EatingAsia

In Istanbul, a Market That Brings a Taste of the Black Sea to the Big City

It kind of blows my mind that residents of Istanbul, one of the world's busiest, most densely-populated metropolises, have ready access to fresh unpasteurized milk straight from the cow, bread baked in a single village's community oven, pear molasses produced in small batches year after year by the women of one family and fruit harvested from one farmer's orchard before being dried in his garden.

These are truly "artisan" foods, rare and small-batch, of the type fetishized in America. But in Turkey, a country still largely agricultural, they're not all that unusual. Labels and signage don't declare foods like this "artisan" -- it's taken for granted because so many foods here still are. In fact there are few cities in Turkey whose residents can't lay their hands on small-batch, small-producer, single-farmer goods if they're willing to make a minor effort.

This isn't to say that big ag doesn't exist in Turkey, or that mono-cropping isn't a problem (see kiwi orchards on the Black Sea). Yes, pesticides are over-used here, people buy sub-par ingredients in chain stores and battery-raised, plastic-wrapped chicken on styrofoam trays is sold at Migros and Carrefour. But to an extent that is perhaps difficult to imagine unless you get out into the hinterlands and do some serious road tripping, much of Turkey is still a land very much the Land of the Small Producer.

If you are planning a trip to Turkey that doesn't include time beyond Istanbul and you're even remotely interested in knowing how much of the country still eats you owe it to yourself to hit up Istanbul's weekly Kastamonu market, which is named for the province from which most of its vendors come.

Just a few hours' drive east of Ankara airport, Kastamonu registers on the map of few visitors to Turkey -- perhaps because it lacks an airport of its own, or maybe because its Black Sea climate (gray, rainy) puts off potential tourists. That's a shame, because it is spectacularly beautiful.

Kastamonu's capital (also called Kastamonu) is an intriguing if slightly brooding city chock full of photogenically crumbling Ottoman mansions. Ninety minutes away on the Black Sea coast is Inebolu, an exceptionally lovely hill town. Kastamonu is blessed with an extravagant amount of of natural beauty; think conifer-clad mountains, rivers winding through dramatic valleys and stretches of pretty pebble beach backed by rocky crags and lush green hills that plummet to the sea.

And then there is the food, born of microclimates that endow Kastamonu with a wealth of gorgeous produce. In autumn its markets overflow with all manner of leafy greens, fruits, nuts and mushrooms both farmed and foraged. From the Black Sea come fish, kalkan (flounder), hamsi (anchovies) and palamut (bonito), among other varieties. Hectares of velvety pasture provide nourishment for herds of beef and milk cattle (lamb is less often on the table here than in some other parts of Turkey). The province is known for its excellent pastirma (salt-cured, air-dried beef), luscious cheeses, yogurt, kaymak and fresh milk.

During three sojourns on the Black Sea we've been lucky enough to hit up many of Kastamonu's weekly markets, which are attended by vendors bringing fresh produce and prepared goods from their homes in small and often remote villages. In fact we've trolled Inebolu's twice-a-week market so many times that some vendors now recognize us (or maybe it's Dave's camera they recognize). We never fail to come away from each visit to the province envious of Kastamonulu and their ready access to such marvelous ingredients and laden with kilos of edible souvenirs to pack back home to Malaysia.

On this last trip to Turkey, despite almost three weeks on the Black Sea and several days in Inebolu, we still hadn't had enough. So last Sunday we set off to the Kastamonu Market in Kasimpasa, an Istanbul neighborhood on the Golden Horn just north of Tarlabasi (home to another great market). Kastamonulu make the long slog to Istanbul overnight by car (and truck) and set up around 6am. When we arrived late at 10:30 or 11 there was still plenty to see and buy.

First up, the essentials: dairy and bread. A table at the market's entrance displayed cow's milk kaymak -- 3/4 inch-thick shards stacked in plastic containers at 5 Turkish lira (about U$2.90) for enough to generously garnish four to six desserts -- as well as six types of cow and goat's milk, salted and unsalted cheeses. There was fresh, unpasteurized milk in plastic water bottles to take home and drink hot (or cold) after boiling. Along with kaymak, some milky semi-soft cheese and a 250-gram bag of suzme (drained) yogurt thick enough to stick to an upturned spoon we purchased grassy, tasting-of-the-beast butter at 7 lira a kilo, 

to slather thickly on köy ekmeği or "village bread", a massive crusty loaf made with unbleached flour.

Pazı ekmeği, bread made with chard and herbs (scallion greens and parsley, usually), was also out in force at the Kastamonu market. We know this bread well from Inebolu and to tell the truth this version was a pale comparison of that made by the talented baker woman we usually buy from there. That said, it was one of maybe 10 loaves left for sale in the entire market -- early risers will probably score a tastier loaf.

On the Black Sea autumn means apples and pears and persimmons. As we road-tripped along the coast we ate dozens of the latter, ripened until sugar oozed from the cracks in their skins, which were covered with so much black we would have sworn the fruit was rotten. It was anything but; sliced open, flesh scooped from skins like pudding, these persimmons were the sweetest, most delicious that we've ever eaten, something like a honey-enriched fruit jam.

