Turkish Breakfast Review - Saade Kahvaltı

I read about Saade Kahvaltı in the August issue of Time Out Istanbul. Ever on the lookout for a new breakfast place, I made a date with R for breakfast last Saturday. Saade Kahvaltı is located at the Darussaade Hotel in Sultanahmet near the Arasta Bazaar.

Because it doesn't seem possible for to provide full/helpful information on Turkish websites, nowhere on the hotel website or Time Out article listed Saade Kahvaltı opening times, reservation needs etc. So we went on the information provided on Zomato.com - which turned out to be wrong. According to Zomato Saade opens at 10:00 (nope, it's at 11:00) and they do not take reservations (incorrect-reservations required). However because we'd trekked there, getting lost several times, the lovely staff arranged for us to have the breakfast in their ground floor cafe while they set up the terrace.

We followed some very bad Google Map directions, getting lost at least three times before we found Darussaade Hotel but it was entirely worth the trek. So much so that R and I, this time accompanied by E&M, made a reservation and went back the next weekend.

The price is a little steep at 40 TL/person (not including drinks or extras like eggs) but for what you get it's a fantastic value. All of Saade's products are organic and come from across Turkey. Many things, like the cheese blended with nuts and herbs and cheese blended with peppers are made in house. Everything is incredibly fresh and delicious. The tomato paste is some of the best I've ever had, the Tulum cheese is sharp and delicious, and even I, raw tomato-hater that I am, fought over the fresh tomato and pumpkin seed salad.

My personal favorite dish is the soft white cheese topped with diced plums. The sweet-tangy combination is gorgeous. Even the seemingly never ending fresh bread was some of the best we've ever had at a Turkish breakfast cafe.

It was much easier to find Saade the second time around as they kindly sent me directions on What's App that were easy to follow. Basically, if you're facing the Blue Mosque, go down the road [that runs in front of the mosque] to the left. Turn right in front of the Blue House Hotel, then the first left, then the first right. At the end of that street you'll see the pale purple Darussaade Hotel.

E said she thinks this is hands down the best Turkish breakfast she's had here. I don't think she's wrong. The food alone was amazing but coupled with the terrace view overlooking the Bosphorus on one side and the iconic Blue Mosque on the other...yes. We will go back to this place and take everyone. Saade Kahvaltı is not to be missed.

Saadde Kahvaltı (make a reservation!)
Darussaade Hotel
Sultanahmet Mahallesi
Akbıyık Caddesi 90
+90 212 518 3636

Turkish Breakfast Review - Kahvedan

Today we're having breakfast at one of my favorite Cihangir restaurants - Kahvedan. I'm sorry to say that right from the out I was a little disappointed.

Kahvedan features a very extensive menu that includes typical Turkish dishes as well as pretty decent falafel,  pad thai, and pork chops. Yes, pork chops. The breakfast options are also quite extensive offering traditional Turkish breakfast plates, a variety of eggs, pancakes, and toasts. And there's bacon.

My friend R and I both went for bacon options, naturally with home getting bacon sahanda (fried eggs) and me taking a chance on yet another restaurant's eggs Benedict. What is my obsession with eggs Benedict? I don't really know but if its on a breakfast menu I invariably order it.

For a Sunday afternoon Kahvedan wasn't overly busy. Most of the outdoor tables were full but there were only maybe one or two tables filled inside. So why did we have to wait so long for our eggs? My eggs were actually slightly less than warm. I considered sending them back but it took so long to get them to begin with that I decided against it. I wonder if sending them back would have resulted in them being better or worse than they were? The English Muffins under the eggs were so touch and obviously stale that I had a hard time cutting them with a knife. I had to deconstruct the Benedict a little so the yolks could soak into the bread in hopes of softening it a little (didn't work). 

For all that, the eggs Benedict still tasted pretty good and R was happy with his eggs and bacon as well. Considering how good all my other experiences at Kahvedan have been I choose to view this as a fluke. Everyone gets and off day, right? And Kahvedan still has the best damn mint lemonade (I've found) in Istanbul.

