The previous post about fish, bread, and never giving up on food dreams reminded me of something that happened two years ago, during a road trip from Izmir to Antalya in Türkiye. We left our Airbnb early in the morning, eager to start a long day of sightseeing, and skipped breakfast.
“We’ll get something on the way!” one of us must have said.
“The way” turned out to be a narrow, winding rural road occasionally dotted with small village houses. My stomach began to grumble. We were still about an hour from our destination, the ancient Lycian city of Tlos, and it was looking more and more likely we would arrive hungry. I even started to wonder if, somewhere among the Tlos ruins, there might be an ancient café serving hot coffee and breakfast.
Then, as the road curved, we saw something unexpected. A large tin samovar was perched right at the edge of the road, water bubbling over glowing coals, steam billowing into our windshield. I was instantly intrigued. And hungry.
“This has to be a restaurant!” I said.
“There’s no sign or anything to indicate that,” Victor said, glancing toward an ordinary-looking house behind the samovar.
“The samovar is the sign! They didn’t put it out here to let the neighbors know they’re making tea. It’s to invite travelers in!”
We parked and cautiously walked toward the house. I held my camera ready in case it turned out to be a regular family making breakfast, so I could pretend I was just admiring their samovar. But as we got closer, I saw a few tables and benches set under a grapevine-covered gazebo beside the house. It was clearly a small family restaurant, just an empty one.
We waited by the samovar as if it were a hostess stand until a smiling man stepped out of the house and waved us toward the gazebo.
“Tea?” he asked, noticing our fascination with the steaming kettle. We nodded.
“Is there food?” we asked.
“Of course!” he said cheerfully. “Let me just wake up my mother!”
Before we could protest on behalf of his sleeping mother, he disappeared inside.
We sipped the hot tea, introduced ourselves to the family goat, and snacked on fresh tomatoes and olives that the man brought out. Soon, his elderly mother appeared, tucking her hair under a headscarf as she made her way to a large griddle in the corner.
Within moments, she began rolling small balls of dough into impossibly thin circles, using a long wooden dowel. She spread spinach and cheese across the surface, folded the dough in half to form a crescent, pressed the edges together with her fingers, and laid it on the hot griddle. She brushed it with butter, flipped it once, and pulled it off when it turned perfectly golden.
In just a few minutes, we had a warm, crisp flatbread in front of us, filled with melting cheese and fragrant greens — a gözleme. Initially, I wrote “our first gözleme”. But then I realized – I have no idea what number gözleme this was in my life, as we have been to Türkiye several times and probably have had this dish before. But it was certainly the first gözleme that left a deep impression on me.
The best food, in my opinion, does not come from a place with a menu. It’s always a small family place where there's only one thing being served and you know exactly what it is because it's being cooked right in front of you. The only way to order is by holding up a number of fingers to show the number of orders you are placing, or just nod and look hungry. This is how we ate kushari in Egypt, ramen in Japan, pho in Vietnam, pupusas in El Salvador, and many, many tacos in Mexico.
Victor and I often debate which country has the best cuisine, and we’ve had many heated discussions that always leave us hungry. But the truth is – as long as it’s a family recipe cooked by someone’s older relative, it’s going to be the tastiest thing in the world. And at that moment, that wonderful gözleme with strong Turkish tea would have won a Michelin star from me. We finished off the breakfast with a bunch of grapes picked by our host right off the vine for us.
We have a strangely large number of Turkish food posts on this mostly non-food blog, and that should tell you something about how interesting and delicious we find the food of this region. From balık ekmek by the Bosphorus, to sheep head meat wrap in Izmir, to spiced chickpeas everywhere, Turkish cuisine keeps drawing us back - not because it's exotic or complicated, but because it's generous, honest, and so good. If you ever find yourself on a winding road in Türkiye and spot a samovar steaming at the roadside, do yourself a favor: pull over. Go for gözleme. You won't regret it.
