Istanbul
2631 Nolensville Rd. 248-6888
Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Sat.; 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Sun.
Price range: $5-$15
Is there a food item that suffers more from misplaced ambition or ambiguous definition than the poor pizza? What began in Italy centuries ago as a thin and irregularly shaped round of dough brushed with olive oil and topped with tomato, garlic and basil now sometimes tops out at 10 pounds of bread, meats, veggies, fruits and cheese. Aside from the unlimited number and variety of toppings that can be loaded onto the standard tomato sauce base, there are countless pizza interpretations that make me scratch my head and say, “Why?”
There is the sushi pizza, introduced locally at Ichiban and also available at Ken’s Sushi, an oblong patty of sticky rice slathered with mayonnaise and cream cheese and topped with tempura bits. There is the Mexican pizza that I spied at a pot-luck school picnic last summer, in which refrigerated pizza dough serves as the base for a five-layer dip featuring refried beans, sour cream, cheddar cheese, salsa, green onions and God knows what else. At the same function, on the dessert table, was a chocolate pizza: the same refrigerated pizza dough spread with chocolate pudding, Cool Whip and a torrential downpour of chocolate sprinkles. (Someone, please confiscate this woman’s recipe file.)
So I wasn’t sure what would come to the table when I ordered the Turkish pizza at Istanbul the other night. The other items on the restaurant’s menu were pretty straightforward, at least as far as Middle Eastern cuisine is concerned: gyros, shish kabob, falafel, basmati rice and tabouleh. We were told that the kuzy plate would be lamb shank, and that a doner plate was the “original gyro”: marinated bottom sirloin steak, grilled, then cut into small pieces.
But lahmacun, a.k.a. Turkish pizza? We can happily report that the execution, though unusual, is quite successful. It resembles pizza in that it begins with a round of hand-shaped dough covered almost to its edges with a spread of diced green and red peppers, onion, tomato and cooked ground beef, bound together with red pepper paste imported from Turkey. The dough—thin, but not crispy—turns golden yellow once cooked in the small brick pizza oven in the back of Istanbul’s open kitchen. Available in mild and spicy versions, the lahmacun topping has a distinct, rich flavor—a perfectly blended mix of onion, garlic and pepper that’s at once spicy and a little earthy. An accompanying plate of lettuce, tomato, sliced onion and lime wedges provides the perfect garnish: Squeeze the lime juice over the pizza, tear off a piece, and scoop up some lettuce and tomato. The 6-inch pizzas come two or three to an order, and at just $4.99 or $6.99, they rank as one of the best meal deals in town. Be warned, though, lahmacun is available just three nights a week, from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. It’s worth planning a trip just to sample this unique specialty.
Located on Nolensville Road, not far from the Thompson Lane intersection, Istanbul was for many years known as International Corner Market, until owner Mizgen Zabari returned to his native Iraq last year. The men responsible for introducing lahmacun are the new owners. Though Kurdish like Zabari, they hail from Turkey and they both have the same first name, though with a slight spelling variation. Memet Arslan says some regular customers refer to him as “Old Memet,” to differentiate him from the slightly younger, though considerably taller Mehmet Sadioglu.
Arslan came to Nashville in 1991, worked for Luby’s Cafeteria for seven years, and Rio Bravo for five, all the while dreaming of starting his own business. Sadioglu came to America six years ago and eventually became an assistant manager of a Kroger store. He also wanted to own a business, and the stars aligned at the end 2002, when a mutual friend introduced Mehmet to Memet, and they heard that International Corner Market was up for sale.
The partners have done little work on the tile-floored dining room, which boasts an expanse of windows looking out onto to Nolensville Road and an open kitchen on the opposite side. The most eye-catching décor is a colorful mural on one wall, while the nude figures in the statuary in the center of the room have been modestly covered with full-length dresses. On the counter sits the brilliant azure and turquoise glass “eye” of good luck, brought from Turkey.
The menu is also little changed from the Corner Market days, though there are some notable additions aside from the lahmacun, and the quality and freshness of the food are improved as well.