Overall I heartily recommend Kahvedan for any meal of the day. If you go for lunch or dinner though get the Çökertme - trust me, you'll thank me!

Kahvedan
Akarsu Caddesi No 38
Cihangir, Beyoğlu
Istanbul

Turkish Breakfast Review - Aşşk Kahve

Getting a late start on this week's breakfast review because I completely forgot that it was Monday! Either the heat and humidity have finally succeeded in melting my brain or I haven't had enough coffee yet.

Speaking of coffee...Saturday morning M and I ventured up the Bosphorus to Kuruçeşme to try the highly reviewed Aşşk Kahve. While traffic along the Bosphorus road is usually a nightmare Saturday and Sunday mornings it's clear sailing. I think we may have waited for the 42T in Taksim longer than we were actually on it.

Aşk is the Turkish word for 'love', so aşşk is kind of like saying 'loove' and when we first arrived at the cafe I was ready to be in love with it. It's in a beautiful garden, sits right on the water, and is decorated with bright colors. It was a nice breezy day so sitting on the water was a very relaxing and refreshing change from my stuffy oven of an apartment.

Aşşk Kahve gives you the option of building your own breakfast platter offering all it's cheeses and spreads individually. Instead of doing that though M and I went for egg dishes, although of course with an order of bal kaymak on the side because life should always have bal kaymak!

Our drinks, the bal kaymak, and a bag of mixed breads came out pretty quickly making a favorable first impression. The portion of kaymak was quite generous and I really loved that it not only came with honey on it already but that they brought us a bottle of extra honey (of which I made judicious use!). My latte was only meh but M said his Americano was good. We were slightly horrified that his small orange juice cost 12.50 TL but whatever it was I paid for my passion fruit lemonade was well worth it.

Both of us paid the extra fee to have real ham with our eggs. M's choice was sunny side up eggs with ham and potatoes while I went for the Eggs Benedict. He quite enjoyed his order but I had mixed, leaning toward negative, feelings about my order. The salad and potatoes served on the side were better than the eggs themselves. While the dish looked promising the bechamel had virtually no flavor. Fail.

While we started out with great service it quickly took a huge nose dive. Yes the cafe was super busy but we also saw a lot of waiters avoiding eye contact with people and wandering around aimlessly in an attempt to look busy. It took M several minutes to flag down a waiter to order a water and when we were finally able to get someone's attention to ask for the bill it took another 15 minutes to come.

We both left with mixed feelings but in the end I think we decided that, while we wouldn't go back for the food, we would go back (especially on a weekday when it would theoretically be slower) for a drink and to sit in the garden by the water. Seriously it's worth the trip for the lemonade which comes in multiple flavors aside from the passion fruit (I'm addicted to anything passion fruit flavored); but for breakfast...meh. I've had better.

Aşşk Kahve (right next to the Macro Center)
Kuruçeşme Mahallesi, Muallim Naci Caddesi, No 64/B 
Beşiktaş, İstanbul

Turkish Breakfast Review - Marmelat

Last Monday I had a mission. Well it was something of a dual mission: 1. Go to CherryBean Coffees to replenish my coffee bean stock and 2. Have breakfast at CherryBean's neighbor cafe Marmelat. I've been walking by this bright cafe for months now when I go next door for my caffeine mix and last week M and I went in to try them out.

Service was a little slow and they didn't have everything listed on the menu in stock-but it was still a pretty hearty thumbs up from the two of us. Marmelat offers traditional Turkish breakfast foods-no pancakes, paleo anything, or eggs benedict here-the difference between Marmelat and all the other Turkish breakfast places though is that they offer you a choice.

For 25TL you get Marmelat's breakfast plate and get to choose! three cheeses, two meats, two marmalades, and two olives and it comes with a boiled eggs, tea for two, and tomatoes and cucumbers. We also ordered sucuklu menemen which was very good, and a side of cigara borek (they were out of the pachanga).

