Turkish meze and atmosphere at Anatoli, Cape Town

We have been meaning to go back to Anatoli for literally years. This Turkish restaurant in Napier Street in Green Point has been open since 1984, which goes to show that, if you have a good formula and do excellent food you can survive that long, which not many Cape Town restaurants can say. We had been yearning for some good Turkish food and had a great time with our friends. We do recommend a visit

The familiar interior is very Turkish with carpets and ceramics adorning the walls. Low lighting and soft music in the background

A very well- travelled bottle. Given to us by Diemersfontein marketing manager Dian Joubert at Vinexpo Hong Kong, it survived Vietnam and made it back to Cape Town. They allow you two bottles of BYO wine (Bring your own) but they do have a good wine list

and there is Belly dancing to liven up your evening

The food comes to you, not on a menu but on a tray filled with a display of mezze. Most are cold; there is a hot selection. Many are vegetarian. All are interesting and worth trying. You choose what you want and your order is delivered to the table. If the restaurant is busy, this can take a little while. We chose two each and ended up with only one meat option. You get 3 to five of each mezze unless is a single dish like a dip or the potato cake

A sigara borek, a hot mezze of phyllo pasty stuffed with cheese and herbs. Excellent, crisp and flavourful. We had a portion of these

A selection of olives dusted with dried oregano

Tarama Salata, the classic smoked cod roe dip, lemon and oil

Zeytinyagli Pirasa. Leeks cooked in tomato and olive oil

Cauliflower Kofte. Mashed cauliflower, bread crumbs, fresh parsley and mint, stuffed with mozzarella cheese and deep-fried. We had some of these

Cano. Caramelised onions, grated and fried baby marrows and carrots served with garlic yoghurt and chilli oil

Arnavut Cigeri . Lamb liver cubes tossed in spicy flour, deep fried and served with lemon and sumac dressed onions

Muhammara. A dip of roasted red peppers, feta, bread crumbs, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, chillies, cumin, walnuts, tomato paste, pepper paste that wowed us . We had a portion of this

Potatoes Boregi. Mashed potatoes, cheddar cheese and chilli flakes wrapped in phyllo pastry and deep fried. We had a portion of these

Izgara Hellim Peyniri. Grilled halloumi cheese with lemon juice. Served piping hot, you eat them while the cheese is soft and yielding or they go a bit rubbery. We loved our portion of this

Topig. Mashed potatoes and chickpeas stuffed with tahini, pine nuts, cinnamon, onion and dressed with chilli oil. We had a portion of this potato cake. Rather bland but enlivened by the Muhammara dip

Humus

Borani . Caramelised onions, sultanas and turmeric mixed with spinach, yoghurt and lemon zest

Mucver . Baby marrows, feta cheese and dill mixed and pan fried. We had some of these crispy patties

Zeytinyagli Yaprak Dolmasi, Vine leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts, black currants and spices

Marmaris . Combination of stuffed green olives, mushrooms, red pepper and sun dried tomatoes

Cacik . Cucumber, garlic, yoghurt and mint. You may know this as tzatziki

The meze are very filling, so each couple shared a main course. This is one of the two vegetarian options, Briami (One size only) Layers of caramelised onions, baby marrows & potatoes with tomato, herbs & spices

We shared a “small” portion (it was huge) of the Lamb Shank, slow cooked for four hours with orange juice, coriander seeds and other spices served on a bed of smoked aubergine purée. Plenty for two after all those mezze

The dessert selection also comes on a tray. Not for us on this visit. A chocolate pot flavoured with rosewater and orange

Compote of Orange slices cooked with bay leaves and cloves

Baklava, sticky with syrup and nuts

Coffee infused Crème Caramel

Turkish Delight Cheese cake. There are others not illustrated.

We finished the meal with two Turkish coffees and an Apple tea

Our bill. The 8 mezze which was plenty for the four of us. You do need to go in a group if you want to taste more of the mezze. Or be extra greedy and order lots. We drank two bottles of wine we took with us. We get given lots of wine we are asked to taste and taking them to restaurants to try with different food and share with friends is one answer

The menu. We also had Kuru Kofte, not shown here . Spicy lamb meatballs served with a walnut sauce. Disappointingly they are served cold

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

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MENU goes East - A Vietnamese village; a visit to a home and supper with a family

Our Vietnamese Odyssey came to its close with a family meal in the country. We finished the day in the village, visiting an historic house and then enjoyed a delicious meal, which we helped to make. A lovely experience

Next, we were taken to the oldest house in the village. It is completely original and gave us a chance to see how people have lived for the last couple of hundred years

The front of the house is made from teak and other hardwoods and is open to the air. We were welcomed with a pot of cold tea

This was served by the owner of the house, the last surviving child of a large family. It was very refreshing. Through our guide who translated, she told us of her life with her family

Next to the old house is a modern villa which her father built

The centre of the old house is a shrine to their ancestors. At either end are the living quarters

She showed us their family tree and explained their relationship to Ho Chi Minh

The shrine is full of embellished ornaments, joss sticks, fruit offerings and pictures of the deceased members of the family

A blessing bowl

Then it was time to go and help cook supper. We were to learn how to make the green pawpaw salad. These are the implements they used. Lynne did find some of the vegetable shredders in a Hanoi supermarket; they were very cheap and she finds using them very good to use. They shred vegetables and fruit into long thin strands. And using the other, crimped, end, there are a vegetable peeler, a grater, a small mandolin cutter and a chip cutter. They cost about R10. Also on the table were lemongrass, garlic, chilli and herbs, fish sauce and carrot to use with the green pawpaws. We needed plastic gloves

We set to peeling the pawpaw

Shredding it. Everyone took turns

The pawpaw goes into boiling water for 2 minutes and is stirred well with chopsticks

Some grated carrot is add at the last minute; it is strained and returned to the bowl

Sugar is added, a rather alarming amount, about 15 teaspoons and the vegetables are mixed well until all the sugar melts

It is then squeezed dry, fish sauce and the other ingredient are added and it is ready to eat

We began our meal with chicken soup with vegetables

Fried rice paper rolls and the green pawpaw salad

washed down with Ha Long beer

You can see from our faces that is was very hot, but we had a lovely family style meal together with David Bjarnason and his family from Iceland

Small skewers of meat from the barbecue

The small kitchen

Pandanus leaf wrapped prawns

Deep fried fish. Was it from the fish pond?

Morning glory braised in a pot. It tasted rather like sprouting broccoli, but needed a lot of chewing

For dessert we had small fat bananas and other fruit

Time to bid goodbye and give warm thanks to our hosts for a really lovely country meal

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

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