Golden Oldies in Beşiktaş

It's no secret that we love most any restaurant, street stall, or food shop with a history. So it's only natural that we're drawn to Istanbul, a city so filthy rich in edible backstories that we could spend six months roaming, eating, shooting and asking questions, and yet still barely scratch the surface of its culinary history.

Take Beşiktaş, a slice of the city that -- for whatever reason -- seems to be overlooked by visitors. Sited on the European shore two pleasant ferry rides -- or a straight bus or combination tram-and-bus/or taxi journey -- from Eminonu, it's a bustling municipality built up around a sweet little historic center. If you go the ferry route, hop off and follow the crowds across a busy thoroughfare. Quite suddenly, you're in a neighborhood of brick-paved streets winding up and around a hill.

Sure, central Beşiktaş' lanes are lined with their share of tacky pubs and unattractive shop fronts, but the neighborhood's got heart -- in the form of a wonderful little fish market, sitauted at the intersection of several usually pedestrian-only lanes, and a few great eats that have stood the test of, well, more than a century.

Places like Yedi Sekiz Hasan Paşa, for example. This bakery was introduced to us last summer by our Istanbullu friend Evren, whose mother has been making her way to Beşiktaş for its fresh-from-the oven rusks, cookies and breads for as long as he can remember.

We didn't have to taste a single thing to fall for Yedi Sekiz; going on appearance alone, the place is a gem.

    

Enter and you're face to face with a portrait of the bakery's namesake, the generously mustachioed and stern-faced Hasan Pasa. The story goes that in the late 1800s Hasan -- a burly, brave illiterate who used the numbers "7-8" (yedi-sekiz) as his signature -- was tapped by Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid to bring order to the then dangerous, hooligan-ruled streets of Beşiktaş. The Sultan bestowed the military rank of Paşa  (pasha) on the young man, and he did such a bang-up job making the neighborhood safe that he enjoys near-saint status among its residents.

Across the shop from Hasa Pasa's countenance hang portraits of Ataturk, along with an evil eye and other good luck totems. Stretching between the two great men, is a tiled rear wall centered by a massive wood-fired oven.

 

In the middle of the room, warmed by the heat of the wood fire, is a vast terrazzo table covered with metal trays of more varieties of breads and other treats than one sould possibly sample in a single, or even multiple, visits.

More bounty is displayed in the bakery's front window.

With such an overwhelming selection, where to start? We can't highly enough recommend the acı badem, [ah-JUH BAH-dem], intensely flavored, crackly-outside-and-chewy-inside almond cookies reminsicent of Italian amaretti. It took us a few visits before we could even get past these wonders. They aren't available everyday, and don't come out of the oven till early afternoon.

We planned jaunts to  Beşiktaş around Yedi Sekiz' acı badem schedule, and never walked out of the bakery without at least two hundred grams' worth.

Other Yedi Sekiz highlights: coconut macaroons, a bit sweeter than the aci badem but just as deliciously moist,

 

portakalı [por-tah-KAH-luh] -- drier, less chewy biscuits heavily infused with orange flavor -- and tahinli [tah-HEEN-lee], massive, to-die-for coils of sweet flaky pastry layered with the most fragrant sesame paste. On our last trip to Istanbul we packed several of these back to Kuala Lumpur, where they survived very well for a month in our freezer.

Yedi Sekiz also does some lovely hearty breads, like these unsalted multi-grain rolls.

Just around the corner from Yedi Sekiz, a red and white awning says it all: "Kaymak-ful (Kaymak-y) Breakfast Here."

Most often described as Turkish clotted cream, kaymak can be made from cow, buffalo, goat, or sheep's milk. Depending on where you are in Turkey, it varies from thin as pouring cream to loosely solid and molded into thinly layered "cakes". Its a decadent accompaniment to sweets and is also eaten for breakfast -- especially in Van in eastern Turkey, where it's a central component in the gargantuan local breakfast spread.

It's also dangerously addictive.

This shop has been serving "kaymak-ful" breakfasts from its simple storefront breakfasts since 1895. They serve their luscious buffalo milk kaymak (just have a gander at that opening photo), which is made not far from central Istanbul, with a few simple accompaniments -- honey, bread, tomatoes and cucumber, eggs if you like, hot tea or milk.

The goods are served with a smile, and are best enjoyed leisurely at an outdoor table with a bird's-eye view of the comings and goings in old Beşiktaş.

Yedi Sekiz Hasan Pasa, Şehit Asım Caddesi. No 12, Sinanpaşa Mahallesi (neighborhood). Beşiktaş.

The bakery opens around 8:30am and closes in the late evening; the ovens are going all day. Little English is spoken and service can be a bit brusque when the shop is busy, but it's worth girding yourself for a little social discomfort and going for it. Have a good idea of what you want to buy BEFORE you get to the counter. Breads and rolls are purchased by the piece, but biscuits and cookies go by the gram, starting with 100 grams.

Beşiktaş Kaymakci, Koyici Meydani Sokak, Sinanpaşa Mahallesi, Besiktas. Open early in the morning until about 3pm (all-day kaymak-ful breakfasts!).

Comments

[Magda]

I enjoyed reading this post so much. Great photos and kaimaki is the best! So creamy and rich and by far superior to clotted cream.

