Exploring local places is a bit like trick or treating. Here are some places that are a bit of a mixed bag in terms of experience but exploring them is a treat.
Ali Emre Simit Dunyasi
Honey water for the Simit.
Resatbey Simitci
Try unusual local places like these:
Cadir 01 is a yurt harking back to the steppe background of the Turks.
Arya Kebap, mostly because it’s a challenge to find it. Located on the north side of the D400, in an industrial zone. Turn off main road at the orange notary sign.
Dolmus Kafe, for the experience of talking to really local people.
A bus turned into a cafe.
Or maybe avoid these places if you find them spooky.
Of course lots of the locals are wealthy or middle class so if you want to feel like a bougie local, try going to the places on my expat list.
Now that I have lived in Adana for a year, what do I think of it?
A mocktail overlooking the paradise that could be…
Well, I think it is not as hot as people told me it would be. Last summer it was as hot as people told me it would be. It was 109 F (43 C) in the shade. But this summer was not as hot. The weather is a favorite topic here. But that is true of many places.
After a year here, what has surprised me is the live and let live attitude of this “village” of two million people. It was a nice surprise. Also, I am thankful for google translate, but often, I do not use it anymore. Smiles and charades often do enough communicating. And there is always tea. Always say yes to the tea. It is not about the caffeine or the liquid. It is about the offer to be welcomed by the person who offered the tea. Always accept the tea.
Always say hello and good morning/day. They do not like rudeness here. Say thank you. Please. Pardon. These few words go a long way.
Is it cheap here? Steadily less so. Breakfast can cost ten bucks. Or three.
The people? Generally amazed that I live here. Generally friendly. Most are downright polite and helpful.
As I mentioned before, I like that Adana is full of contrasts. I love that I can walk everywhere but I don’t love the bad sidewalks or lack of them. I love the chattiness and friendliness of the folks I meet. I like that there is charity here and little homelessness. I like the taxis. I love that everyone will serve you Turkish breakfast and that it is a thing one does. Always with lots of tea. I like that the sun shines most days.
I got a doner wrap for les than three dollars here.
Also, I love that there are few tourists here. Tourism would be good for the city, but… I like the lack of vicious tourism that happens in big places.
How much do I like it here? It often depends on how much I am sweating.
Sunset reflected in the mezze counter at Lakerbalik.
There is a type of restaurant in Adana, a “balik” restaurant, that basically serves as a waterside place (usually) where they serve seafood, but also mezze. And breakfast. Turkish breakfast is a big deal. But Turkish breakfast can be confusing in Adana because liver kebabs are a traditional breakfast in here. (If you search for “breakfast” in google maps, you will also get results for liver… I already did that. I like eggs for breakfast.)
Back to the seafood restaurants. Most of them are along the river and lake in Adana. That does not mean that the seafood is from the river and lake. Most restaurants get their supplies from Metro, a Costco like store. The Mediterranean is about an hour from Adana so maybe the fish is from a purveyor from there? I usually order breaded shrimp. If you order the fish, they will cook and filet it for you. Sometimes the filleting is down table side.
Fish counter at Lakerbalik.
The way it works at the seafood restaurants is that you choose your mezze and your fish. The staff then bring them to your table. Some places have photos online or on a menu but I prefer to see what is in the counter. I search out the spicy yogurt dip since I like spicy food, but there is a wide variety including eggplant salad, bean dip, and many dairy based dips.
Selected fish grilled and served.
There will always be bread and usually a “green” salad which is not just green. At some places, the bread will be freshly baked or warmed pita style bread. At others, they use the cheap standard white loaf. And as in the photos, the bread is the white loaf made into toast. The bread is unlimited.
Green salad, spicy yogurt dip, cheese salad, and bread.
Many of these restaurants are elegant a bit fancy, and often expensive. If you want a less expensive but equally nice view, then choose a non-balik place. Usually a water pipe/night club type of place that also serves breakfast or brunch (kahvalti is usually from 9-2). Many of these have amazing views. The views may also be people watching and in some places everyone will get involved in a friendly way. For example if there is a birthday or marriage proposal, everyone will sing and clap along.
A view of Seyhan lake.
Whether you go for breakfast or dinner, the dress code is up to you. Some where shorts and t-shirts (most men) and some where more formal clothes. Depending on the weather, people will sit outside or the restaurant will have opened the walls to the outside. Another thing is that there will always be smoking. And tea. No meal is complete without tea or coffee.
Sometimes having coffee or tea ends with tea or coffee. I’ve gone for coffee and then been offered tea. The tea is usually stronger than the coffee. The coffee offered is Turkish coffee which is a tiny cup and not filtered (so don’t drink all the way to the dregs at the bottom). Also, if you have Turkish coffee, you might find someone who knows how to read coffee grounds and they can read your future.
