As the sun set on Eclipse Day, a feast awaited us in the Kaya Side dining room that I’m confident eclipsed any meal ever served to a Sultan. I must admit I’m quite fond of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine in general, but the chefs at the Kaya Side went above and beyond anything I would have dreamed of, bringing Europe and Asia together in a gastronomic apotheosis. It was so sinfully decadent that I expected Daniel the Prophet to show up at any minute and fiery fingers to start writing “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” on the walls, as at Belshazzar’s Feast.
In the Middle East the hors d’oeuvres are called mezze. These mezze were presented in pastry shells that reminded me of the way tostadas and taco salads are served in Mexican restaurants. But the flowers, carved out of orange peels or vegetables, were an unexpected addition.
Cabbage rolls, stuffed with meat or vegetables, are a favorite of mine. They are ubiquitious throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East. In Turkish cabbage rolls are called Lahana Sarmasi; in Romanian they are Sarmasi, in Greek they are Lahanodolmades, in Polish Golabki, in Russian Golubtsy. Regardless of what you call them, they are delicious. I’m also fond of stuffed bell peppers, also present on this platter.
Every dish was a work of art. Each serving platter was decorated with at least one flower, as well as various fruits and vegetables, and bouquets were also separately placed as decorations among the serving platters. The “flowers”, however, were themselves made of cunningly carved vegetables and fruits, as in this photo.
Sigara Böreği are the Turkish equivalent of egg rolls. (Sigara is simply the Turkish word for cigarette, so these are “cigarette rolls.”) They can be stuffed with potato, cheese, spinach or meat, but most typically the filling is Turkish white cheese, similar to feta. The pastry shells are made of a dough called yufka, which is similar to Greek phyllo. They are made by placing a small amount of filling on a yufka triangle, rolling it up and frying it in olive oil. You can find a recipe here.
There was a great variety of cabbage flowers. These used carved radishes, zucchini squash carved to look like lilies, etc. The artistry was breathtaking, and I like to imagine that the creators of these masterpieces were artists moonlighting as cooks, or students working their way through art school.
I only took a few pictures of the mezze and entrees, because they were too tempting, and Sandie and I were too hungry, after our long day on the eclipse field, to delay our enjoyment of them for long. After snapping final shots of the dining room, we joined Chuck and Elouise at a table next to Attila, Jim Windlinger, Michelle and Cherie.
After placating my appetite somewhat by gorging myself on the mezze and entrees, I took a break to check out the desserts. The staff rolled out several carts packed with every kind of dessert imaginable, and some that could not have been imagined.
If there was ever a time and place fitting the phrase “An embarrassment of riches,” this was it. The goodies just went on and on. There was no ending to them. There was no way any one person could even sample them all, though of course I tried my best.
The creative decadence of the Kaya Side desserts surpassed our wildest imaginings. One of the most spectacular was this cake in the shape of a piano. (But don’t ignore the cheesecake next to it, either.)
I had to get a close-up shot of this cake to do it justice. With a nod to Peter Tchaikovsky, one might say that this was a real Swan Lake of culinary composition.
Whenever I look at the ice cream bombe in the next picture I am reminded of the 1978 movie “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe,” starring George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Morley, in which each of the chefs is murdered in a manner befitting his or her culinary specialty. For example, the seafood maestro is drowned in a lobster tank. The chef whose specialty is baked pigeon en croute is baked in a 450 degree oven. Another, famous for his pressed duck, is pushed headfirst into a duck press. The killings follow the order of servings in a meal, with the dessert chef intended as the final victim.
Naturally, the dessert chef and heroine, played by Jacqueline Bisset, is to be killed by – what else? – a bomb within a bombe. The killer swaps the ice-cream bombe made by Bisset for an exact duplicate with a bomb hidden inside. I won’t spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it by telling how it ends.
Something similar, I suspected, would be in store for us that evening. And sure enough, for the Grand Finale the kitchen staff came trotting out bearing not one, but several, bombes.
To further heighten the party atmosphere, the cooks lit off fireworks – just sparklers, but I suspect they would have brought the wrath of the fire marshals if this had been done in the USA. As for me, I thought maybe these guys were real terrorists after all, and they were going to light the fuses, disguised as candles, on the bombes and blow us all away.
We selected some sacrificial lambs, and deputized them to be first to approach the table where the bombes were being served.
And it turned out we were not completely wrong. The bombes did explode – they burst with flavor in our mouths.
At the end of this fabulous evening out of the Arabian – er, I mean, Turkish – Nights, we retired to our rooms tired, sated, and inebriated. We also wondered how in the world we would ever be able to get up in time to catch an early morning flight to Istanbul.