It is funny how one thing leads to another… for example, there is a movie out now about a guy who was trying to go home to Ithaca… and then I find a pizza place run by a guy who returned home to Adana FROM Ithaca. New York, not Greece.
A view over my slices of Ali’s Favorite.
This Adana guy worked at Ned’s Pizza in Ithaca, NY for five years and now he has opened a place, Pizza Borsa, that serves the same food. In Adana. He makes a delicious spicy pizza.
The pizza guy’s English is probably only slightly better than my Turkish. Luckily Señor Suleyman was there. He is there to help with the tea. Or so it seemed. Turns out that he owns the building, is a retired engineer who speaks some English. His daughter in law runs a pilates studio upstairs and his eldest son, Ali, has a pizza named after him, Ali’s Favorite. It is my favorite too. It has beef bits, mushrooms, and fresh cut jalapeño.
This pizza place is a mishmash of design and I do not know how long before the food has to be adapted to local tastes… Nope, never mind. It already happened. I tried the garlic knots and somehow, they were the most Turkish thing I have ever had. Is it the dried oregano?
Adana? Where is that? That is the reaction one usually gets to mentioning Adana. Although the city may not be famous, the Adana kebab (kebap here) certainly is. So what is it exactly?
It is a hand made artisanal hand minced lamb (must be from a male sheep younger than one year) elongated meat patty shaped around a metal skewer. It is grilled over an open charcoal fired grill. The Adana kebab is always grilled well done. There is a high percentage of pure white tail fat chopped into the meat mix to add juiciness and flavor. Non spicy red bell pepper can also be chopped in with the mix. The mixture is minced with a special crescent shaped cleaver, called a “zirh.” The percentage of meat to fat is 5 to 1. After the mixture is made, according to the recipe, it should be rested for a day.
There are some assumptions that the Adana kebab is spicy. It is not. Although the accompanying jalapeño chili can be. Each portion of Adana kebab is about 180 grams and it takes a master’s touch to make the meat mixture stick to the skewer so that it can be turned often while cooking. While the meat is cooking, the juices are soaked up with flat bread. This bread is served with the meat. It is fun to watch the master (“usta”) form the kebab. It takes a bit of water and a lot of skill to quickly move the hand up the skewer creating a wave of meat.
Like all kebabs, there will be the obligatory free salads (Don’t pay! They should be free!) and a grilled chili pepper and tomato. The kebab is served with flat bread, usually pide, so you can make your own delicious bites. Like most food here, you can spice or flavor the food as you like, with a sprinkle of red pepper powder, salt, or drops of lemon.
The typical drink with the Adana kebab is ayran, savory salted yogurt, or şalgam, fermented turnip. Or ice cold raki, alcohol made from grapes and flavored with aniseed.
Adana is proud and famous for the Adana kebab. Now that the Adana kebab is a designated cultural origin food, the city holds festivals of kebabs…
My informal guess is that there is a kebab shop on every block. At least one. Maybe two or four. So every day is a kebab festival!
Tacos from a Honduran restaurant, Tacos Kings. Pork and beef (out of focus, but so well seasoned!).
It’s the new year and time for new fashions. The Italians are fashionable and this includes what type of food they eat. When not eating Italian food, they eat what is trendy.
A few years ago it was all about sushi. Last year, it was all about poke (but most of these places are not serving Hawaiian poke. They are serving stuff on a bowl of rice). My guess is that the next trend is the ever-loved-by-gringos: tex-mex. As I have mentioned before, wherever I go in the world, and no matter how yummy the food, someone will always ask me where they can find “Mexican food” and American Tex-Mex. I wrote about the top ten Mexican restaurants in Rome, back in 2020. Once I got to Rome, I asked my gringo friends and they told me which ones they recommended…
Tacos from Lu’um.
Pico’s,Vicolo della Renella 94, 00153 Rome Italy, in Trastevere has grown so much that they had to re-locate to a larger space further down the street. I like that this place has normal height tables. This restaurant was started by two Italian guys who had traveled to Mexico. Sometimes the cooks are American, Bangladeshi, Canadian, and Italian.
Jalapeno, Via Aurelia 483 (on the outside of the Inerio Market) is located on the outskirts of Rome so it’s not so easy to get there but the good thing is that there is a small shop next door where they sell Mexican food items.
La Cucaracha, Via Mocenigo 10, Prati: Is highly recommended.
Lu’um’s appetizer plate of nachos, meat, beans, etc.
Lu’um Mexican Bistrot, Via Agri 20 in Parioli. The owner lived in Mexico for a long time. He and his family decided to open a Mexican place in 2021. I found the tortillas to be overcooked but otherwise things seemed good. Once in a while there was a bite of spice.
Tacos Kings, Via degli Esqui 56: Is a new Honduran restaurant but you can still get really good nachos (addictively good) and guacamole. Really good prices too. Their tacos have only meat inside because the meat is fully marinated so does not need sauce, or lettuce, or anything… It was perhaps cheeky of me to lead off a photo of non-Mexican tacos, but of all the ones I have tried in researching for this article, theirs were the tastiest.
Nachos from Tacos Kings.
Pulgarcito, Piazza Attilio 41, Garbatella: This place is a bit far out but if you want a pupusa, then this is the only Salvadoran restaurant in Rome. They also make tacos but those were not as good as their “pasteles” which are deep fried corn pasties/empanadas.
Four pupusas.
Along with Lu’um, there appear to be a few new places to try:
La Punta Expendio de Agave, 4.4 stars.
Los Cabos APS Las Calaveras, 4.1 stars, Via di Monte. Testaccio, 91
Fiesta y Siesta, 4.2 stars, Via Nomentana 155
Guac smear is appearing everywhere, here at MiVa in Prati.
Along with the increase in “Mexican” restaurants, avocados are appearing on more and more menus. More Tex Mex products are available in stores as well. It will be nice when Italy grows avocados all along the peninsula and not just in Sicily.
Seen in a local grocery store.
I’m done with my research having had some fairly mediocre tacos along the way. But, I’ll be going back to Tacos Kings for another tamarind margarita and those corn tortillas.
It took six months for her to smile. But, I find that sort of fascinating. The lady in the photo is not her but I liked her style.
Boxes of dried chiles.
When I moved to Bogota, I was told about the chile lady. It took me a long time to find her because Paloquemao market, while not immense, can be confusing because so many of the stalls look exactly alike. Now I know that she’s a right turn from Peter’s Chinese vegetable stall, located in the Chinese vegetable alley.
The Chile Lady was wearing a chile shirt last weekend.
There is also a “Mexican” stall but I usually get my chiles from the Chile Lady of Paloquemao.