There were also plastic water-bottle punnets of what might be Myrica rubra or Chinese bayberry, small nubbly fruits in pretty fruits sporting sunset hues. These we didn't try; vendors were not offering samples (in most market you can taste almost everything, cheeses included) of this relatively pricey fruit and, with only a couple of days in Istanbul, we feared we wouldn't finish a punnet full. Next year. 

In addition to fresh fruits there were plenty of dried specimens as well. In Giresun we purchased little pears sun-dried whole, chewy as Milk Duds, molasses sweet and ever so lightly bitter, like Vietnamese caramel. We saw the same shriveled pears at the Kastamonu market, along with sweet and sour dried plums and quartered apples dried with their skins on.

Giresun is also known for its hazelnuts, but further west towards Kastamonu walnuts and chestnuts rule. At village markets on the coast single vendors might display as many as ten grades of either or both, divided by size and quality. The smaller chestnuts, called kuzu kestane (lamb chestnuts), are for eating raw -- their skin is easily broken with a fingernail, they're slightly juicy and taste like raw mature coconut -- while the larger are meant to be roasted.

The market offers much treasure for vegetable lovers in the form of several types of pumpkin and winter squash,

leafy greens like chard, sturdy lettuces, young leaves of rocket and tere (a jagged-edged leaf that tastes a bit like wasabi) and collard green-like kara lahana or "black cabbage". There were even collard green roots for sale, massive specimens weighing half a kilo and more. Several vendors recommended making soup with these roots. We purchased one and snacked on it raw. It's a wonderful vegetable, super crispy and sweet with no cabbage-y funk. This vegetable, grated, would make a wonderful salad with olive oil and lemon and it would be super stir-fried with garlic and finished with a bit of sesame oil.

Cooler temperatures and autumn rains bring mushrooms to Kastamonu's copious forest land and there were no shortage of these at the market, both farmed and foraged on the coastal mountains. We bought a kilo and a half of several types and cooked them simply, sauteed with loads of that fresh butter and dusted with finely chopped parsley. Outside of Italy during porcini season, I've never eaten tastier mushrooms in my life.

Any Turkish market worth its salt has a mobile tea stall or two; most (especially on the Black Sea) hang photographs of Ataturk.

Turks are great picklers and preservers and both tendencies were well in evidence at the Kastamonu makret, at stalls offering any and everything brined -- including peppers, beets, turnips and carrots,

as well as all manner of preserves, jams, sauces and pekmez (fruit molasses) made from figs, apples, pears, grapes, cactus fruit, rose hips and mulberries.

There's no shortage of protein for sale at this market. We saw dainty baskets of school bus orange-yoked eggs cradled in straw, live turkeys (American expats in Istanbul, take note for next Thanksgiving!) roped to a truck wheel and freshly killed gangly free-range chickens. One vendor even had a few goose carcasses for sale.

The birds we had to pass on, for the cookware in our rental apartment wouldn't have been able to accomodate any of them. But we did return to our temporary home with bags and bags of goodies. That night we dined buttery stewed mushrooms ladled over pumpkin mashed with full-cream milk and yet more butter. Dessert was fresh, milky "village" cheese and apples, and a syrupy compote of orange peel-scented dried apples and plums with a generous -- no, make that HUGE -- crown of rich kaymak.

Our stay in Istanbul came at the end of a road trip along the central Turkish Black Sea coast, during which we reported a story on one of our passions -- anchovies -- for the New York Times. Read it here. And Dave has put together a slideshow of out-takes from the trip, set to "Hamsi" (Anchovies) by the Anatolian pop group Mogallar. View/listen here -- it gives a great feel for this very special, and under-visited, part of Turkey.

Kastamonu Market, Kasimpasa, Istanbul. Every Sunday morning. True market hounds should follow a stroll through this market's aisles with a visit to nearby Tarlabasi for its own (admittedly more wholesale but nonetheless good fun) Sunday market.

In Sinop, Breaking a Meat Fast

After two solid weeks of fish, we had a lust for red meat.

For fourteen days Dave and I had been ranging along the center part of Turkey's Black Sea coast, indulging our love of things piscene. (This journey you'll read about another time, in another place.) All fish all the time -- for seafood lovers like us, this was not a hardship. Especially not here on Turkey's northern coast, where the fish is so fresh (just an hour or two off the boat in some cases), so delicious.

But yesterday the weather changed. Around noon the breeze -- which has been bizarrely spring-like, warm and caressing for the last half month -- stiffened and chilled. The Black Sea went from marine blue to white-capped gunmetal. The clear sky darkened and gauzy gray clouds spat rain. By the time darkness fell (4 o'clock-ish this time of year, during inclement weather) we were driving through a steady downpour that smelled like snow.

On this night fish just would not do. Our chilled bones needed meat.