On the night we visited, our waiter was working his first night on the floor, and there were language challenges, but his earnest and friendly demeanor made it easy to overlook the erratic service. Arslan and Sadioglu also made frequent checks on our table. As their steadily building clientele will attest, they oversee the restaurant with an amiable, immensely likable, hardworking demeanor.
We began our meal with the creamy, garlicky homemade hummus, spread on pieces of pita bread purchased from Baraka Bakery up the road. (Heating the bread in the pizza oven or on the grill would be a small but simple improvement.) The freshly made tabouleh was tangy with finely chopped parsley, but very heavy on the onion. The Mediterranean salad is a large platter of chilled iceberg lettuce, olives, cucumbers, sliced onion and green pepper, feta cheese and tomato. (Another suggestion: During Tennessee’s tomato season, the owners would do well to make a trip to Farmers Market, where bushels of vine-ripened locally grown tomatoes stretch as far as the eye can see.) All of the soups I have sampled at Istanbul, particularly the chicken-orzo, have been hearty and flavorful; the choices change on a daily basis.
The bulk of the menu consists of sandwiches and plates; the latter offer more choices of meats and come with a rough chop of lightly dressed cucumbers, tomato, onion and parsley, along with basmati rice. The rice is portioned quite generously, but it wasn’t enough for some of the diners at our table, who consumed it with such gluttonous relish that no other plate on the table was safe from their invasive forks. The secret to its irresistibility, according to Arslan, is that the nutty, firm-textured basmati grain is cooked with chicken stock, which adds a buttery richness; short lengths of very thin noodles add a nice touch as well.
Among the plates, two shish kabobs are offered. The seasoned beef chunks come still attached to the skewer, supplemented with onion, pepper and tomato. The boneless, white-meat chicken lengths are moist and peppery, nicely salted with just a hint of lemon. The previously described doner—available in Nashville only at Istanbul—is an improvement on the standard gyro, which is also available. Whereas the doner consists of marinated sirloin, the gyro is a mix of ground beef and lamb formed into a log-like shape, delivered frozen, slowly cooked on a vertical rotisserie, then briefly thrown on the flat grill. For non-meat eaters, the veggie plate offers a healthy serving of vegetables cooked on the grill; it’s straightforward but well executed. The falafel—the other vegetarian option—did nothing to excite me but rated highly with the falafel fan in our party.
Standouts on the plate menu include the lamb shank, cooked so long and so perfectly that a mere glance at the meaty bone caused the lamb to fall away in delectable, bite-sized portions. The split, flattened and grilled Cornish hen—seasoned in the same fashion as the chicken kabob—was spectacular in its simplicity, plump and tender.
If raw onion disagrees with you, be sure to request its omission when ordering one of the sandwiches. The gyro, chicken, falafel, veggie and doner all come rolled up in a pita with lettuce, tomato, onion and the yogurt sauce that comes in a small cup with every plate.
Arslan and Sadioglu are particularly proud of their homemade desserts, and justifiably so. None were burdened with the overwhelming sweetness that can be common to Middle Eastern desserts. The baklava was delicious, but even better was the kadayet, a similar concoction of phyllo, honey and chopped nuts topped with crispy shavings. Still more unusual, but just as excellent, are the revani, a dense, honey-soaked square of yellow pound cake with nuts, and the seker pare, a ring-shaped cookie/cake swimming in thick syrup.
Arslan notes that he and Sadioglu will gradually add more Turkish specialties as their staff and kitchen become more efficient. In the meanwhile, they occasionally have daily specials on the board and, as noted, lahmacun three nights weekly.
Leaving Istanbul after dinner, we passed by a teenage boy painting a tall sign that will stand on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, to help diners notice the easily bypassed, nondescript cinderblock building. In large colorful letters, the sign lists, “Shish Kabob Gyro Vegetable Dishes Pollo Azado.”
“Pollo Azado?” I asked Arslan later. He shrugged and smiled. “We have many Spanish neighbors in this area. We want everyone to come to Istanbul.”
Only in America.
