Why go
Knowing a few meal names makes simple eating choices easier. Look for menemen if you want eggs with tomatoes and peppers, or an esnaf lokantası for home-style cooked dishes. In hot weather, cold olive-oil vegetables can make a lighter meal than a kebab.
The full story
Breakfast can bring cheese, olives, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, jam, honey and kaymak, a rich dairy cream, with tea alongside. Menemen combines eggs with tomatoes and green peppers. Sucuk, a spiced sausage, may appear with eggs, while simit, börek and poğaça offer different baked choices for a quicker morning meal. At lunch or dinner, a home-style meal might start with soup, followed by vegetables or legumes and rice or bulgur pilav. Cacık, a cool yogurt and cucumber dish, can accompany the plate. In summer, vegetables cooked in olive oil are often served cold, and yogurt or tomato sauce accompanies fried eggplant and peppers. An esnaf lokantası is a useful name to recognize when seeking cooked dishes rather than a snack. Döner, köfte, börek and gözleme also belong to everyday quick eating, each offering a different kind of meal.