So we bypassed our favorite restaurant, which serves nothing but seafood, in favor of an old-style ocakbaşı, or restaurant featuring an open grill.

Sahil is a kendin pişir kendin ye (cook it yourself, eat it yourself) establishment within shouting distance of Sinop's harbor. The set-up is simple. On the ground floor seating is around a community "table" comprised of a marble countertop framing a big charcoal grill, all beneath a gigantic copper exhaust hood.

You walk in, grab a stool, and place your order. The restaurant offers beef (bonfile or pounded fillet steak, and kofte or mini burgers), chicken (pounded breast and wings) and seasonal fish. (Lamb isn't as relished on the Black Sea as it is in other regions of Turkey; locals often tell us that the smell is a turn-off.)

We ordered bonfile and kofte, which the son of the owners -- Mustafa Usta and his wife, a jovial middle-aged couple from Ordu, several hours east of Sinop on the Black Sea -- brought to the table along with sliced onion and tomato, long green peppers and bread. After giving the coals a good stir with a long poker he used a thick slice of onion to clean the grill of gunk and oiled it with a chunk of talo. His mother spread our meat over its center and formed constellations of bread and vegetables around it.

We asked for a salad and a plate of mixed pickles (most every restaurant in Turkey stocks some sort of pickle or other, often not listed on the menu -- just ask for turşu / TOOR-shoo). Then we sat back to make conversation with our fellow diners while monitoring the main attraction as it smoked and sputtered in front of us.

 

I was nominally in charge but in reality it was Mustafa Usta's wife, who (understandably, given the Turkish obsession with the BBQ) oversaw our dinner. Every 30 seconds or so she jumped in with her tongs, adjusting and flipping our patties and fillets and pressing the vegetables onto the fat-slicked metal. In under 5 minutes we were diving into our meat feast.

What's not to love about well-seasoned beef hot off the grill? What cut of meat -- or vegetable, for that matter -- doesn't benefit from a lick of flame, a crusty char, a hint of smoke?

The kofte, impossibly light, had obviously been chopped, seasoned and molded by a master. The beef fillet, while not the most tender I've ever eaten, boasted the full flavor of meat from a grass-fed cow (a luxury in the USA but a norm in much of Turkey). Pickled chilies with a good but not overwhelming bite made an excellent accompaniment to the juicy, fatty meat. The grilled vegetables, wilted but not without texture, were as delicious as vegetables always are in Turkey, where flavor hasn't yet been bred out of cucumbers, tomatoes, salad greens and the like.

We ordered another round, ate like king and queen for a total of 35 tay-lay (the equivalent of 20 US bucks) and, meat lust sated, waddled back to our hotel.

Sahil Ocakbaşı, Camiibekir Mahallesi Ortayol No. 12, Sinop (across from the mosque right in front of the harbor). 368-260-3645

Turkey's King of Nuts

When you say Turkey folks tend to think pistachios -- if they are thinking of nuts, that is. Pistachios are a huge crop in the country's southeast, and more often than not pistachios are what gets tucked between sheets of yufka for the baklava sold back in Istanbul.

But for me Turkey's big nut is the hazelnut, so dear in the USA but so everyday here, especially on the Black Sea coast. On our first road trip along the Black Sea some 11 or 12 years ago we marvelled at the burlap bags of hazelnuts in the region's kuru yemis (dried foods) stores, pounds and pounds of shelled and unshelled nuts sold for a song. We bought dried mulberries and plums and hazelnuts by the kilo and cobbled together what seemed at the time fabulously luxurious trail mixes. To accompany a beer with handfuls of hazelnuts, instead of peanuts, seemed almost a sin.

A few days ago we kicked off our third Black Sea trip in less than two years, in Giresun -- also known as Turkey's hazelnut capital. Like those of other Turkish cities Giresun's central square is graced with a statue of Kemal Ataturk. But just nearby is another statue, of male and female hazelnut pickers standing back-to-back, conical woven baskets laden with nuts strapped around their waists and giant hazelnut husks (the papery covering over the nut, which looks a bit like a trumpet flower) balanced on their heads.

Driving into Giresun from the east along the four-lane highway, we passed fındık fabrikası (hazelnut processing facility) after fındık fabrikası -- huge buildings, many with container trucks parked out front. In the city fındık depo tucked among houses and low-rise apartment buildings house hundreds of burlap bags of nuts in their shells, and shops with names like Hazelnut Castle and Hazelnut World sell all manner of hazelnut products: the nuts shelled and unshelled and dipped in chocolate, hazenut butter chunky or smooth, hazelnut flour and the big macaroon-type cookies that are made from it and hazelnut ezme, a sweet, sticky slurry of coarsely crushed hazelnuts blended withsyrup.

At Giresun's twice-weekly market, which draws fresh and prepared food vendors from villages near and far, we asked a husband-wife team selling whole dried pears, pear and apple pekmez (fruit molasses) and seven types of cheese why, given that the Black Sea hazelnut harvest was not all that many weeks ago, there were no hazelnuts for sale at the market.

