Text 5152, 78 rader
Skriven 2010-12-22 07:21:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: victorian 912
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The weather had turned gorgeous by the time we reconnected
with our friends for the tram trip across the Golden Horn
bridge to Kabatas and the sunny mile-long waterside walk
to Dolmabahce Palace, the last home of the last sultan and the
home (and death site) of the first prime minister, Kemal
Ataturk. It exemplifies 19th century grandeur a l'Europeenne
and, though enormous and opulent and though it gets great
notices (and came highly recommended by some tourists we
met at Topkapi), is just another palace only bigger. The
tour takes you through the harem and then the state chambers
- culminating in the great hall, with its, if I heard right,
second largest crystal chandelier in the world, gift of
Queen Victoria herself. Okay, it was interesting in its way,
but I'd just as soon have been looking out across the
Bosporus in the golden sunlight.

We did stay until approximately closing time; bade our
friends goodbye; and walked back to Besiktas to see if there
were any appropriate ferries we could take for an obligatory
trip on the strait (no); and in addition we were caught up
in the crowd of a Walk for the Cure event. So we skedaddled
out of there and took a bus to Aksaray, a more faceless part
of town, slightly dingy but getting nicer but still faceless
as you walked back toward the Bazaar and Sultanahmet. So we
cut over and found the fish restaurant district ... but Lilli
isn't fond of fish, and there were only the two of us, and I
like sharing meals and this is a tourist-trappy constructed
attraction if I ever saw one, anyhow, so after poking our
nose in a few places (where we were almost bowled over by
maitres d' looking for a sale) we went back toward the
hotel. Luckily, it didn't get dark until we were at the
little park near home, so I didn't fall into a hole or get
run over by a taxicab.

For dinner we ended up at a place a few blocks from the
hotel that we'd been chased from once before by a
particularly repellantly oily tout; but this time beer,
hard to come by in this old conservative neighborhood,
called louder than the tout, so we dined at the Koy
Sofrasi (Sef: Davut Urey - sounds kind of Jewish).

What was characterized as a Big Beer came as a small Efes
glass filled to the brim, so sort of 0.4L as opposed to the
0.33L of a small one or the 0.5L of a proper big one. I
wasn't complaining, as I had good company and the prospect of
a good meal. The menu had no English or European language, odd
for a restaurant that was working hard for tourist Euros; and
our proprietor/waiter had little of any of these, though the
few other people hanging around the restaurant were gabbling
on in some Germanoid tongue about how terrific the food was.
I was immediately suspicious of these people (shills?), but
in fact the food was perfectly fine and the prices decent.

As we were seated at the front, we could keep abreast of the
indefatigable efforts of that same tout; it was vaguely
amusing that this person was sufficiently obnoxious and
unskilled that he scared away all the potential diners
he approached. Eventually the proprietor too over, but
even with his more sedate extollings of the wonders of
the menu, he was not substantially more successful in
encouraging custom.

Lilli had the ground veal kebab, which came with a salad
and an intriguing kamut pilaf. My eggplant and lamb was a
vegetable stew with a very scanty amount of lamb - plenty
of tomatoes, onions, and olive oil gave it flavor, and it
was very good despite the dearth of meat.

Baklava, which we split, was light on the nuts (bad) but
light on the syrup (good).

We were tempted by after-dinner drinks and coffee, but there
was still a liter of Marmara beer to be consumed back at our
place, and so to bed.

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