As I wrote about when I lived in Rome, I am a huge fan of the bidet. During the pandemic, during the toilet paper shortage, some people switched to the bidet.
Typical toilet with bidet, flush, toilet paper, and trash can.
Now that I live in Turkiye, I am back in the land of bidets. But, unlike in Rome, the bidet is a nozzle of water that is part of the toilet. Usually, it is a small spout in the back of the toilet under the toilet seat. It is activated by turning a handle on the right side of the toilet somewhere on the wall. The flush is usually a flat button (usually there is a small and large flush button) built into the wall behind the toilet.
In some countries, the seatless style of toilet where one squats over a hole in the floor, is called a, “Turkish toilet.” Some consider this more hygienic as no part of the skin makes contact with the toilet. This squat style toilet is not so common anymore in big cities in Turkiye. One still finds them in public toilets at malls and out in the countryside. Most of the toilets here have the bidet function and toilet paper for drying off. Many toilets in Turkiye cannot handle toilet paper so there may be a trashcan nearby.
A squat toilet which in other countries is often called a “Turkish toilet.”
Another thing about Turkiye is that people wash their hands a lot here. Before they eat and after. With every meal, there are wet wipes and napkins available. Plus, the “cologne” that is splashed on your hands after the meal which works like a sanitizer.
One thing to note about Turkiye is that people eat with both hands. In Bangladesh, another country with many muslims, people rarely ever used their left hand when eating.
Often outside the bathroom, in restaurants, there is a sink for handwashing. And at mosques, there are places to do one’s ablutions.
A place to wash one’s feet.
Modern Turkey is a secular country so maybe that has something to do with how things are.
All I know is that I love the built-in modern Turkish toilet, the bidet.
Hey, before ya come at me with your ‘tude, keep in mind that I cannot taste all the burgers in Adana. I tried. I ate a burger and fries for dinner for seven days in a row… my conclusion is that I cannot try them all.
Some of the best burgers I’ve had were in the United States. American beef is famous for being delicious. It is the land of the burger. The cattle are different here.
But Adana is the land of meat. They have “kofte” which are meatballs and they have them all over. They even have the kind that are not made of meat. But I digress. Which burger did I like the best?
Los Brunos: The meat tastes the best. They have nachos. Their fries are fine.
Barks Burgers: Famously the most popular with the expats. Good burger. Good fries.
Grill Lab: Best fries — hand cut and awesome. Homemade aioli (mayonnaise). Other sauces homemade. AND, the best pickled jalepeno I have tasted, ever. Also house made. I did find gristle in my burger but the chef says that he will soon grind his own meat.
Grill Lab’s fries and sauces are handmade and delicious.
I went to other places (there are hundreds and hundreds of burger places in this town) but either the meat was too “animaly” or the meat was like a wool sweater.
One day when in Flushing, Queens, I felt the need to find a foot rub. Maybe Chinese reflexology. After all, I was in one of the largest Chinatowns in the world.
I looked at the map and there was a place nearby with a 5-star rating. I eventually found it in a high rise behind a bakery (to the left of the green awning in the photo).
The reflexologist was a gentle soul who bathed my feet first before working on my meridian lines. Luckily my Mandarin-speaking friend showed up so she could do some translating. Not that I remember very much as I was too busy feeling relaxed.
Ms. Annie Wong was a treasure. I wish I lived nearby. Because I was the first customer of the day, I got my 90-minute foot massage for around 50 bucks.
I highly recommend finding places like AW Spa when in Chinatown Flushing.
When a cup of tea costs $20, then you might as well get as many brews out of it as possible. The tea tasting I did in New York seems a world away from Adana, and centuries ago.
One of the pours.
When I went to Chinatown Flushing in New York, I went on a tea tasting at Fang Gourmet Tea. After selecting two teas (at $20 each), the tea connoisseur explained the tea, washed the miniature cups in hot water, and brewed the tea. Five times for each tea. After each brew, we tasted the tea again.
The tea changed color with every brew.