"Why would we sell our hazelnuts at the market for 5 lira a kilo when we can get 15 lira from the factory?" he asked (the couple harvest around 500 kilos of hazelnuts a year from their own orchard).

But there are hazelnuts aplenty in Giresun's pastane, or pastry shops. We eyed the breads, buns and sweets in many pastry shop windows before settling on Patar Kadayıfı, in the center of town. Our rationale: the glass case tiny Patar held just three or four sweets, and only two made with hazelnuts.

If there's one thing we've learned from working the street food circuit all these years, it's that specialization rules.

We we ordered the hazelnut baklava. And it was delicious, not too syrupy ..... but to be honest, once you've eaten baklava in Gaziantep no other baklava can ever come close.

So we tried the fındık ezmeli kadayıf, a sort of sticky bar cookie made of hazelnut ezme combined with kadayıf, wispy dried wheat vermicelli. It was wonderful, heavenly, packed with nuts that had been crushed not too fine to really taste. We swooned through a shared plateful.

As we were scraping our plate with our forks, two portly middle-aged Turkish men sat down at the table next to us and ordered a portion each. Their ezme squares arrived topped with thick slices of what looked like kaymak (Turkish clotted cream) and a hillock of crushed hazelnuts. Whoa!

Well, the kaymak turned out to be dondurma, that delicious, slightly chewy Turkish ice cream. So much the better. We returned to Parar the following day just before blowing town and did our fındık ezmeli kadayıf right, crowned with shingles of ice cream and more fındık  -- to the delight of the trio of burly men behind the counter who, judging by their collective girth, enjoy hazelnut ezme often.

Patar Kadayıfı, 21/B Fatih Caddesi, Giresun.

 

Dinner Number One

It's nice to be recognized. "Heeey -- how are you?" said the woman behind the counter when we walked through the door this evening at Datli Maya, a little cafe in Cihangir that we've been visiting since it first opened just about a year ago.

Yes, we're back in Turkey, in Istanbul for now, and we ate our first proper dinner at Datli Maya because it's become habit and it's good to be recognized and -- most of all, absolutely most of all -- because we always leave satisfied, rubbing our bellies and lamenting that we ate too much but, if we were to be honest, not regreting a single bite.

What we like about the place: the wood-fired oven that you can't miss as you walk through the door. The casual friendliness of the staff. That you have to walk through the teeny-tiny kitchen to get to the just-as-tiny dining room. Sitting by the window, right in sight line with the minaret of Firuzaga Mosque, and watching the sidewalk traffic as we wait for our order. Self-service tea, as strong or as weak as you like, pulled from an old samovar on a little table in the corner of the dining room.

And the ever-changing menu. There are always lahmacun and pide and desserts, but what is cooked long and slow in the wood-fired oven revolves according to what's in season, what's good, what's at the market, what inspires the cook. Today's specials are displayed on the counter, there for your perusal when you walk in the door.

Tonight we ate woodsy, meaty mushrooms with bits of strange but deliciously bitter green chilies, blanketed with mild, oozy cheese and reheated in a guvec (a clay baking dish) in the wood-fired oven. Also, "village chicken", a lovely stew of a zucchini-like summer squash, potato and chicken in what tasted like the richest bird broth ever (enriched with butter, perhaps?), and a guvec of sweet pumpkin stewed with red peppers and onions. There were chickpeas stewed with onions and peppers, and a salad, always a salad. Datli Maya excels at them -- they're generously proportioned, include a variety of greens and usually house-pickled beets and just-sprouted mung beans, and are dressed with a lemony pomegranate molasses and cumin "vinaigrette". We often end up ordering a second salad to avoid fighting over the first one.

Mung beans? Chickpeas? Is this really Turkish food? some may ask. Let's call it Turkish with a twist. The ingredients are good, the execution is inspired and the result makes us happy.  We are quite happily off to other parts of Turkey in less than 36 hours but, for now, it's good to be back in Istanbul

A New Street Food Column, and Tips for Photographing Markets

Just a quick post to let you know, if you don't already, that I (Robyn) have started writing a column for Wall Street Journal Asia, on Asian street food. The column is evolving week to week -- look for a mix of musings, vendor/dish highlights, observations about street food culture in various countries around the region, food history and more. In my first installment I write about why, when Asia offers so many other ways to eat these days, I still gravitate towards the street.

If there's something you'd like to see covered in the column, I'd love to hear from you! Please leave a comment here, on the EatingAsia Facebook page, or by clicking the tab above the column. And no, this doesn't mean I'll be posting less here.

A couple of weeks ago Dave had his first byline, atop a piece he wrote for ZesterDaily.com on how to come away from your next trip to a market with photos that are a cut above the usual. He's sharing tricks of the trade that he's picked up over the years, and that he himself puts to use when he's shooting markets for publications like the New York Times and Saveur. And he's included a slideshow with examples of how to make light, perspective and time work in your favor.

