Greetings from Istanbul! After a whirlwind 11 days in Çeşme, I returned to Istanbul yesterday in the late afternoon with Luka. I do enjoy travelling quite a bit, but I also enjoy coming back home! However, I definitely did not miss the traffic in Istanbul: it took me 45 minutes to fly from Izmir to Istanbul and more than 1 hour to get home from the airport!
Unfortunately, all the running around I did during my vacation caught up with me: I woke up with a miserable cold this morning - to the point, that my brain is all fuzzy and I'm clogged up. If I didn't have to take Luka out for a walk this am, I wouldn't have left the house at all!
It is now about 3:00pm, and I just ordered some food for lunch/dinner from www.yemeksepeti.com as there is absolutely nothing to eat at home. I love this website. You can order pretty much whatever you want as the list of restaurants that are part of this system is very extensive. I had also emptied out the fridge before going away. BUT, if you live in Istanbul, and are in the same shape as I am... then http://online.macrocenter.com.tr will come to your rescue! Macrocenter is an upscale supermarket and thank god they deliver! So, I placed an order to fill up my cabinets and fridge (minimum order is 75 TL) and they will deliver between 5:30pm and 9:00pm. Depending on the time of your order, they have 3 different time intervals for delivery - I missed the early time interval.
Once again - I have gone off course, so now let's get back to Çeşme - day 11! The day before (Wednesday) was my birthday and we were up late, but still got up early - around 9:00am... Luka just does not allow us to sleep in! The eve of my birthday we were at my sister's sister-in-law and husband's house - we were about 12 people... and we had a lovely evening with seafood - baked calamari (to die for!) and fish soup prepared with seabass. I don't believe I've tasted anything this good at a seafood restaurant! We topped off the evening with irmik helva which is prepared with semolina, sugar, pine nuts, butter and some other stuff. We had my "real" birthday cake in the afternoon at my sister's house which was also very good.
After waking up on the morning of Day 11, we decided to once again go to Fun Beach... since I had posted info and pix on this place, I won't repeat myself - except to say - we were a big group including the kids of friends. There are so many beach clubs to choose from in Çeşme, but we like this one because it is very big, the sea is gorgeous, has a good crowd, the food at Palm Restaurant is good and it is not full of people who want to show off their swimwear by changing it every 2 minutes and that do not "sun and swim" with a full face of make-up!
In the evening, we decided to go to Dalyan for dinner. Dalyan is famous for their seafood restaurants - most of which are lined up along the marina on Liman Caddesi (Street). Our choice for this evening was Dalyan Restaurant - a.k.a Cevat'ın Yeri (www.dalyanrestaurant.com).
Cevat'ın Yeri is the largest restaurant in the area with spacious indoor and outdoor dining areas.
Once again, we were a big group - about 10 people and when we arrived a little after 9:00pm, half of the group was already at the table. Typically at seafood restaurants in Turkey, a whole bunch of cold and hot appetizers called meze in Turkish is shared and then fish in season is ordered. This is accompanied with rakı an aniseed flavored drink (similar to arak and ozou) which is normally consumed with equal parts of rakı and water with ice. More infrequently, wine is also preferred.
As we planned on having fish, we didn't order too many appetizers, but did have the classics... mixed salad (tomatoes, greens, black olives, red onions), white cheese (similar to feta) and melon, eggplant salad and fried calamari. As a main course, some ordered grilled sea bream (çipura), while others ordered fried red mullet (barbunya), grilled dentex (sinarit) and grilled seabass (levrek). We didn't order dessert, but did order several mixed fruit platters.
All in all.. we had a lovely evening, the food and service was very good and it cost us about 100 TL each (including tip).
Cevat'ın Yeri is open daily from noon to midnight. Reservations are recommended (Tel: (0232) 724 70 45). This is one of the better seafood restaurants in the area, however, the other places right next door are also very good ... so feel free to try any one of them!
A final note on Çeşme before I close this chapter of my articles... even though I was there for 11 days, there were still some other places that I wanted to go to, but didn't have the time...
For example, I love Tuval in Alaçatı on Kemalpaşa Street (Tel: (0232) 716 99 17). Even though the street is always very crowded and you don't have much privacy while dining, the food is very good and it is one of the oldest restaurants in the area. I went to their branch at the Çeşme Marina, but prefer the main branch in Alaçatı - the menu selections are better.
I also wish I had a chance to go to Port Alaçatı. This new marina opened last year and is full of wonderful restaurants to include Ferdi Baba (www.alacatiferdibaba.com) for seafood (main branch is in Şifne) and Kydonia (www.kydonia.com.tr) for their variety of appetizers (I had dinner at Kydonia last year). Deli Deli (which means crazy, crazy) is a restaurant and bar, but I prefer the bar to their restaurant and from time to time, there are guest DJ performances.
No matter what you do or prefer to visit in Çeşme, you are definitely bound to have a good time!
I will continue with my articles on Istanbul starting on Monday! I hope to have gotten rid of my cold by then!
Dani
thank you for liking my blog... I quickly looked at yours and see you have been at it for a while now. I am a "newbie" and still trying to get the word out on my blog so happy to hear you discovered me... I am a bit under the weather for the last two days, so will revisit your blog at a later date and give you some feedback. Take care
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