I’ll admit that this may be too subtle for me. After a while, it just tasted like ‘tea’ to me. I could see the change in color, but I started to hallucinate that I was making up flavors and aromas just because I was supposed to be able to detect them… actually, what I found most interesting was the tea person. She had worked there for decades. She was calm and deliberate with all her movements. She really sensed every nuance in each brew… and I think she found our obtuseness a bit amusing.
The skein of a filter.
After the tasting, we could buy the teas. These are not cheap. Nothing below $45. The shop was filled with tea paraphernalia that we could buy.
Fast forward a few centuries and I live in Adana where tea is offered at every meal. And in between. But here the tea is the color of mahogany. (Turkiye has the highest per capita of tea drinking at three kilos per person, per year.)
One should only expect that every pilaf eatery is host to its own Turkish drama.
As I mentioned in another article about the meat market, I was actually on my way to a famous pilaf restaurant. After the meat market, I found my way back to the rice eatery. This type of rice restaurant is most common in Istanbul but there are some in Adana. This particular one has been open for 60 years. Now the grandson runs it on a daily basis although the grandfather does show up to keep the wait staff in order (like to tell them to get to work instead of talking to me… oops, sorry)
Like in most local places, or so it seems, the young teen touts are the ones that get you into the shop. Here there were two of them. One was wheeling a scratched blue wheelbarrow containing a large tinfoil covered cauldron. I followed him in. He proudly lifted the cauldron onto the counter and lifted the foil to reveal the steaming broad beans simmering in tomatoes. I did not order that. I was here for the rice pilaf with chickpeas (garbanzo beans) with shredded chicken breast meat on top. And the potato vegetable sauce. Oh, and the yogurt dressing not to be called tzatziki. It is called cacik (jaw-jik) here. But that is also another story.
I ordered and was guided to a table near the action. Once I sat down, the teen waiter sat down across from me with his lunch. The other teen waiter chatted to me from the next table as he used his Google translate to find questions for me. As I tried to eat without spilling (almost impossible when being watched and filmed?), the 20-something manager and the teen waiters asked me questions… Are you married? Where is your family? Where are you from? Are you here alone? Why? What do you do for work? Is America beautiful? Why are you not married? Take me with you. Mostly the teen waiters asked me these questions. I tried to deflect them as vaguely as possible and with my own questions. How old are you? Why aren’t they in school? They leave school at 12? The other waiter, a man who looked familiar in that way that he looked very Turkish, stood quietly and said nothing. I am sure I have seen his face somewhere. Maybe on the eatery’s social media.
Salt and spicy pickled chilis to taste.
Then, a man entered. He had a strong jaw and longish locks of hair curling over his thick brows. Omar worked there as well. The other boys and men in the pilaf shop extolled Omar’s English skills. Omar (I don’t recall his real name so I’ve named him after the main character in Black Love Money, a Turkish drama) had worked in Istanbul for six years at a deluxe hotel and that was why his English was as good as it was. Omar took a plate of food and sat on the tiny stool next to me. He had a moody sort of attractiveness about him that I could see the ladies might like. He looked to be about 38 so he was probably 22. Life can age one here, especially for those working since the age of 13, and smoking from before then.
Omar had recently returned to Adana. To fight with his family. He has ten brothers and sisters. He fights with his mother, his father, his brothers, and his sisters. The teen waiters and the grandson manager told me this. The silent one, who looks so familiar, nodded in concurrence. Omar fights with his family. Yes. It is so.
I asked why.
It seems that Omar lives, lived, his life as he wants and is not married with children, like he is supposed to be. Omar then said that life is bad here. He wants to go to America. The teen waiters chimed in at this point. One told me that he wants to go to Germany. Omar, and the teen waiters, wanted me to take them to America. (This reminds me of a taxi ride I had a month or so ago when the driver, through my friend’s translation skills, at first suggested that I marry him and take him to America… but then, when I told him that he was too young, offered to be adopted by me. As a joke, I said that I would have to give him a new name as well. He spent the next ten minutes laughing and saying, “Give me a name! Adopt me!” which made my Turkish friends laugh so that the taxi was rocking with our collective merriment.) At the rice shop, the question was, “When do you go? I go with you.” As if life were so simple.
