The fish could have jumped from the sea to our plates

In between heaven and hell, on the one side, and a castle in the sea, on the other, was a lovely lunch as close to the waterfront as you could get.

That's right, this little fish restaurant in Narlikuyu literally abuts a cove of the Mediterranean. On a day like today, I could not imagine a better setting for a meal. This was a set menu kind of place, so we just let them bring us the usual.

To get our appetites revved up, we started with grilled pearl onions, marinated olives, and spicy peppers. The onions were amazing, and I began to pop them into my mouth whole. the olives were also great, nice and fresh.

Then a duo of pickled salads arrived: pickled sea beans and pickled cabbage with pickles. That was a lot of pickling for two salads. The sea beans were a little overdone, both from the pickling and from the brinyness of this particular batch. Nobody could eat more than a couple. The cabbage was slightly more edible, though not delicious.

Then some regular salad, this one an arugula and tomato salad. The dressing was a bit thick on this one, but after the pickling duo this came across as nice and mild.

Yet more salad! A shepherd's salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions rounded out the salad courses. This was a perfectly acceptable version of the standard.

From there we transition to seafood, first with fried calamari. I haven't yet been able to figure out what the dipping sauce they use in Turkey is - it seems to be some combination of mild yogurt and cottage cheese. The calamari itself was very nicely done. Meaty rings that retained some crunch surrounded by a nicely fried batter.

And the star of the meal, grilled whole sea bass. This fish was awesome. It tasted like it had just been caught. Once it had been dressed with fresh lemon, we dug in. Each bite was light yet really, really flavorful. This restaurant had put its practice to good use in grilling fish.

As an added bonus, the whole fish was there, which inspired some creativity by my dad. That's to come in a later post.