There is a little pedestrian walkway that connects Haig Road to Tanjong Katong Road in my neighborhood, and just about five minutes down that path from my house, you'll get to June Eating House, as local a Singaporean coffee shop as can be. In the back, there is a big kitchen area serving zhi char, which is basically almost every simple Chinese dish that would take a bit too much effort to cook at home. In front, a cai peng stall, which is a sprawling buffet of cooked dishes from which you pick servings to go with rice or porridge. Under the TV mounted next to the "June Eating House" sign, playing a Chinese soap opera, is a döner, and carving slices off the rotating roast is Fethi Celikoglu.
The only thing better than a slice of pizza? A slice of doner kebap.
The old guys sitting al fresco at the tables along this pedestrian walkway don't know much English, but they actually know two Turkish words: "Fethi - pide!" And Fethi will roll up the dough and knead it out, scatter the ingredients of the day all across, and pop it into the oven. About a cigarette later, the pide would be done, and served to these old-timers who grew up on rice and stir-fry. The pide goes very well with cold lager served with ice, in this Singapore heat, just as it would with a bottle of Efes in Turkey.
Fethi is from Istanbul, and has lived in Singapore for more than 10 years. He was busy tonight, so I didn't get to chat with him more. He has a menu that is inexplicably simple: beef kebap platter, salad, Iskender kebap, Turkish bread, garlic bread, Turkish pizza, spaghetti bolognese. However, I'm not really sure you're supposed to order off the menu. In some of my favorite eateries in Turkey, I would pick what I wanted, but my host would come by and offer something else that was, yes, "better for you." I would always go with their suggestion and was the happier for it. So I ordered the beef kebap platter, but first, a surprise arrived: zeytinyağlı pırasa, an Ottoman dish of leeks braised in olive oil, a common sight on dinner tables in Turkish homes. It wasn't on the menu, and Fethi told me about the health qualities of leeks, then pointed to his protruding belly and said, "I have no choice, I have to eat this!"
I didn't need to be forced to polish off the entire plate.
So good, it needs its own Wiki-leeks.
Then, instead of a beef kebap platter, the Iskender kebap was served, a Bursa dish of grilled strips of beef over diced Turkish bread doused in salça, then drenched with a hearty dose of fried butter. A dollop of yogurt, grilled peppers and tomatoes try to salvage this local favorite from gut-busting purgatory but really, just love it for what it is - greasy Turkish street food that will bring you so much palatial pleasure. It's not the brain surgery of the culinary arts. But if I'm going to have Iskender kebap, then I want a beefy guy who looks like he owns the dish preparing it. Like, he looks the way he does because he's eaten Iskender kebap all his life and knows what it takes to make an excellent one.
A toast to this roast!
As with the best eating experiences in Turkey, an excellent meal is made even better by warmth and graciousness. Fethi will be gone on vacation for a month starting Saturday, and learning this was the only downside of dinner, not including envy that he will spend part of his time off in Turkey. Who would have thought - I have been in cold Turkey ever since I left that wonderful country, and now, just steps from home, I can actually almost smell the Bosphorous?
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