Rice pilaf with chicken and meat gravy, yogurt sauce, and bread.
Speaking of proposals, this is when the drama gets Turkish. And romantic. And tragic.
Omar told me that he had met a Lithuanian girl. They fell in love. She went back home. He was going to move to be with her. Then, he found out that she had died in a car accident. As he told me this, Omar quickly wiped the corner of his eye and said, “I am not going to cry. My heart is broken.”
What a sad story.
Always tea.
At that moment, the grandfather gave a command and Omar got up. There were tables to clean. Customers to serve. Not.
I got up and paid. I had places to be. One of the teen waiters told me to give them a five star rating.
If you are wondering, the rice pilaf with chick peas was good. My meal cost 130 Turkish Lira ($3). I left a 200 note. One of the teen waiters said, “Ah, the tip” which I am sure they got from the YouTubers who made this place famous. I am not sure that the Turkish drama is told every time.
The lunar, Chinese, new year is February 17 to March 3 this year. Here is a memory of eating Chinese hotpot last year.
The OG (original gangster — a name from the 1970s for the “original”) of hot pot is a place called Hai Di Lao.
We ordered too much.
The first Hai Di Lao restaurant was opened in Sichuan, China, in 1994. Now it is a global chain with over 1,000 locations. When in Flushing, New York, we had to go.
Selection of meats.
First, even if you think you can hack spicy, go lower. We got the spiciest and the pain for the next, sleepless, 12 hours was not worth it. Never again (I hope I remember this next time!).
More stuff, from lotus root, tofu skin, dumplings, etc.
Second, make a reservation. The location in Flushing is massive. We were at table 89. The place is fun for families and there are treats in the waiting room (fresh soy milk! wowza).
Multi level swinging shelves.
Third, remember that you can order more… don’t go all out first time round. Remember to order the hand pulled noodles so that you get some good video of the guy spinning around and flipping noodles at you like a lasso.
Chicken skin.
Fourth, enjoy the aprons. It helps with the mess (and drooling?).
My dipping sauce bowl.
As you may know, sichuan peppercorns and other chiles are addictive. So while I enjoyed the spicy hot pot, I could not sleep that night and the pain in my tummy was too much.
A final note on OG. I always thinks it stands for original goat.
With the tipping percentage near 25 percent in the United States, one might wonder how much to tip in Turkiye. It is definitely not 25 percent. Actually, you do not have to tip at all. If you do, then you can tip up to the round number or ten percent. But if you do not tip, no one will run after you and scold you for not tipping.
Tipping is primarily only done at restaurants that are sit down. Many places will have a tip jar (written in English) to make it clear to foreigners that they appreciate tips. Most places will be happy if you tip, but again, you do not need to. If you are at a restaurant and want to tip, make sure to put the tip (cash only) in the tip box or the folder that held the bill or check. Or hand straight to the person you want to tip. You cannot tip on a credit card.
Other places where one can tip is at other service places such as salons. I leave a small tip under the bottles for the water delivery person (20 Lira for carrying three 19-liter bottles which cost three dollars per bottle = 50 cent tip for carrying three 42-pound bottles). Most people do not tip the water guy. (I use an app to order water and I can use my credit card to pay for it.)
The water delivery guy.
I keep looking for a “service fee” being added to bills but I have not seen it yet, even when there were more than six of us at the table.
Meals in Adana have cost me between 340 to 2,600 Turkish Lira ($8 to $63) for one person. The average monthly salary in Turkiye per month is 35,000 TRY ($909).
While tipping might seem like an extra “thank you” for good service, but for some, it is their entire salary.
The fries at Barks are the crispiest I’ve had in Adana.
I was trying to learn how to ask for my fries to be fried crispy and crunchy, and accidentally learned a slang word.
Citar (Che-ter): Crispy as in how I like my fries. Apparently also slang for a hot young thang. But for fries, I was told to ask for “citar citar olsun” and it worked.
Fries are a normal part of any “khavalti” — Turkish breakfast. To the left is menemen, a shakshouka-like egg dish.
I also learned that “mashallah” which is used joyfully as “god willing” is also slang for “fat.”
