An extra email just for fun.
Ru
Doramac
Fast Food and Silly Shopping Stories
Linda Levy being Linda Levy
This picture was taken on Marmaris waterfront but seems an appropriate illustration for this story. . Marmaris Yacht Marina is about a 30 minute bus ride from the waterfront up the bay.
Randal, Linda and I went into town Monday for groceries. We made a few stops and then ate at our favorite chicken wrap stand before going on to the Tansas Supermarket
We always pick the Pilav Ustu Doner for 4 TL or $2.60 US
The “chef” presses a big wood spoon against the chicken and then cuts off paper thin pieces of chicken as it rotates. (A doner kebap “a revolving kebap” on a vertical spit with slices of lamb, beef, or chicken cut off as the outer layer cooks. Or so it says in my Berlitz Istanbul guide. ) Then piles of chicken, lettuce tomato, onion, chili sauce and ketchup and mayonnaise are rolled into a thin slightly fried crispy pita bread wrap. Randal and I skip the mayo and ketchup but Linda and Michael go for it all. The doner for 2.5 TL is cheaper, but has less chicken and a different bigger type of bread.
This stand is directly across the way but we never eat there.
Once you pick a place you have to stick to it because it would be awkward to eat across the street from your regular place, if you know what I mean. Maybe this guy makes great wraps but we’ll probably never know.
Turkish Fast Food
There was an article in Monday’s English language newspaper, Daily News about fast food in Turkey. “Domestic fast-food chains, new to Turkey just 15 years ago, are now increasingly strong competitors to foreign chains due to their offerings of traditional tastes, their low investment costs and their experience with economic crisis. ….. Some foreign brands such as South Africa’s Nando’s, global ice-cream chain Baskin-Robbins, the Hard Rock Café and the sandwich shop Quiznos, all of which entered the Turkish market with great expectations, have now withdrawn or are withdrawing from the market one by one. ….(Wendy’s and 7-Eleven were mentioned as withdrawing also)…..Simit Sarayi, Kahve Dunyasi, Bay Doner, Citir Usta and Pizza Pizza are the leading domestic chain.
I have no idea what food is served in a place called Kahve Dunyasi or Citir Usta but I’ll find out. There is nothing fancy about the doner kebap stands and the wraps come wrapped in plain paper with no advertising or toys for the kids. Just good food, cheapish. Asian food was cheap; Indian and Turkish fast food is cheapish. Marmaris has a Burger King and a McDonalds. McDonalds always have bathrooms and there is one just where we catch the bus back to the marina. I’ve used their bathroom but we’ve not eaten there yet. When we bought our bus tickets from Pamukkale to Marmaris we were given a “buy one, get one free” coupon from McDonalds. We’ve never seen doner kebap coupons.
I have read about Simit and have maybe eaten one or something similar. It was sweet with seeds and flaky, tasting like it had lots of butter and sugar in it. A simit looks like a cross between a bagel and a pretzel but apparently is not boiled like bagel or pretzels are. A simit is baked.
“Simit is a fast food bread sold in the streets of Turkey by vendors. It is often eaten as a breakfast food with jam or yogurt. Simit is also great by itself!
Simit is light and flaky, baked to a golden brown color, and topped with sesame seeds. It is sometimes formed into rings, and are often braided.” http://mideastfood.about.com/od/breadsrice/r/simitrecipe.htm
Simit seller at the Thursday Market: they are the round things on the right side of the picture.
So now for the silly stories about our trip to the Tansas Supermarket. To prepare for shopping I had worn my big orange backpack. Inside I’d put an extra cloth carrying bag. Randal carried our blue cooler. When we got to the Tansas Supermarket we took a shopping cart and put our big blue cooler into it. Linda also got a shopping cart. Linda and I started, as one does at home at Kroger, with the vegetables and fruit section. Randal went off to explore the meats and whatever. Randal and I met up near where a Tansas clerk was handing out samples of a type of sausage that sort of tastes like baloney. Randal and I had tasted it on a previous visit to the market. We needed find canned tuna, so Randal said, “Leave the cart there and come with me.” I did, and we didn’t find what we needed at first so Randal continued down the aisles looking for the tonbaligi, (canned tuna in Turkish,) and I went back for our cart. Our cart was gone. A cart was near where we had left ours, but it wasn’t our cart. I found Randal and he and I went up and down and all around the whole store until I finally found Linda who was pushing our cart wondering why I had put our blue cooler in her cart. Actually, first I found Linda and then I noticed our blue cooler and then Linda noticed the food in the cart didn’t match her food. It was pretty silly but a relief not to have to start picking out food again to say nothing of losing our cooler. We went back to her cart near the sausage lady. I walked by the sausage lady going one way and knocked off her sliced sausages with my back pack. Next time I passed her I carefully held my pack close to me and knocked off the sausages with my front camera bag/ pocket book. The kind clerk kept saying, “that’s ok, no problem.” And I kept saying SORRY!!! SORRY!!!!! I truly felt trapped in my Lucy persona. If the sausage had tasted good, I would have bought some; but it didn’t. I stayed totally clear of the sausage lady for the rest of the time we spent in the market. Getting boxed milk took me close but I would have left without it if I’d had to pass by the sausage lady again. It truly keeps one humble!