The authentic side of Istanbul dining (Ünlüer Et Restaurant (Istanbul, Turkey))

Member Name: larsbaby

Product:	Ünlüer Et Restaurant (Istanbul, Turkey)
Date:	01/07/09 (65 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent food, great service, even some vegetarian options, authentic local dining

Disadvantages: Meat laden menu, no fish offered, calorie count off the scale, miles away from any tourist area

INTRODUCTION

Having agreed to work in Turkey for a couple of months, I thought that I'd be somewhere near the bright lights of Istanbul. Surely the historic mosques, the bazaars, the relentless bartering and the crazy fusion of East meets West would be waiting for me? Would my first ever visit to Turkey have a frission of excitement to it?
Erm, actually, no.

As an engineer, I find that our customer locations where the telephone exchanges I work on are usually in the cheapest part of town possible, with the sales and marketing guys of course right in the centre of town. You might have gathered this from my previous critique from Beckton, East London. Sadly, foreign companies are just as cheap, and in this case the customer office (itself very nice I must say) is 20 or so km out from the city centre, on the Asia side of the city. Perhaps the logic is to avoid the apparently ridiculous Istanbul traffic congestion (have they been to London?) and certainly we succeed in this respect travelling from our even further out hotel. Still, there can be advantages to this. The dining experience can be a bit more authentic, with restaurateurs not trying to impress tourists this far out from the beaten track, but trying to match the local customers' more demanding and knowledgeable expectations.
After a couple of days in Turkey eating either pizza or in the hotel, never actually seeing anything but the office or hotel, I was finally taken out to dinner by one of my local colleagues, along with a Finnish colleague. We had been told by our host of a restaurant by the Black Sea not too far from our office, and this was the first opportunity he'd had to take us there. As we rode in the little taxi there, passing outer Istanbul suburb streets lined with shops and bars, we wondered what would await us. And then we arrived outside a high walled grassy area, behind which lay a large 2 storey building. At this point I didn't think I was in Turkey at all but rather some out of town restaurant from the USA, which typically would be this kind of building.

THE RESTAURANT

We entered the building via the main entrance. To the left of this seemed to be some kind of cloakroom, with the obligatory portrait of Attaturk on the wall. You will find this chap, the founder of Turkey and national hero, and his mug in most public places here. I've even seen people in the office have snaps of their families and holidays with one of Attaturk in a dinner jacket alongside rather incongruously. Make of this cult of personality what you will; personally I'm keeping quiet as it's actually against the law here to say anything bad about this man, who incidentally never married (nudge nudge).

There seemed to be 2 main areas for dining; one with a window view and one near to the kitchen. We sat towards the window, where we had a grandstand view of a cat stalking something just outside whilst being completely oblivious to us. We could also see onto the small grassy area enclosed by the outer wall.

The cream tiled floor gave the rooms a bright impression, with wooden tables and wicker chairs, putting me in mind of a summery setting. The ceiling was very high, with a row of small lights in the ceiling along the length of the room. The dining areas were pretty big, with room for maybe 100 people. It was certainly a popular place, with a lot of groups of diners. I heard the occasional conversation in English but this seemed to be mainly locals.

THE SERVICE

One thing I have noticed here is that service is decidedly speedy, and not necessarily in a good way. The small teas (chai) are whisked away in cafes when you have a little bit let in them. On this night I'd barely finished my starter and the others were still eating and the plates were whisked away to be replaced by our main dish. Call me old fashioned but I think I prefer to linger and digest a little between each dish. There were advantages however, when water glasses were replenished without any danger of getting to the bottom of your glass. Another nice touch was when our host pointed out where we were from to our waiters (who didn't appear so speak English but weren't given much of a chance with our Turkish host) planted three little flags on the table. The Union Jack was amusingly marked as England I think (Inglatera) and was accompanied by a Finnish and Turkish flag.

THE MENU

The menu is certainly heavy on the meat side. I am not yet familiar with Turkish cuisine, but a lot of dishes seemed to be variants on the same theme, i.e. some sort of meat minced or filleted served with either some kind of Turkish bread, rice or potatoes.