Everything was excellent but we were most impressed with the marmalades-which apparently you can buy from the cafe! We chose raspberry and quince with clove and I will be back to buy them both. Often store-brand jams and marmalade are sweeter than candy. Marmelat's were gorgeous. We were full from breakfast but asked for more bread anyway because we couldn't leave the jams lying.

Thumbs up for Marmelat-well worth the visit. And after you've stuffed yourself with breakfast you can go next door to Cherrybean for a great coffee.

Marmelat (near the Galata Tower)
Bereketzade, Camekan Sk. No:8 
34421 Beyoğlu

Turkish Breakfast Review - Kırıntı

Last weekend to met my lovely friend S for brunch I ventured up to Bebek. I so rarely go to Bebek because the traffic is a nightmare but apparently everyone is still abed at 10AM on a Saturday and it took barely a blink of an eye to get there. Since I'd given myself more than an hour to get there I was early and used the opportunity to take in the gorgeous sea air with a walk along the Bebek shore.

In order to meet S I had to backtrack - no hardship since it was along the same boardwalk! Or what would be a boardwalk if it weren't made out of concrete. I digress...Kırıntı is located almost exactly across the street from the Bebek bus stop so you really cannot miss it. It's a spacious restaurant with lots of room inside and out. We started in the garden until the mother of all storms (pouring rain, thunder, lightening, and hail!) drove us inside.

The extensive menu, which also doubles as a magazine, could keep a person busy for hours. On weekends they serve breakfast until late afternoon so while the French Dip sandwich alluringly called my name I was set on breakfast. Now that I know Saturday morning traffic isn't terrible I'm far more willing to go back another weekend for the sandwich!

I must be a little homesick because I chose pancakes. Kırıntı's pancakes, accompanied by a small variety of fruit, nutella, honey, and maple syrup were decent but not as good as the ones Cuppa is serving up. S and I also also shared a blue cheese omelette and a salad of fresh tomatoes, green peppers and chilies, and black olives.

I cannot yet speak for the nonbreakfast food items but with it's great location near the Bosphorus, really friendly staff, and good breakfast foods, Kırıntı gets a good star from me.

Kırıntı
Cevdet Paşa Caddesi 35
Bebek

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

Turkish Breakfast Review - Cuppa

With my breakfasting partner back in Turkey we took advantage of the beautiful weather this fine Monday morning to meet and try yet a new place for breakfast. I am determined to exhaust all the cafes and restaurants with breakfast options in my own Cihangir so this morning we went to Cuppa.

Cuppa is a charming cafe/bakery located in the heart of Cihangir where it share space with the Depo Dance club/studio. While its outdoor seating options are limited to three tiny tables (sidewalk space on this street not being overly generous) the inside of the cafe is spacious and offers quite a number of tables with not uncomfortable wood chairs and padded benches.

Unfortunately, especially for a place called Cuppa, the coffee did not leave a particularly good impression. My latte (which came majorly foamed and was therefore more of a cappuccino), tasted like mildly flavored hot milk more than it did like coffee. When I asked about his Americano M hit the nail on the head and said that the coffee is average-it's fine for drinking with breakfast but he wouldn't go in the afternoon to enjoy a cup of coffee. The food more than made up for the not so good coffee though.

Cuppa has a pretty varied breakfast menu: traditional Turkish breakfast plates, toasts, a variety of eggs (benedict, mememen, fried), pancakes, yogurt, granola, etc. You can also order REAL bacon, not just with eggs but as a side dish! This is fantastically exciting. It's madly expensive, 18 TL (about $6.30) for two pieces, but you can get it.

The Spanish omelette was lovely; the potatoes used in it had been nicely fried and browned. For me though the real star of this morning's breakfast was the pancakes. We got two generously sized pancakes sprinkled with confectioner's sugar, topped with strawberries, kiwi, and bananas and with Nutella on the side. They were amazing. Light and fluffy and I could taste the buttermilk. I was craving pancakes all last week and these totally hit the spot.

I will definitely be visiting Cuppa again. For one thing I seem to have an obsession these days with eggs benedict, for another Cuppa offers real bacon (even though it is rather pricey).  And unlike so many places which offer breakfast but don't open until 9:30-10, Cuppa opens at 8 AM. I'm not saying I'd be there that early, I rarely get out of bed before 8 or 9, but it's nice to know I could go that early if I so desired.

