04 April 2016

Turkish Breakfast Review - Mavra Cafe

Mavra, located near the historic Galata Tower, is often cited as being one of the best places to eat in Galata. It's not bad; but it's also not awesome which means either my taste buds don't agree with people who write these articles (hello The Guide) or that everywhere else is worse.

Mavra is a design concept store and cafe which means in addition to food they also sell an assortment of random decorative objects and jewelry. I've had lunch here before and the schnitzel was really pretty decent but it was the create names for the breakfast items that had me coming back. With dish names like Good Morning Princess and Gateway to Paradise I felt like I was in a combination Turkish Chinese restaurant. And breakfast was good, but I'm kind of a stickler for having the food served to me match the description.


I tried the French toast and the Gateway to Paradise. As an American when I think of French toast it's slices of bread that have been dipped in an egg-milk-cinnamon concoction before being fried. At Mavra (and I suspect as a general rule here) the Turkish name for French toast which translates as eggy bread was far more accurate. This was not at all sweet, in fact I think there were some savory herbs mixed in the eggs that thickly coated the bread. However in that beautiful Turkish ability to mix sweet and savory like genius food gods, the savory eggy bread combined with some feta cheese and honey was really pretty great.


It was the Gateway to Paradise that turned out to be ironically disappointing. The description promised thick yogurt (check), seasonal fruit (check-ish), honey (check), and walnuts. The kiwi was an odd choice, I thought, nor were they especially ripe and unless they used special, invisible walnuts those were missing entirely. However I did go to the store later to stock up on yogurt, fruit, and walnuts because conceptually I like the idea.


Not my favorite spot so far but it's a decent cafe with a fairly diverse menu and worth a stop.

Mavra
Serdari Ekrem Sokak No. 31
Galata, Beyoglu

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