How does a small, modest establishment survive amidst a string of luxurious waterside mansions, several state-of-the-art shops of international coffee retailers and expensive fish restaurants? The answer is simple really: With its staff of five jumpy waiters, a boisterous and jovial cook, and a pleasant smell of fresh ground Turkish coffee oozing out of small, uneven, wooden windows, Emek Kahve defeats capitalism in one quick blow.

Located beautifully by the Yeniköy pier on the northern part of the Bosporus, the front part of coffee house hosts bands of local shopkeepers, cabbies, grocers and unemployed men, who perch on their chairs all day playing cards and sipping tea. Out in the back of the coffee house, though, lies a more fascinating and quite obscure dining hall, which initially seems to be merely an extension of the kitchen.

One must follow the smell of eggs scrambled in butter to figure out that this dining hall stretches out towards the waterfront and can seat 40 people on its old, wooden benches under a cascade of vine leaves. Sorry Starbucks!

I usually go there on a weekday morning and after securing a nice chair by the water, I order the menemen, an authentic egg dish, dunk some crisp white bread in its juice and wash it down with some freshly brewed Turkish tea.

As I unroll my newspaper, I listen to the sound of the leaves bristling overhead- only to be interrupted by the giggle of one of the older waiters of Emek. I don’t know if he enjoys picking on regulars but he almost always attempts to play tricks on me.

Once, after acknowledging that I am annoyingly picky about which ingredients I wanted in my menemen and yet unbearably hungry, he brought before me an omelette containing a huge chunk of sucuk, a spicy Turkish sausage. Confused, miserable and somewhat angry, I looked up and quipped, »This is not what I ordered«. He coolly shook his head and said »Oh yes it is. It’s omelette with extra sucuk. Now eat it«! I was aghast! While I babbled quite ineffectively, he began chuckling and eventually broke into laughter. He gave me a friendly pat on the back and handed over the brass pan containing the correct order. In his broken English, he admitted that he enjoyed laughing with foreigners.

’Laughing at or laughing with’ I wondered as I watched him walk away. Towards the end of my second cup of freshly brewed tea, he was a few tables away, pulling someone else’s leg…

EMEK KAHVE, Daire Sokak No:17/1 Yeniköy, Istanbul

’Home made food’ or ’Ev yemekleri’ in Turkish, is sometimes a somewhat overlooked chapter of the Turkish kitchen by foreigners. The restaurants of this kind usually offer a broad variety of cold dishes involving a lot of vegetables, soups, olive oil, yoghurt, köfte meat balls and occasionally börek pastry.

A place with a well proven track record in excellent home made food is Helvetia in Istanbul’s Beyoglu neighbourhood. Amidst a couple of fancy, and a few not so fancy restaurants, the Helvetia stands out as one of the most popular.

From the counter inside costumers get an easy overview of the ever changing selection of dishes – just as any Turk would venture out in their parent’s kitchen to lift the lids off pots and pans and check what’s on offer.

In Helvetia the high turn over guarantees a fresh and abundant selection, and the seating outside is a perfect place for people watching in the always crowded Sofyali Sokak. With its food and pleasant service Helvetia is the perfect Turkish family you never knew you had.

Helvetia; General Yazgan Sokak 12, Beyoglu, Istanbul

The Ciya Empire keeps expanding in Kadiköy on Istanbul’s Asian side as it’s one of the district’s most popular restaurants among locals. The restaurant now fills three locations in the same small pedestrian street as well as a fair part of the street it self.

The area is located a short walk from the Kadiköy pier and bus station and by it self a trip well worth given the very lively atmosphere and high quality at a low price selection of fresh fish, honey, vegetables, herbs and anything else you would want for self catering.

Should you choose to let Ciya cater for you, you may choose from the daily variety of ready made soups, meats and vegetables cooked, mixed and presented in the tastiest fashion. The dishes represent as many as nine different kitchens including Armenian, Ottoman and Syrian.

There is no written menu and no written explanations at Ciya, but the guy behind the counter is happy to repeat him self endlessly when people ask what’s in each pot or pan. Three dishes are probably too much food for one person, so you may want to ask for half portions in order to get a broader taste of the offerings and have room to taste the very Anatolian fruit in gel-desserts.

Ciya; Caferaga Mah. Güneslibahce Sk. 43, 44 and 48/B Kadiköy - Istanbul

Cezayir means Algeria in Turkish and stands for excellent cuisine in Istanbul. The restaurant with the North African name is well hidden behind the Galatasaray High School and offers a state of the art blend of couscous and kebabs modernised and improved.

I bring my visitors there when they think they know all about what Turkey has to offer in terms of grilled meat, fish and mezze starters. Cezayir takes them to the next level.

Take the crispy pastry rolls (börek), which you will find in many Turkish restaurants. In Cezayir they are as thin as a pencil, twice as long and they come with pastrami served sticking from a small glass with a shot of a slightly spicy tomato sauce. And then, oh boy, there is the chicken liver pate made with whisky and pistachios. Usually it goes down very well even among those of my friends who don’t appreciate chicken liver or whisky.

From the list of main courses the sirloin with yoghurt and pita as well as smoked salmon with dried rose petals are all time favourites.

It all comes with an extensive wine list and an unusually knowledgeable and pretty good English speaking staff.

Cezayir, Hayriye Caddesi 12, Galatasaray; Beyoglu; Istanbul

 

It doesn’t matter how early one heads for breakfast at Leyla in Beyoglu’s Tünel Square - one seat is always taken. Smokey the cat is a part of the inventory and can usually be found in of the chairs under the first or the second table, and from its chair it does not move.

Smokey owes its name to its colour, but it’s hard to miss the reference to the lack of smoking ban in Turkish cafes and restaurants. Smoking is, until the summer of 2009, allowed everywhere.

The smoke in Leyla is by all means not heavier than the well nourished cat, and Leyla is no better or worse than most other places when it comes to smoke, but when it comes to a variety of breakfast, Leyla’s sure better than most.

If one is in a Scandinavian mood there is the Oslo-plate including smoked salmon, if Spain is your thing the Madrid-plate comes with chorizo and fans of British food may opt for the Londra (London) that offers bacon, eggs and more. If one of those isn’t enough there is also a choice of seven different omelettes.

I am very picky with my coffee and sorry to admit that neither Turkish coffee nor Nes-coffee floats my boat. It has to be filtered or espresso, and they do both pretty well at Leyla.

Leyla; Tünel Meydanı No. 4 Beyoğlu, Istanbul