At the end of next week, I'll be moving to Seoul, South Korea where I will undoubtedly continue to write these blogs, updating you with food experiences from the New World. However, what I have for you this evening is an account of the most incredible, sumptuous, delicately fragrant food from the oldest of worlds, biblical in its simplicity but simply complete and excitingly earthy.
Down a back alley off Stoke Newington High Street in London, lies a veritable mecca for fans of Turkish cuisine. Mangal Ocakbasi is an unassuming bring-your-own-booze kebab grill house, which I have absolutely no problem calling my favourite restaurant. In the world. Ever.
The reasons for this are manifold but range from the outstanding quality of the kebabs on offer, to the freshly baked flat bread to the most incredible, smokey Şakşuka, a starter of oily aubergine, tomatoes and onions.
One of the best things about the place though (other than the outrageously cheap prices) is the sense of old-world theatre surrounding it.
This feeling of authentic Trojan drama starts as soon as you walk through the front entrance. As you open the door, an enormous convection chimney sucks the outside air into the room, flinging you into a wall of smoke, primary colours and amazing smells. Once you're sucked safely inside, you walk past the grill and get a view of the enormous kebabs and skewers on offer and sit yourself down with meat on the mind.
On the menu are thirteen different kebabs, mostly chicken or lamb and you can choose minced or cubed meat. As well as the kebabs, there are yoghurt dishes, where the meat from the kebabs is mixed with yoghurt to make a sort of meaty, yoghurty dry stew/curry.
Typically, I visit Mangal with a good friend of mine, Jim Cotton, who actually introduced me to the place and typically, we order the mixed meze (hummus, aubergine, yoghurt and tomato and onion, always great) followed by lamb shish and the chicken Tavukbeyti. I get the impression though, that anything you order here would be absolutely as if Ataturk himself had grilled it on a middling Autumn evening somewhere on the great sweep of the Bosphorous.
The meat is of the best quality and the lamb shish perfectly cooked; smokey and charcoaly on the outside and erotically innard-pink in the middle, where the meat has been kissing the skewer. The Tavukbeyti, or minced chicken with parsley lemon and garlic is the real star of the show though. Perfectly weighted with salt and lemon and garlic and all of the fresh, base flavours of humanity that are so instantly and primally satisfying; those flavours that release an intense injection of narcotic satisfaction into the brain. This is food that humans have been eating since the dawn of time, unsullied and unadulterated by the spice trade or any twist of modernity. It is humble, yet creamy, luxurious yet composed of natural, good things, ruffage and vegetation, caveman meat cooked over an open fire, ingredients that would have been gathered and hunted by our forebears in Byzantine lands.
After the carnage, comes some sweet relief and although we were more then satisfied by the meats and meze, we ordered baclava which was rich with oily honey but also crunchy and meaty with nuts; an excellent end to a fine repast.
So, if you're ever in Dalston or round Stoke Newington way- fascinating areas in a modern city, one which is changing increasingly rapidly- make the trek to this outstanding place and dodging new wave idiots wearing vintage pants on fixed-wheel bikes, drop in for a taste of something that probably hasn't changed much in thousands of years and hopefully won't for millenia to come.
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