as they both equally sound delicious. Any of them would do the trick. ^_^
BODRUM KEBABI - the thought of veal, garlic yoghurt and burnt chili butter makes my mouth water ^_^
ASMADA BALIK - I think its nice to try something different and im loving the sound of the baked fish with vine leave and beetroot puree. ^_^
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As for desert.... I'd love to try something different like the "Kazandibi - Burnt mastic pudding".
I've never tried this before and am curious as to know more about this yummy pudding.
^_^
hi everyone, thanks for all your comments. it's really interesting reading what dishes you'd like to try. i'd just had a trial test dinner with Efendy and there's some interesting meze dishes be planned to sample. will be in touch soon about the final list of bloggers on the guest list :-)
*fingers crossed* :)
Oh the fried haloumi looks amazing, in fact everything is darn mouth watering.
We'd be interested if you do something like this again
http://blog.edgeplay.org/
Charles (food blogger)
Debbie (support team)
you really feed our eyes with a good food as always. Thanks for a great post!
hi phuoc, winners are grinners :-)
hi a cupcake or two, gotta love a good fried haloumi
hi debbie, hope it happens again too.
hi kosher, my pleasure! :-)
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