Tea, or “cay” – “chai” is always available.
As for the seafood restaurants, I do not frequent them often because some of them cost me $65 per person. That is expensive for a meal in Adana. But the price of food is a whole other discussion…
Once upon a fairytale, I had read to me stories of far away lands where boys in baggy Turkish pantaloons chased each other through markets with silk draped souk stalls, knocking over giant baskets, all while the colors of a thousand (and one) spices wafted through the hot sunny air…
Spices in drawers.
Stereotypes are hard to break. Adana is a modern city. But, I keep looking for that souk experience of my fairytales. Obviously without the humidity. And icky smells. Just colors and brightness.
Fresh sumac.
But, do you know where I find that in Adana? In the nut stores. And in the spice shops. While one can buy spices in the normal grocery store chains, it is still possible to find speciality stores with an “exotic” flavor. Often there are spices that I have never heard of or ever seen in leaf or bark form. In the nut stores, the sale of nuts is serious business often with a roaster outside (to attract custom with the aroma), but these stores also sell Turkish delight, candy, and other snacks. Mainly confectionary.
I don’t know. Potpouri?
The spice stores sell many kinds of spices but also often function as apothecaries, carrying olive oil shampoo, or baldness remedies. Some of the products are to be steeped as a tisane, or smoked, or applied as a salve.
I would like to say that these stores are located in the souks of my imagination. They are not. For that I may have to go to Izmir. Or Istanbul. Adana is too practical, I guess.
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 day, I set out to find a well known “pilaf” eatery in old Adana. I had read that they were often sold out so one should go early. I got there at around ten thirty in the morning. They told me, “Come in, come in” but as there was no food, I said that I would come back after they opened at 11 am.
A quiet street in the inner warrens of Old Adana.
As I needed to find something to do for a half hour, I turned down an alley… in broad daylight, I generally do not feel apprehensive. The old streets of Adana are usually empty, sometimes foul smelling, worn down, and there is always a tea “shop” to be had. Today’s alleys were much the same but in one there was a man putting something in a grinder. It looked like green powder or grass powder. He looked annoyed at me so I did not stop to ask him what he was doing.
Wood stools.
Another thing I find fascinating is the variety of small stools. Today, I saw a saddle style that I had never seen before. In general, even if there is no tea shop or cafe, there will still be some stools and flat surface in or around every place of business. There are an innumerable tea boys and men running around delivering tea. Tea is a social habit, sort of like a handshake, in Adana.
Always tea.
While I was wandering around, I suddenly noticed raw meat on display, from lungs, stomach, testes, feet, and head. The heads were being blowtorched. Not sure how those heads were going to be prepared as one can get head soup, head sandwich, head cold cuts, and roast head. So many ways and apparently the cheek, tongue, and brain are the tasty bits. Am I right? (This makes me think of a “cute” street vendor in Istanbul who has been going viral because of his looks. He isn’t all that cute… anyway, there is a shop selling sheep head here in Adana that has employed that same marketing strategy. They have hired a cute “chef” who preps the sandwiches. Since they started featuring him, the views on their social media have increased exponentially.)
Sheep’s heads. And a woman.
As I walked through the meat market, sellers were calling out, “Welcome,” but I was not interested in buying any meat. I was also trying to make sure that I didn’t slip and fall on the slick tiles. Also, I noticed that there were only men shopping and only men working. I guess everywhere, butchery is a male dominated business. But, I was also in “the Egyptian Mall” and that could also be the reason that there were not many women around.
The meat market.
On the side streets of the meat market, there were lots of shops selling everything for grilling and cooking meat from knife stores to grinding equipment stores and some that sell everything but the meat. Aside from meat, there were the usual cell phone stores, sneaker stalls, cigarette stalls, and oddly, fake money stalls…
A grilling store.
In this warren of alleys, one could easily get lost, but not really because this area is only one city block. Eventually, one pops out on a “modern Adana” street again.
A street in the old town of Adana.
Another time, I’ll talk about the pilaf eatery and the dramatic stories of love, family, and money woes from some of the staff there.
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…
Peking Duck is a dish originally from Beijing, China. It is a specially roasted and basted duck, served with wheat pancakes, scallions, cucumber, and hoisin sauce. But some places, it is elevated to gold level. The first written recipe for Peking Duck is from 800 years ago. The complexities of the recipe and preparation can be read here. Our duck was served with sugar and pineapple chunks giving it a tropical and extra luxurious feel. There was also edible gold leaf on top, like a cherry on top. Surprisingly, the half duck portion only cost 48 bucks. It was enough for three people, with the addition of a few extra pancakes and some fried rice.
Private dining rooms lined up like train cabins.
