Meze and balik with a view

How to cap off this great day of eating? With a fish dinner, of course! A group of us headed to Iskele Livar Balik Evi, a multi-story fish restaurant with a view over the Arnavutkoy neighborhood.

Some initial mezes were stuffed mussels and stuffed squash blossoms. The mussels are stuffed with rice and then a little quirt of lemon is added. They are ubiquitous on the street and in restaurants. They were pretty tasty, though I'm not sure if the temperature was a bit off. Neither hot nor cold, I was left wondering a little bit what temperature they should rightfully have (a bit of a scary proposition with shellfish). The squash blossoms were fresh, though the interior rice could have benefited from a bit more seasoning.

The second batch was eggplant salad and octopus ceviche. Eggplant salad, yum. The eggplant is made really creamy, and then sometimes spread on bread. It has no bad eggplant bitterness and was excellent. The octopus was big chunks of tentacles, still quite pink. The consensus of the table was that it had lost a bit of the wonderful octopus crunch, becoming a bit too chewy.

Fried calamari finished off the meze. The big rings of squid were nicely fried and fresh. The sauce was a bit too bland, needing either a bit of spice of some sour.

And then the main event, a whole grilled fish. This guy had been grilled and put on a plate. It was up to me to demonstrate my filleting skills. I did poorly. I hacked and hacked, raked with my fork, and one by one a small pile of bones filled up my plate. Fortunately, Dena was on hand to teach me the proper way to remove the spine and ribs all at once, leaving a mostly boneless fillet. The fish itself was pretty good, especially with lemon, though could probably have been cooked a little bit less.

With any traditional meal comes the traditional drink. For this spread, that is definitely raki. A clear liquor poured as a shot, with water added it becomes this nice cloudy color. Straight, it is quite astringent, but with the splash of water it becomes much smoother and the anise flavor more pronounced.