Perfect Fall Sunday

Had a wonderful, lazy fall Sunday today. I'm really appreciating it partly because I just graduated from school this past May and after 20+ years (I'm counting pre-college in there too) of fall being about back to school and homework, I can finally just appreciate the season. Woke up, without any particular plans, decided to go get Turkish breakfast with my friend, and then E and I went for a drive and wine tasting. On the way home, we stopped at a beach and hung out on the sand for a bit, enjoyed the view.

Which brings me to the topics of the day: Turkish food (especially breakfast), and wine tasting.

There aren't many authentic Turkish breakfasts to get around Boston. There are a few (5 or 6 I think?) Turkish restaurants around, of varying quality, but they don't all do authentic Turkish breakfast. For those of you that have never experienced the joy of a turkish breakfast, it's something like a charcuterie plate, a cheese plate, and fresh salad all in one. There are usually at least two kinds of cheese, olives, cucumber, tomato, a couple kinds of jam, honey, fresh bread, sucuk (Turkish spiced beef sausage, pronounced suh-juk), and often a hard boiled egg. All that washed down with a perfect cup of tea in a little glass turkish tea cup. Of course, none of this is to be gobbled down, the idea is to sit back, relax, sip your tea, and eat a little bit of everything, a little bit at a time. So here are, in my opinion, the two best places to get Turkish breakfast around Boston,  one on each side of the Charles. 

Cafe Mangal - In Wellesley Square, (conveniently located even for public transit people on the commuter rail) this restaurant serves a Turkish/ Mediterranean influenced menu, great sandwiches for lunch. At night, they are more of a high-end restaurant with high quality, perfectly prepared, amazing food. And in the morning on the weekends, they do authentic Turkish breakfast and their beautiful dining room is the perfect place to sit back, sip your tea, relax, and enjoy.

Istanbul'lu - In Teele Sq. (a really short walk from Davis) just opened this summer, but the chef has lots of experience and it shows. The food is wonderful, and atmosphere is great, and they serve really amazingly good homestyle Turkish food all day. Their "Plate of Turkish Mornings" is the quintessential Turkish breakfast. If you've never had Turkish food before, or only tried it once or twice, come to this place and get hooked. Great quality food, wonderful spices (not hot unless you want it, don't worry), and low prices. The location they're in seems to be cursed (every place that's been there for the past 7+ years, has closed within 2 years) so please, go check them out and break the curse on this spot, they deserve to stay!

E and I have made a habit of wine tasting, especially when we travel. It's a lot of fun, and we've even managed to learn a little bit about wine along the way. Not  that we're snobs, but it's fun to find interesting little wineries and get to taste great wine. We almost always buy a bottle, bring it home and pop it open on a special occasion. 

Coastal Vineyards - Today we went to this tiny little winery. It's brand new, they just started retail wine sales this year. Owned by a couple, they have great wines and a beautiful vineyard. We had a great time tasting, chatting about wine, and bought a bottle of the "Red Wave", a Merlot-Cab Franc blend. I love that they grow all their own grapes, which is actually pretty rare, lots of wineries grow a few grapes but also buy grapes from other places to blend it. It's hard work for a winery to grow all their own grapes, but it totally paid off for these guys. Their Chardonnay is wonderful too, as is their Gewurztraminer.