 

 

More on Those Grilled Chapati

When I publicized our post on grilled chapati in George Town, Penang yesterday on Twitter one knowledgeable Indian food lover remarked that "if they tried that in India they'd be deported." (Loose quote.) But this morning on the EatingAsia Facebook page I found another Indian had weighed in: "In north India the chapati is commonly griddled and then grilled on the fire but without this contraption." (By "contraption" I assume he means the metal grill that's placed over the flames.)

This discussion inspired Dave to sift through photographs he made a few years ago in New Delhi, when he stopped over on his way to Malaysia from a photography workshop in Manali. (I, regrettably, did not join Dave on this trip. Judging by the photos here and his images and commentary here, he ate very well.)

What he found was this: proof that in New Delhi at least, chapati can be found grilled, sort of. Here we have a wood-fired portable stove with a small griddle pan on top. The guy on the right rolls out the chapati on a wooden board. They're cooked on the griddle and then removed with tongs and held directly to the flame. No "contraption" involved but, I imagine, the result is a lovely flatbrad infused with plenty of woody smokiness. (Just looking at those thick fresh chapati makes me hungry.)

Seems like the chapati makers in our previous George Town post brought a penchant for grilling flatbreads with them to Penang and adapted their method to a charcoal brazier.

All this talk of chapati has incited an unbearable craving so now, in honor of chapati makers in India, Malaysia and anywhere else, we're jettisoning all hopes of a productive afternoon and heading into George Town for lunch: chapati.

 

In Penang's George Town, Chapati Not Griddled but Grilled

    As we get tantalizingly close to finishing work on our old shop house in George Town, Penang, I'm beginning to allow myself to imagine what it might be like to actually live there. I imagine breaking up long stretches at the computer with a walk to a favorite kopitiam for a glass of iced caffeine, or a quick hawker stall lunch -- noodles in beef broth rich with Chinese medicinal herbs perhaps, or a spicy coconut milk-rich curry mee. I contemplate having Tek Sen a 10-minute walk away on evenings when I'm just too tired to cook. And I anticipate meandering George Town's endlessly fascinating lanes during the day's best hours, early in the morning while the air is still fresh and cool and as afternoon becomes evening, when the setting sun casts a beautiful hazy glow on the city's pastel building facades.

    I foresee a lot of evening strolls in Little India. There's always something going on there, always something worth seeing. On weekdays office workers congregate in the evenings at tables bunched around teh tarik stalls. Barber shops are busy, a male customer in the chair getting a trim and a shave while friends and onlookers watch and comment from chairs lined up beneath the shops' picture windows. CD shops engage in music wars, blaring Bollywood hits at top volume, drowning out the tap-tap of goldsmiths sitting out front of jewelry shops. Worshippers walk up and down China Street on their way to and from the Goddess of Mercy Temple and the small Ganesha shrine on the corner just opposite. Single devotees come to light a few sticks of incense and whole groups intent on performing a complex ceremony file in and out of Mariamman Temple on Queen Street.

    Of course, this being Penang there is also food being made, sold, eaten. Several vendors proffer samosa, deep-fried gram balls, warm spice-scented mashed lentil "doughnuts" and various other savory and sweet snacks from stainless steel trays displayed on plastic-topped trestle tables. On Penang Street, a vendor and his wife steam ground rice layered with butterscotch-y Indian jaggery in tubes and serve the finished cakes, called putu, on a piece of banana leaf with shredded coconut and more jaggery. (It's absolutely delicous, a must-try if you're in Little India after 4pm).

    Roti jala -- lacy griddled dough "nets" -- and curries can be found at a stall on Lebuh Pasar near Jalan Masjid Jamek (formerly Pitt Street, also known as the Walk of Harmony). I can't offer an appraisal though; the vendor's distinct unfriendliness has put me off all these years. On Queen Street there are freshly stretched, flipped, folded and griddled roti for sale, and chapati too.

    Street side chapati are not so easily found in Kuala Lumpur, but in George Town's Little India are five or more five spots that make and serve the wholemeal flatbreads. On Queen Street between Lebuh Pasar and China Street an elderly woman and her husband offer a variety of curries to go with their chapati. Whether or not the chapati are fresh depends on when you arrive to their stall. If they make as if to serve you from a stack of pre-made chapati you can attempt to cajole the old woman into making you a fresh one; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

    At any rate, their chicken curry is superb -- very spicy and laden with fresh curry leaves. If you're not up for a whole piece of chicken just ask for a bowl of gravy to eat with your flatbread.

    Up Queen Street towards Chulia and almost directly across from the entrance to Mariamman Temple is something different: chapati grilled rather than griddled. The stall sits in front of a shop which also does roti; you order from the two men patting out the chapati and cooking them over the coals and then eat in the shop. (The shop owner will expect you to order a drink.)

    

    I've no idea if BBQ'd chapati are done in India. But I'm glad they're done in George Town.