Cuppa
Yeni Yuva Sokak No. 22
Cihangir, Beyoglu 
Istanbul
+90 212 245 4482

Turkish Breakfast Review - Journey

M and I attempted to breakfast at Pell's Cafe on Thursday but it seems to have disappeared. So on a recommendation from his neighbors we went to Chigangir's popular Journey. (I've never experienced anything like E&M's building-at least half of the neighbors are friends and they all hang out all the time.) I haven't been to Journey in years and then not for breakfast so I was excited to try.

I was a little taken aback when I received my latte. I knew going in that Journey was a bit hipster (Have you seen what hipsters do to food?! They need to be stopped!) even so my eyebrow went way up when I received my deconstructed latte. I had to swallow my sarcastic remarks in the end though because this was one of the best lattes I've had here. No one in Turkey seems to get the difference between a latte and a cappuccino; the only real difference between them here is that the latte might be served in a tall glass. Journey gets major points for theirs though which essentially was a couple shots of espresso served with hot (but not foamed!) milk on the side. I had two.

M and I split the paleo breakfast and the buckwheat pancakes. Hipster ahoy. The paleo breakfast was a little weird but had some good offerings: a slice of walnut bread, olives, butter, pesto, walnuts, brie, avocado slices, REAL bacon!, and arugula with lemon.

It also came with a fried egg with spinach and porcini mushrooms. That was so yummy. So, so yummy. As was the bacon. Real bacon.

The pancake plate was also pretty nice. Five mini pancakes with slices of orange, pear, strawberries, bananas, and grapes with kaymak and maple syrup. Buckwheat is not my favorite pancake flavor but they weren't too strong and with a dollop of kaymak and strawberries there really were quite nice.

Journey has a pretty extensive breakfast menu and a really nice, relaxed atmosphere. Definite thumbs up for the breakfast and the coffee! I will be back. I wonder if they'd give me a side of bacon with my next breakfast order?

Journey
Kılıçalipaşa Mah. Akarsu Cad. No: 21-A
Cihangir, Beyoğlu

Turkish Breakfast Review - Forno

A few months ago I met a work contact for breakfast in Balat. I don't often go to Balat and really wanted to take pictures for a breakfast review but also didn't want to be that weird person taking pictures of her food. However I totally can be that weird person around my friends who have, by and large, already accepted that I am weird. Since spring has finally arrived in Istanbul I dragged M to Balat Saturday morning for breakfast and exploration.

Once we got to Balat on the Golden Horn, which is the new new hipster neighborhood it took me a few minutes to find my way back to Forno. However in those few minutes we realized that Balat is not lacking for breakfast places! It is quite the opposite actually as there's a new, and often quite colorful, cafe every few meters. I see many a field trip to Balat in our future.

Forno is well-known for its pide, however its breakfast isn't too shabby either. For 35TL you get access to a full breakfast buffet, fried eggs of your choice (M had eggs with cheese, I got them with roasted meat), and unlimited tea. Of course they also offer a variety of coffee options. The breakfast buffet is pretty amazing: simit, bread, croissants, su borek, five different cheeses, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, tomato paste, olive paste, kaymak, honey, jams, and fruit yogurt.

Forno is small, just a few tables, and while there were staff a plenty service was a little iffy Saturday morning. M ordered a filter coffee that didn't arrive until 10-12 minutes after he ordered it and after we'd asked for it a second time. His second coffee took nearly as long to get which, considering they seem to be using a pod coffee maker, there really just isn't an excuse for that.

Iffy service aside, the food is great. The eggs were tasty and the buffet offerings certainly above standard. M and I were enamored of the yogurt which was like the kitchen sink of yogurts with apples, pears, strawberries, orange peel, and honey all thrown into the mix. We had several helpings. While this is just my first foray into breakfasting in Balat I would definitely recommend Forno.

Forno
Fener Kireçhane Sk. No:13
Balat, Fatih