Sally in Istanbul: Meyhane

Last night I went to a student's birthday party which was held at a meyhane. A meyhane is a place in Turkey and maybe nearby regions that serves a lot of alcohol and mezes, or appetizers. At the place I went to, there was a 3 person band and a singer, and later a bellydancer came. It was a lot more fun than I was expecting, and the students really wanted Sinan to come so I brought him along, and he admits he had more fun than he was expecting as well. You can't be in a rush at a meyhane. We probably started eating the plate of mezes at 9ish, as well as some salad. They keep bringing alcohol and people are dancing. Then the waiter slowly makes rounds around the table leaving a piece of hot food, like a sausage, or a fish stick. And you drink more and dance more. Then the real food arrives, at probably 11ish. While the appetizers were good, the real food was nothing to brag about, but it doesn't matter. Then we waited for the cake so we didn't leave until probably 12:30ish. Because you are drinking the alcohol while eating food, you don't get too carried away but unfortunately my body wasn't very used to it, and at the early morning things were exploding from both ends of my body. But it was worth it. It was fun to be with the students in this setting, they really enjoyed meeting Sinan, they liked trying to teach me to dance (it's like teaching a robot or statue to dance), and to have such a Turkish experience. It's certainly not something one (or at least I) could do every weekend, that's for sure!

The plate of mezes, or appetizers. Starting at the top there is kisir, which is a delicious cold bulgur salad with green onions, then a thick garlicy and dill yogurt sauce, then stuffed pepper, cucumber, tomato, nice sharp white cheese, black eyed peas (I didn't know they were common here!), a lentil meatball (no meat though), a potato salad, and "American salad" which is like carrots, peas, pickles with a mayonnaise (and maybe yogurt?) sauce. In the middle was an excellent eggplant and tomato garlicy sauce. Ahh everything was so good!

A pretty AND delicious salad.

Me with the birthday girl in the middle, and Aylin, who (whom?) you might recognize from other outings I've been on.

Here's a video of the singer. I really didn't expect his voice to sound like it did. The music isn't really favored by our generation but in this setting and atmosphere it was okay.

Here are some people at our table.