Skewers for 25, please

The final night with the big group from the wedding and we needed to eat. We wandered across the (very busy!) street outside of our hotel to the only open place. Luckily, we had heard some good words in advance.

It was called Cigerci Dogan and it was a skewer house. As such, the only real choice was what you wanted on your skewer: lamb, chicken, liver, or mushroom. I went for lamb in the style of adana kebap. As before at the skewer shop in Istanbul, the table soon filled up with condiments.

There was fresh lemon, fresh parsley, and lots of spicy peppers.

There was also tomato salsa with pomegranate sauce and marinated onions.

The grilled veggie plate included tomatoes, peppers, and onions.

And then came the meat: adana kebap with a big pack of quarter tortillas. All in all, these skewers were great. The meat was juicy and spicy, and the bevy of condiments kept the filled tortillas interesting. The peppers as it turned out, were very spicy, but in a subtle way. I took a bite of one and thought it wasn't too bad. Then it crept up on me and soon a third of my mouth was numb. Oops. Guess I'll have to have more adana kebap with onions and tomatoes!

But that wasn't all. In addition to being a skewer shop, this place was also a kunefe shop. Kunefe is a strange dessert made with cheese, pistachios, and honey. We got to see it being made.

Then it was time to try it.

Peynirli kunefe is pretty good! I don't think it's likely to win dessert of the year anytime soon, however. My favorite part of the dessert was how chewy the cheese was. And that is certainly not a sentence I've thought of writing about desserts. In this version, the simple syrup and honey sauce was actually a bit thin so it came across as watery. The pistachios were a great addition, as they always are.