    The fire blisters the flatbreads something fierce, but somehow doesn't leave them with a burnt flavor, just a haunting smokiness from the charcoal. Pliable in some spots, mildly crispy in others, the chapati becomes a bread-chip perfectly suited to dipping. Served alongside is a not-too-fiery, warm spices-fragrant dal featuring plenty of fresh curry leaves and another nice change of pace: chickpeas rather than the usual lentils.

Evening stalls in Little India usually don't get going until around 4:30/5pm. The place is busiest Monday-Thursday, when workers from the office buildings near/on Beach Street and other 9-to-5ers wander over for a snack before heading home to dinner.

 

    

Samui's Saving Grace

So, Koh Samui. We've been living in southeast Asia for almost eleven years, and traveling in the region since 1994. In all that time we had not once stepped foot on Samui (or any of its neighboring islands). That changed last month, when we spent a week there for a couple of assignments.

Honestly? I don't love Samui. I can't name any one reason why we stayed away, but as soon as we left the island's airport I understood why some travelers do. Koh Samui is one big argument against uncontrolled tourism-driven development. It is tragically, despairingly ugly.

I felt this way when I landed on Malaysia's Langkawi island for the first time four years ago. I was on assignment there, too, and my heart sank as I steered my rust-bucket of a rental car away from the airport and towards the west coast. Ugly, ugly. How would I ever conjur a truthful travel story out of a place that, at first glance, appeared to have no redeeming qualities?

But over the course of five days on Langkawi I grew to like it, even to love it a little, and that travel piece was one of the easiest I've ever written. That didn't happen for me on Koh Samui, in spite of a fair bit of excellent food, wonderful company (Samui Thais may be the friendliest Thais anywhere) and some nights in lovely digs. Since that first trip to Langkawi I've gone back and taken Dave along -- we've flown in on assignment and also under our own steam, to relax here and eat here. Samui? I'd happily eat there again -- in fact I'd return just to eat. But not on my own nickel. (A major beef: the island is ridiculously expensive in comparison to the rest of Thailand. Looking for value for money? Samui is not where to find it.)

So am I arguing against Samui as a destination? Yes I am -- as a destination for me. But that doesn't mean that others don't, and won't, enjoy it.

One of my niggles about Samui is that it is so resort-ified. I hate being cooped up in a resort, and I especially hate having to make a Herculean effort to leave a resort to get something decent to eat. Vacations should be easy. But if you're a resort person and you have nothing on your agenda but relaxing and eating, then maybe making what I consider to be The Big Effort to get yourself to a good meal -- hiring a taxi and paying an outrageous sum to do so, or hiring a rental car and paying an outrageous sum to do so, or renting a motor bike and risking life and limb on overcrowded roads -- won't seem such a big effort to you.

There is some really, truly wonderful food on Samui. (There is also some -- lots and lots, actually -- really awful food on Samui.) And, as I've argued before, truly wonderful food can be a saving grace of even the most otherwise disappointing destinations. If you're planning a sojourn on Samui it would be a shame to miss out on what deliciousness the island has to offer.

So, without further ado:

Takho Bangpo

If you eat at one local restaurant on the island make it this one. Samui has a cuisine all its own, rooted in two plentiful ingredients -- seafood and coconuts -- and Takho Bangpo serves up some fine examples. On our second night on the island a chef on Samui took us on a bit of a food crawl; Takho Bangpo was the second-to-last stop in a string of many. (This Thailand-based food blogger had also recommended this restaurant before we left). Our meal was so good that Dave and I returned a few days later for another, bigger meal. And had we had time before we left the island, we would have returned again.

The restaurant is a family-owned open-air affair situated right on the beach. Tables are steps from the water. The atmosphere is wonderfully relaxed; this is the place to arrive a bit before sunset, dig your toes into the sand and kick back with a beer while ordering this and that a little bit at a time, so that your meal unfolds leisurely over a few hours.

Every meal begins with a complimetary appetizer: shrimp paste mixed with grated coconut meat, garlic and chilies that's smeared on a coconut shell and grilled over charcoal. The dip is pungently fishy, sweet and salty and goes brilliantly with fresh leaves and veggies served alongside.

The menu has a Local Dishes section -- range around there when you order. Some of the staff speak English, so feel free to ask for recommendations. You never know what might be in season --- like bplaa likun, anchovy-like fish that the kitchen fries to a fantastic crackly crisp. Dunked in lime soured gingery chili sauce, they make a wonderful beer snack. Also ask after bai ngiah, a delicious dark green leaf cooked with egg. (See the opening photo for these two dishes.)

Another appetite rouser: sliced sour green mango served with a hae koh-like sweetened shrimp paste with chunks of dried shrimp (another island-produced ingredient) and plenty of chilies. Lovers of dishes like Penang-style rojak and Filipino green mango with bagoong will especially enjoy this tart-sweet-spicy-salty flavor bomb of a combination.

Another special-to-Samui ingredient is waay, small octopus that are eaten fresh in season and dried every season. September is not waay fishing season, but our chef friend told us that at certain times of the year the ocean view from Takho Bangpo's tables includes hundreds of waay strung to dry on lines suspended above the sea. Tom waay is a soup-stew of dried or fresh waay simmered with lemon grass in coconut milk. The coconut milk on Samui is incredibly creamy -- this was a filling but fantastic dish.

