(NOTE: This review relates to a 2015 meal which I seem to have missed posting to HO. Restaurant is still there and still good, I just haven’t written about it more recently)
I’m usually disappointed in Turkish places. So often the food is just variations on a theme of “stuff” drowned in a spicy tomato sauce, that seems to be nothing more than a tin of tomatoes and chilli… So, it was with some trepidation that, I walked into Galata Pera. I’d spotted it on my last trip to the area when I went to eat at the usually reliable Pappadums, next door.
The starter was seriously excellent. In Turkish, it’s called Arnavut Cigeri – Albanian liver – and is, so I understand, a traditional dish dating to Ottoman times (hence the reference to empire). Chunks of lamb’s liver, dusted with paprika I think and very expertly cooked, retaining just a hint of pink. They’re tossed through a heap of thinly sliced red onion, just slightly softened in the pan and retaining a little bite. It’s a massive portion – main course size. I battled my way through, coz it was really so good. They serve you a bread basket – flatbreads and slices of a soft white – the former great for picking up chunks of liver, the latter for mopping up juices. And there’s a little dish of cacik. And another of a really spicy tomato sauce, given an interesting zing from a splash of vinegar.
Two Adana kofte kebabs were another bit of spot-on cooking. They’ve been a bit clever here – there’s an open kitchen just near the front door, so the first thing you see and smell as you walk in is meat grilling. It was the chef who welcomed me and he came round from his station to show me to a table. Yes, from then, I was always going to be having a kebab. Google tells me that, in Turkey, the “Adana kebab” is governed by a Designation of Origin. I’ve no idea whether the restaurant cooks to the Designation but I do know this is one the best kofta kebabs I recall eating. It’s flavoursome meat, with some goodly amount of fat in there, well seasoned and very moist. There’s rice to accompany and a simple salad – of rocket, onion, cucumber and tomato. A dab or two of the cacik worked well but I didn’t feel the need for more of the spicy sauce with this course. It was all delicious.
Perhaps needless to say, after all that food, I passed in dessert. Except for the little square of baklava that came with the bill. And , with that, I waddled off back to Brentford High Street, a very well fed and happy man.
