06 June 2016

Turkish Breakfast Review - Namlı Gurme

It's been a little while since I've had a chance to go out for breakfast so when E&M had some visitors in town I took the opportunity to drag everyone to the famous Namlı Gurme in Karaköy.


Located near the Karaköy waterfront, somewhat ignominiously under a parking structure, Namlı Gurme is a restaurant, charcuterie, and grocery all rolled into one. In addition to the cheeses, meats, and ready-made foods available you can also find all sorts of pickles, honey, tea, jams and spreads of all sorts, etc. ad nauseam.


I've been in a few times but never eaten here and I have to say that the hype was not overstated. The breakfast was pretty darn good. There's not a menu as such but our waiter told us that we could get eggs pretty much any way we wanted in addition to the breakfast plate. When you leave the egg orders to me you're pretty well guaranteed to get my favorite kavurmalı yurmuta (fried eggs with roasted meat). The double portion includes four sunny side eggs with lots of yummy roast beef.


Our waiter suggested that we get the breakfast plate for three since we were ordering two egg dishes (cheese menemen in addition to the kavurmalı yurmuta) which was a welcome suggestion as the breakfast plate was quite large: four different kinds of meat, six cheeses, and a pile of olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Not all the meat was to my taste, American bologna is bad enough but Turkish mystery meat bologna with pistachios was not happening for me.


Of course we also ordered a couple plates of bal kaymak which I was excited to see was served with petek bal, or honey comb.


Two thumbs up for Namlı Gurme! With friendly staff, lots of tea, good food, and relatively decent service this famous institution lives up to its reputation.

Namlı Gurme: (not far from the Karaköy Iskelesi)
Rıhtım Cad. Katotopark 1/1
Karaköy

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