Our Spanish chef friend doesn't eat mussels on Samui -- they can't compare to what he gets at home, he says. We understand. But live in a fresh mussel desert, and so when Dave and I returned to Takho we ordered the local green lipped mussels simply steamed with basil and garlic. Lovely, lovely -- though maybe not to you if you are a regular eater of mussels in, say, Tasmania, northern California, or France.

Other notable dishes at Takho: bpuu phat kari, big chunks of shelled crab meat cooked with onions and Chinese chives in a light, light coconut-free curry sauce; sataw -- also known as petai or "stink beans" -- stir-fried with prawns and just a hint of coconut cream; and butterflied raw prawns on a bed of slivered fresh cabbage, thin slices of bitter melon and whole chilies. The latter dish, the raw prawns, are served with the same tart-gingery dipping sauce as the deep-fried tiny fish. Our chef friend showed us how to eat them: in a spoon, lay a bit of cabbage, then a slice of bitter melon, then a prawn and, if you dare, a chili. Dribble on a bit of dipping sauce and pop the whole thing in your mouth. Bitter, sour, crunchy, soft, the super-fresh raw prawn playing off the ginger and lime -- wonderful.

In Bang Po, on the sea side of the road, amongst a string of eateries and a little bit east of a cafe/bar called 4 Monkeys (also recommended, for a beer at sunset on its rear deck). Look for the faded portrait of the restaurant's founder above the door. Walk in, proceed past the kitchen and exit at the tables on the beach.

Tuna Burger

Our Takho Bangpo guide Alex is Head Chef at the Four Seasons. Resort restaurants aren't our usual hangouts, but we would gladly return again and again to Pla Pla restaurant for Alex's tuna burger. We are Americans, so perhaps burgers hold a special place in our hearts. This thick patty of coarsely hand-chopped fresh white tuna cooked medium-rare (still pink in the middle), smeared with a sort of mayo-tartar sauce and a sweet-spicy sambal-like caramelized onion-tomato-chili sauce on an absolutely *perfect* -- in texture, in flavor, in density -- bun filled a void that's existed in my soul since I ate my last proper hamburger a few years ago.

It is a seriously delicious sandwich, easily one of our best bites that week. That the hefty "fries" alongside are also spot-on is a bonus. 

Homemade kanom

This is tricky, because I don't have an address, or even a street name, for this tiny family-owned shop selling homemade kanom (sweets) from about 5:30 am until they run out, usually by 9am. It's in Nathon, Samui's capital. If you're heading south from Bang Po or Laem Yai, keep your eyes out for an old-style double-story weathered timber shop house with Chinese characters on the LEFT side of the road once you hit town. (There aren't many left, so you should be able to spot it if you watch carefully.) If you stand in front of that shop the side lane kitty corner that terminates at the water is the street you want. The shop will be on your left side, and you'll know it because the kanom are displayed on tables right out front. 

This is the place for coconut sticky rice -- yellow, black or white -- sai gong (with sweetened ground dried shrimp, here zesty with a healthy dose of black pepper), or with sankaya (egg and coconut milk custard), or mango or thick shreds of coconut meat that have been cooked with palm sugar. It's also the place for other sweet deliciousness, like these steamed double-layer dumplings of coconut and palm sugar encased in chewy palm sugar-flavored glutinous rice, which itself is encased in a soft shell of coconut cream,

or these dumplings of coconut-scented sticky rice wrapped around a variety of banana that goes pink and soft when steamed and tastes like a cross between a banana, pineapple and strawberry.

Finally, a couple spots for which we have no photos, but that deserve mention nonetheless:

Sweet Sisters

Opened by, well, Samui sisters not too long ago, this friendly restaurant on the south side of the island serves Thai home cooking and a few western specialties. The emphasis is on natural foods and superior ingredients and presentations are cleaned up in comparison to your average Thai restaurant. But the sister in the kitchen doesn't dumb down flavors, and if you ask for it spicy you will get it spicy. Flavors are intense here; everything tastes fresh and as if it were made with care. It is, because everything's made to order. There's a menu and daily specials on a blackboard.

We enjoyed a fish laab with a riot of fresh, fresh herbs and lots of crispy fried garlic, a turmeric, galangal and lemongrass chicken soup with an incredibly depth of flavor, and a southern Thai-specific wild green stir-fried with garlic. There were other dishes, but alas I was a bit peaked that night and took no notes. I do know that that soup got me back on my feet, and Dave was raving about his meal for days. I wish that we'd had an opportunity to return.

Just go. The restaurant is on the south side of the island, just about where route 4170 meets 4173, on the same side of the road (but opposite corner to) the 7-Eleven. 11am-9pm, off day is Wednesday. And the phone number is 66-864/708-631.