I like Adana. I like living in Adana. And the flies in Adana like me. The moment I step outside, the fly is dive bombing straight at the corner of my mouth. (I now see why ladies of olden times wore gauze around their heads.) When we go out to eat if outdoors (and sometimes indoors), there will be a fly that will start to buzz around our food and our heads.
If you recall, I carried mosquito rackets with me in Dhaka. While I have yet to see a mosquito here in Adana, I decided that I needed a fly racket to defend myself and my khavalti (Turkish breakfast) from the flies. I bought an electrified fly racket at Koctas (like Home Depot), the home goods store. It didn’t seem to work. Maybe because it was too small and cute. I bought another.
But, more than that, I had seen that one of the bakeries used a table fly fan to keep the flies off their baked goods. I went hunting for it. The electronic stores did not have it. The home goods store did not have it. No one had it. I had to buy it on Trendyol, an online shopping site, and when I got it, I went on another adventures to find D3 batteries. It turns out that one can use two AA batteries instead. I was in the store and when the employees helped me with finding the batteries that worked, they seemed a bit disappointed for me that the fan was not going fast. I used Google translate to explain that this was not a fan to keep me cool but a fan to keep the flies off my food.
I don’t think they believed me.
A note about online shopping. The first couple of items that I bought online, the delivery person called to get the verification code, then hunted me down to hand deliver to me. A third item required me to go to the post office for retrieval. Now, Trendyol is growing accustomed to me and they just hand the items to my doorman. I am not endorsing Trendyol but if you use them through the internet, the site will get translated and that makes shopping easier. If you don’t speak Turkish.
Some people do load up their bikes when they shop.
Grocery shopping in Adana can be done at Groseri, a large chain. Easy to remember. Bu that is not the only place to shop. There are different levels of fanciness in grocery chains and the level of foreign food products also depends on how expensive and fancy the chain is… Here they are from highest in price to lowest.
Macrocenter and Kiosks is the fanciest and has the most Whole Foods or fancier vibe. There is one main store and lots of smaller kiosks. I find the kiosks are more like liquor stores with drunk food and drink. Owned by Migros.
Macrocenter has a Dean § DeLuca feel.
Metro is a Costco type store for restauranteurs. They have all that you need to open a sushi and maki place. Sushi is the rage in Turkiye. You have to sign up for a membership but it’s free and fairly easy to get the first time you go to the store. The store is a cavernous warehouse like most Costcos and you can buy glasses, furniture, etc. plus food.
Metro Center has a warehouse feel.
Groseri is probably my favorite chain. They have some interesting imported items, they make fresh food at the deli, and often there is a lady making fresh cig kofte which are vegetarian meat “balls”.
Carrefour is a French chain. The store in the M1 mall is huge while most of the neighborhood stores are average size. Imports from France include butter and other items that the Turks enjoy.
Migros is your average grocery store. They are a Swiss chain.
BIM is the largest retail grocery store chain in Turkiye. The stores are not always huge but they are like Aldi or Lidl in style. The middle aisle can have treasures or an air fryer.
BIM and most other places sell unmentionables.
A101 is a discount grocery store chain often found along with BIM in mixed income regions of town.
Migros Jet is also owned by Migros and is a discount chain.
Şok is also owned by Migros and is even more discount.
There are also open air markets and street vendors if you want to avoid grocery stores.
Every meal will end in tea, or “çay” (chai). It might even start with tea, if it’s breakfast, but it will always end with tea. Turkiye is the highest consumer of tea. It is customary to offer tea — always.
You can try to say no, but you will still get it. It’s like water in the United States. I have already grown accustomed to it. I still can’t hold the cup which is HOT. But, I do like the tea. I take it with one cube of sugar.
Tea is a serious shopping item.As is sugar…
There is an art to tea. I’ll write more about that later as I learn more. But what I have learned is not to drink it straight up. Dilute with the hot water which is always part of the tea setup. I didn’t know this and was drinking tea that was darker than American coffee…
If you wander around Adana (probably elsewhere as well), you’ll notice bags of bread hanging places at convenient height. These are for the taking by those who need food. After all, bread is life.