There were several starters including with meatballs. Some mezes were available as well as salads, mostly as starters. Pide is a kind of Turkish pizza on an oval shaped piece of bread, and you could get a variety of these. These are usually meat, cheese or egg topped. Some meaty mixed grills were also available and some even meatier kebabs of various meats. Meatballs were also on the menu and several fried and grilled meat dishes. I noted a couple of aubergine dishes, one a kebab the other baba ganoush, a kind of aubergine paste which reminds me of the consistency of hummus. Chicken shish kebab is also a meat on a skewer number, with lots of big chunks of tender, deliciously marinated chicken.

THE MEAL

The menus were usefully in English as well as Turkish, although our host seemed to have ordered a starter selection for all 3 of us. He recommended that we try something that I can't name but which was no doubt meaty.
As well as water I had some turkish tea, served in a small, fancy hourglass like receptacle which perhaps would be familiar to anyone acquainted with this part of the world. I find this tea slightly bitter, and it needs some sugar added to it. I didn't dare ask for milk, as that doesn't seem the done thing here, plus it would spoil the impression of that wonderful glass.

We had some sort of a meze to start. Vine leaves stuffed with rice were nice, very tasty. Mushrooms with olives was next up to try. The mushrooms were full of flavour, added to by the ripe olives. There was some sort of bread served with this which was just like naan; flat bread, served with some sort of butter. This is good stuff too, although I shy away from the butter personally. Some sort of meaty patty things with parsley and lettuce were quite spicy. The lettuce leaves were nice and crispy and the parsley fresh. The done thing with this dish is to apparently wrap the patty in the lettuce leaf, and this seemed to work well, the softness of the meat with the crisp leaves. Yet more starters were sampled, with pleasant small spicy pasties. Some crumbly cheese, which I think was goat was pleasantly melt in mouth. To accompany this was some creamy stuff - like that greek stuff with mint; pleasantly creamy, nice with the "naan".

The main course consisted of some wraps with lamb patties in them - like a burrito I thought. Accompanying this were some green thin peppers. I didn't realise they still had the seeds in and they nearly blew my head off. A big dollop of sour cream was on the side which cooled me down from the shock nicely. They do like their rice here which is good as so do I. The incarnation here was coloured, with some red peppers stirred in, and very tasty indeed. It always has a kind of sticky texture which is unique in my experience, and believe me, I'm a huge rice connoisseur. The meat was a little spicy but very tasty. There was also a grilled tomato, slightly charred on the skin, which was very nice.

We weren't done though and our host ordered dessert. This was some sort of deep fried cheese in sweet, breadcrumb like coating, sprinkled with bits of pistachio nuts on top. This was nice and it was a surprise that it wasn't that heavy; I would describe it as a pleasantly melting stringy cheesy concoction, with a sweet, crispy coating. Our host was also impressed, as before we had it he was hoping that it would going to be a good version of this dish, which it turned out to be.

I've been to this restaurant a few times now, along with its sister restaurant near to our hotel which has an identical menu, but perhaps less emphasis on showy service. I've also tried the doner kebab, aka huge slabs of meat with rice and French fries, which I liked a lot, kind of like a deluxe version of the humble kebab you'd find at home. Aubergine kebab is meat and aubergine chunks on a skewer on a hot plate and very nice it was too, but far too much for one person to eat in one sitting. The aubergine was beautifully grilled and it was a crying shame even I couldn't finish it off.

CONCLUSION

I was very satisfied with the meal and the typically welcoming Turkish hospitality that is evident even after only a few days here. This meat heavy eaterie was a treat, not least because I could pick from the menu without having to worry if there was pig hidden in anything - hooray! If I could criticize at all (and strictly no oink oink is a big big plus in my book) I would say that there was no fish on the menu, but of course this isn't the theme of the restaurant. Vegetarians would have a reasonable choice though, so they redeem themselves in that respect.

I've been here for a couple of months now and have worked out how to get to the centre of the city, a good hour or so away, so fear not, some of my reviews will be relevant to tourists too. But here is a slice of local life to ponder on.

CONTACT DETAILS

Unleur Et,
Yalı Mah.Dr.Sadık Ahmet Bulvarı Sahilyolu No:2
Maltepe,
Ä°stanbul,
Turkey.
Tel: 0 216 457 08 08

Email: info@unluer.com.tr
Website : http://www.unlueret.com.tr/

Summary: What the tourists won't see