Haad Bang Pho

Our second night food crawl ended at this restaurant about 5 minutes south by car from Takho Bang Po. Like Takho, it's open-air and casual, tables on the sand, with a friendly staff headed by an impressively dreadlocked Thai dude.

We ordered raw shrimp dressed with garlic and fish sauce and chilies and "cooked" in lime juice (superb), bplaa kapong ng manaow -- black snapper (I think) steamed with lime (excellent) and green curry with chicken which, though a bit sweet for my taste, was rich and fragrant with lemongrass. There was also gai nam prik pao, chicken stir-fried in sweet-hot chili paste which, while very good, paled in comparison to all of the lovely seafood we ate that night.

 

Markets, Not in Living Color

We've been away. Literally and figuratively. It's not been a great 6 weeks. And we've had distractions.

I am digging out and getting caught up and firing up some brand new posts for this here blog. In the meantime, I thought I'd link -- for those of you not following Dave or I on Twitter or EatingAsia on Facebook -- to a series of food photos on Dave's photography blog.

Everyone loves markets, right? We love the hustle, the bustle, the overwhelming colorful beauty of them.

But as Dave shows with this series of photos, markets are gorgeous in black and white too. Maybe even more so, without the distraction of color. Have a look for yourself and see. That shot up top? It's going on our kitchen wall.

If you're hungry for more B&W food images from Asia, check out Dave's Photoshelter gallery, here.

(Worth noting, because it's getting to be that time of year: every image in that B&W gallery and in Dave's other galleries on Photoshelter, and on his blog and on this one, and that you might have seen in stories he's photographed for publications such as the New York Times, Saveur and Australia's SBS Feast, are available for purchase.)

 

Why You Grill (or Roast) Eggplants

So that when, on a hot and sticky summer evening after a long work day, when you've little time or inclination to cook but don't want popcorn for dinner (again), you can pull a few out of the fridge -- having stowed those grilled eggplants away as leftovers in a covered container (a week or less ago) -- and lay them on a cutting board and slice them, peel and all, lengthwise and then rock your knife or cleaver crosswise through those wide strips for about a minute, back and forth back and forth -- slow and easy, it's a form of meditation, really -- until they're reduced to a rough puree, and put them in a bowl and stir in a few spoonfuls of thick Greek-style yogurt and a dab of garlic squashed and mashed under that same knife with salt until reduced to a paste, and squeeze over some lemon juice and of lemon juice and stir it healthily, briskly.

So that you can spread some ground lamb or a mix of ground lamb and beef on another cutting board, into a flattened rectangle, and sprinkle over half a minced onion and a fistful of chopped parsley and more salt and plenty of Turkish-style crushed red chili (or any crushed red chili, really) and maybe some fragrant dried mint and a few tablespoons of cooked bulgur and do that rocking-chopping thing again over the meat rectangle, east to west and north to south, and then fold the rectangle in on itself as if you were making layered pastry, top to botton and right to left and then rock-chop it all again, slowly, and fold it in again and rock-chop it again (all the while knowing that you're doing this because if you take the quick way out and zap it in a food processor the meat will become bouncy and anyway the processor isn't faster anyway because you won't have to assemble/deassemble/wash/reassemble the bowl and its parts) --but also because this is also a form of meditation, meditation over meat and cutting board -- and then divide the meat and spices it into squash balls or tennis balls (depending on how much patience you have for molding balls into fissure-free patties), and wet your hands and gently, ever so gently, pat the balls into discs.

So that you can heat a skillet (a non-stick skillet if you don't want to fiddle with stickiness or have a general fear of browing meat) and slick it with a little olive oil and heat the oil to sizzling and slide in the patties and listen to your stomach rumble as they pop and sputter and brown in the skillet and send up a meaty, slightly exotic-smelling (yes, exotic, there's no other word for it even if you do hate how the word is so often used) cloud and revel in the sense of accomplishment that a perfectly seared piece of meat can give almost any cook, and then lay them on the bed of eggplant-yogurt shmear that you've spread on a plate next to an unruly mound of salad greens and dribble the pan juices over the lot, forming a ruby red necklace that pops from the lightish green of the eggplant.

So that you can squeeze a piece of lemon over it all and alternate mouthfulls of the cool, silky eggplant with warm spicy meat, crispy greens (you prefer a touch of bitter from the addition of a leaf such as radicchio or arugala) and the fresh acidic bite of the lemon, and marvel at the tenderness of the kofte -- they are, in a way, kofte -- beneath their crispy golden exterior -- not to mention the fact that you've just thrown together what is honestly a pretty princely (darned impressive, even) -- meal in under 30 minutes.

[I usually roast, rather than grill my eggplants, a dozen or so at a time. Prick all over with a fork, rub with olive oil, bake in a 350/180 oven for 45 minutes to an hour, turning a few times, till they're absolutely soft. Works with small round Indian or long Asian eggplants. And sometimes I add a tablespoon -- not more, because then it all becomes too rich -- of tahini/sesame paste to the eggplant mix. Consider the dish a bastardized hünkar beğendi or ali nazik.]