We had our duck at Jiang Nan, in Queens, New York. It is subway accessible, if you want a cheap but long ride. It is located in Flushing, Queens, which is the largest unofficial chinatown in America. Our restaurant had atmospheric private rooms that took us away to a tea house in the Orient.
So good it required a photo.
Aside from the duck, we had shrimp fried rice. It is not as simple as it seemed. A really good fried rice is about the aroma — not of oil but of umami. This one was like a warm hug.
Colazione (breakfast): Breakfast is a cup of coffee with milk like a cappuccino. Maybe a croissant or a sandwich (triangular white sandwiches like the triples in Peru). Italians don’t really eat much for breakfast. They consider the milk in the coffee to be the “food.” But, later in the morning, they will have more coffee. Coffee is a small cup of coffee like an espresso. No coffee in Italy is ever the size of American coffees. Italians will have many coffees throughout the day, although milk in coffee is only for breakfast (so before 11 a.m.).
Around 10 or 11 a.m., Italians might have a small snack with their next coffee.
Pranzo (lunch): Lunch is generally eaten from noon to 2 p.m. but on a Sunday, lunch can be later.
Merenda (tea): At around 3 p.m., Italians (and certainly children) will have a snack. One could have a gelato… or some crackers and cheese.
Aperitivo (happy hour): after work, Italians may have a tapas/mezze style spread. Many judge the bar based on the selection of free nibbles. During the current COVID restrictions (restaurants close for in restaurant dining at 6 p.m.), many people are having aperitivo at 3 p.m. Why not?
Cena “che-na” (dinner): Dinner is generally at 8:30 p.m. or later. One had a snack earlier, thankfully.
Before I took the coffee class, I had already taken a tea tasting class in Barranco at Zaniti (Av. Almte. Miguel Grau 612).
The tea tasting costs 25 soles. The tasting is only Mlesna brand tea, one of the leading brands of tea in the world. This is the only Sri Lankan tea shop in Peru. The teacher was clearly bewitched by her time in Sri Lanka and that shows in her presentation. I have been to tea plantations in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (although, I never got around to writing about that part because I was too interested in other aspects of Sylhet) so I sort of understood her fascination.
The store is filled with artwork, cups, plates, bags, and many other things to buy. It is a bit like an artists collective as the artists also own and work in the store.
I’d say to go on a South Asia kick and eat at Dhaasu before or after…
A breakfast sandwich of “pan chicharron” or pork roast and sweet potato.
Meal times are slightly different in Lima. For breakfast, Limenos eat a sandwich and cup of coffee for breakfast (desayuno), in the 7-9 times frame. Like the Colombians, they don’t eat sweets early in the morning so the idea of pancakes in the morning is an odd idea to them. Then, a cafecito (everything is ‘ito”in Lima) later in the morning (the Brits have “elevenses” at 11 a.m.) and in Lima coffee is always served with a mini-cookie.
Ceviche – only for lunch!
Lunch (almuerzo) is from 1-2:30 p.m. (12 for those who work early shifts) and usually includes rice, protein, salad, and soup and/or a side dish — and don’t forget that potatoes are a vegetable.
Then, from 4-6 p.m., when the cold tea-time cold winds move in, there is “lonche” — a version of the word “lunch” — which involves something warm to drink like tea, coffee, chocolate, plus a sandwich. The sandwiches are usually the triangular shaped sandwiches like large British tea sandwiches. It’s the local version of high tea.
Dinner (cena) is from 8-10 p.m. which means that many restaurant do not even open until 7:30 p.m.
Breakfast is one of my favorite meals (well, so are: brunch, elevenses, lunch, sobremesa, linner, high tea, supper, dinner, natmad “nightmeal”, and stumble-home-greasy-and-spicy-mouthful…). Some people consider eggs to be a vital part of a “breakfast” and others consider a piece of bread dipped in coffee to be the start to the day. In some countries, soup is it. In Vietnam, it’s pho (as in my photo from New Mexico, USA) and in Colombia, it’s a broth with rib meat and potatoes. In China and Thailand, the breakfast “oatmeal” is a rice porridge soup… I hereby advocate for more soup for breakfast!
And palta avocado! (It’s delicious in soup too!). Photo from El Pan de la Chola in Lima.
Before I took the 
Breakfast is one of my favorite meals (well, so are: brunch, elevenses, lunch, sobremesa, linner, high tea, supper, dinner, natmad “nightmeal”, and stumble-home-greasy-and-spicy-mouthful…). Some people consider eggs to be a vital part of a “breakfast” and others consider a piece of bread dipped in coffee to be the start to the day. In some countries, soup is it. In Vietnam, it’s pho (as in my photo from New Mexico, USA) and in Colombia, it’s a broth with rib meat and potatoes. In China and Thailand, the breakfast “oatmeal” is a rice porridge soup… I hereby advocate for more soup for breakfast!