"portokali" is a Greek word which means orange.

[maya]

Great post! My favorite treat has always been the tahinli corek, specially when you come towards the heart of the "coil" "spiral", there is a concentration of tahin!!, god I miss those so much!! If you guys go back to Istanbul, you should check out the Istinye neighbourhood which is not that far from Besiktas and which has little "firin" that bake my other favorite breakfast item the "zeytinli acma", ok I'll stop hear I'm hungry, and I can't find this stuff in NY! Maya
ps: just a question, I'm moving with the husband and daughter to Beijing in August for 3 years, could you recommend a good cooking school to me if you know any? thank you!!

[Teri Y]

Woah, I will go crazy (in a very very good way) with all those choices of baked goods. Great little historical info on Yedi Sekiz Hasan Pasa. That's what I like about food... with it comes history.

In the last picture, I assume that's the Turkish clotted cream? Is that honey on that same small dish plate? I can only imagine what a terrific combination of tastes it will create.

[Turkey's For Life]

Ooooooh, will look out for this place next time we're in Istanbul (possibly October). Looks lovely. I finished my 8km run in Beşiktaş last October. Wish I'd known about it then. I was starving! :)
Julia

[Meister @ The Nervous Cook]

Wow, everything in this post looks incredible -- that first photo made my mouth water for sure, and I'm just dying to sink my teeth into some of those breads.

What a great photo essay.

[Mesut]

Be careful when you eat kaymak (from water buffalo, no less) and honey. After that, you can climb 10 mt wall without help.

[Lisa in Toronto]

OK adding this to the to-eat list.
Looks absolutely delicious. We will be doing a _lot_ of walking so I am sure we can try kaymak a few times.
Will report when back from Istanbul.
Thanks again for all of the delicious Istanbul food suggestions on your blog!

[Robyn]

Magda, I agree!
Maya, I just **love** the tahinli corek. Probably among my top 10 favorite foods from all our travels around Turkey. Don't know of any cooking schools in Beijing but I do know of an outfit called Hias Gourmet and they might be able to direct you to one. They do off the beaten track food excursions, I think.
Teri - yes, honey is often just served in the same dish as the kaymak, both to spread on bread. In Van, in eastern Turkey, where breakfast is a VERY big deal, it's often honey still on the comb. Incredibly delicious. More about Van breakfast, the kaymak there, and yummy photos here:

http://www.zesterdaily.com/dining/641-turkish-breakfast-club

TFL - oh, wouldn't that have been great after a long run? Keep it in mind.

Thank you Meister!

Mesut - unless you eat it too often, in which case you will be weighed down by all the kilos around your waist! It took me a couple months to lose my Turkey weight after that trip! ;-)

Lisa - go for it! I think you need to walk from Karakoy all the way to Besiktas to burn off the fat in that kaymak though. ;-)

[Janet Upton]

Maya, are you looking for local cooking schools or ones that can teach in English? If the latter, there are several -- Black Sesame Kitchen (run by Jen Lin Liu, you should read her book), The Fig Tree (more western cuisine focused, run by Lin Zhong), and The Hutong also offers a wide variety of cooking classes. I think Eileen Wen Moody may also still be offering cooking classes. I haven't taken any yet, but have heard good things about all. You might also want to join the Beijing Organic Consumers Association group on yahoo -- quite a lot of foodies participate in that and may be able to offer more advice.

[Robyn]

Love it when readers help each other out. Janet, thanks much for responding to Maya's query.

[Efsus]

Hoi Robyn, I saw your blog coincidentally today, when I was jumping from the one blog to another. My English isn’t very well, but I saw first the photograph of kaymak [thank goodness, the language of photograph is universal] :)read suddenly about Beşiktaş.
Nice blog, wish you success.
Just a point to clear: portakallı is with double ‘l’. it’s the -lı suffix in the Turkish language. As the lı of kaymak-lı. And that means with orange. See my portakallı kurabiye http://efsus.org/?cat=6
But we have other words form Greece, like efendi, enginar, cımbız…

[thyme (sarah)]

Robyn, I just wish I could hold on to your shirt tales on one of these trips. The plane $$ are beginning to down a bit and I am hopeful that a trip to Istanbul may happen. We don't speak any Turkish at all (only English/French) so I am a little worried about venturing out of Istanbul. Thanks for walking us through this fabulous bakery. And...I'm taking notes so that we can try that luscious kaimaki.

[Robyn]

Thanks for the comment Sarah! On our first trip to Turkey in '98 I didn't speak a lick of Turkish and we didn't even have a guidebook. After 9 days in Istanbul we rented a car in Izmir and drove south to Bodrum, then east to Konya and south to Antalya. That trip is what inspired me to learn Turkish.
Long story short -- Turks are among the most hospitable folks you could ever hope to meet. You have kids, so of course you may not be as light on your feet as we were on our first trip. But if there is any place in which to put yourself out just a little bit, and let serendipity happen, Turkey is it.
You might think about Ayvalik as a diversion. Not too far from Istanbul, but different, a smallish town, pretty and on the Aegean, and close to the ruins in Pergamum. It would be a nice break from the big city, if you want to see a different side of Turkey.