Istanbul Cafe & Homemade Tamales

Another Adventure of MU. M was craving greek food.. and we ended up going to Istanbul Cafe in New Haven (though come to find out it's more Turkish and Eastern Mediterranean foods than Greek.. oh well) we walk in pretty early for dinner around 5:45PM and there's no one in the restaurant except for 1 waiter. weird. oh well fast service :)

Started off with the Soquk Meze (translated at "cool spread") which basically was every possible spread they have available as an appetizer. each one of them soo good! basically the list consists of hummus, eggplant based puree, salsa-like spicy salad (my fave1), spinach yogurt dip, grape leaves stuffed with rice mixture, and carrot salad (M's fave and my second). M and I dipped bread with these spreads and by the time we were done with the appetizer, we were pretty full! I could order this appetizer (maybe a large) and be set for dinner. definitely would get this again :D

For our entrees, I got Iskender Kebab and M got the Tavuk Sis Kebab.

I liked the dish. didn't love love it. the yogurt was warm obviously with the cooked meat next to it. i don't like warm yogurt. it would have been better maybe if the yogurt was given in a separate bowl chilled.  Otherwise the chicken was cooked well and seasoned nicely.

M said she liked the dish, though she only ate like 3 pieces of chicken since she was full from appetizers. we'll plan better next time :)

One weird thing about this place, we were there for about an hour.. on a friday night.. and the entire time, no one else came in to the restaurant.. which is odd because it had really good food.. and as we were walking by other restaurants, they were all jam packed. also, apparently the waiter was a little too attentive and was staring at M uncomfortably for a while. i guess if there's no one else to wait on, gotta pay attention to the one group that's there right? creepy nonetheless.

Istanbul Cafe
245 Crown Street
New Haven, CT 06520


Just so I don't want to post 2 different blogs at the same time...
my dad has some mexican employees, and apparently every saturday, this one guy brings homemade tamales for lunch and sell them to the other guys for $1 a pop. my mom decided to buy some one day and bring them home for me and my bro.  i've never had tamales before.

I took three on my plate.. i only ate 2 because they were really filling and also really spicy.  So good though! i can't really tell what was inside them.. no meat of any kind (i don't think..) but i could definitely recognize the chili pepper in the middle of each one! gah! fire!

 really really good! i need to try and make some tamales myself one day. but until then i'll just get them authentic homemade by my buddy down at the carwash :)