According to One who Knows, food in Turkey is all about the salad. The meat is good, but a bit same-old, same-old after a while. The really exciting thing is the salad, made from ultra-fresh fruit and vegetables, grown full of flavour under the Mediterranean sun.
Here in Dalston, it's all about the meat. Our nearest restaurant is luckily also one of the best. Mangal 1, so-called to distinguish it from its younger but bigger brother round the corner, Mangal 2, is named for the Turkish barbecue that forms its centrepiece and its main cooking style.
We went there on impulse this evening and were lucky enough to be seated immediately. This had the disadvantage that we were rushed past the list of meats available to be grilled - no such frills as menus in Mangal.
When asked to order, we looked blank, so the long-suffering waiter said 'Would you like a mixed grill to share?' In order to show some independence and originality of thought, we bravely asked for aubergine to start with.
Anywhere else, just asking for aubergine would be a bit strange. Here it brought us a plate covered with a beautiful hot mush of smokey aubergine and roasted peppers, brightly spiced and salted, with a blob of sour cream to provide smooth bass notes.
I foolishly asked for more of the hot Turkish bread to mop it up with after we finished the first basket.
Foolish only because the starter, which would have done me quite happily as a light supper, was followed by a plate with approximately half a lamb, several small birds and delicious meat-juice-soaked flatbread. After we had resigned ourselves to spending the rest of the evening chomping our way through a wall of protein, a huge plate of salad was put down in the only remaining space on the table.
The salad was nice enough - grated carrot, rocket, shredded red cabbage, small chunks of white turnip (bear with me here) and other vegs chopped up and a little salad oil poured over them.
But the meat! Oh, the meat! I am used to meat here in the UK being tender but not particularly flavourful, especially the lamb. In Mangal, every mouthful is savoury, juicy, just resisting enough to the bite to give a satisfying mouthful.
After about ten minutes (one lamb chop, a chicken wing and several bits of shish kebab), the waiter returned with two enormous adana kofte, long tubes of spicy minced lamb, delicious but slightly obscene looking.
Luckily they seem quite used to effete eaters who are unable to cope with this bounty, and volunteered to put the remains of both grill and salad in a box, so our meals for the next three days are sorted.
