HOCAPASA PIDECISI -- 3

HOCAPASA SOKAK NO. 19, NEAR ANAKRA CADDESI

Hocapasa Pidecisi is a halal restaurant.

The sausage is made from beef.

There is no pepperoni, which is good because Pide really isn't simply Turkish Pizza.

The Pastirmali is my favorite, Turkish-style Pastrami. It tastes as good on pide crust out of a stone oven as it tasts on challah with mustard on a sandwich.

Most pides are 20 Turkish Lira or less. That's less than six bucks at the current exchange rate.

They are big enough to split during lunch. They come with pickles and peppers on the side.

The simple, basis Kasarli pides, a mild white and yellow cheese -- is very easy on the belly, say if you took in a little too much tobacco at the nargile (water bubble pipe) cafe.

The Kapali Pides -- available with special roasted or minced meats and in other varieties -- are, I guess to further bastardize a dish that is NOT Italian -- similar to a calzone or stromboli but without the grease and tomato sauce.

They are closed and maybe even more buttery (or is it fine olive oil) than the open-faced kind.

Kapali is an easy Turkish word to learn. It simply means covered.

The Grand Bazaar's real name is Kapalicarsi = covered market.

I ended up visiting five times during a two-week visit.

The last two times I left with a huge serving of special, homemade tahini helva.

It made me feel like family.

It made me feel warm and loved in a place very far from home.

It reinforced my lifelong respect for the Turkish approach to hospitality and the Muslim tradition of caring for visitors like family.

www.hocapasa.com.tr

HOCAPASA PIDECISI - 2

BEST PIDE IN ISTANBUL FOR HALF A CENTURY

I arrived at Hocapasa Pidecisi weary and bleary.

The owner saw the look in my eye.

Quickly, he scrambled to set up a tiny table for me right in the kitchen.

He spoke English to me and made me at home.

A simple chicken Pide and a Coke was all I wanted.

Even though he was incredibly busy, he came over to talk to me.

Very sadly, Americans and Western Europeans are not traveling to Turkey these days.

So I was kind of a novelty, but not treated as such.

From my kitchen vantage point, I could see a master pide maker create more than one dozen different varieties of the boat-shaped pies.

He could make each one, from dough to cheese to specialty toppings -- in less than a minute.

In no time, I was eating buttery dough from heaven with seasoned chicken on it.

When I asked about the Turkish Style pastrami, a load of it landed on my second half of pide, for my sampling.

People call pide Turkish Pizza. It's not the same, but since it has dough, usually but not always cheese and toppings and bakes in an oven -- it's hard to ignore the comparison.

The flavor and quality of mine was spectacular.

But it was the kindness of the host and the staff that really put things over the top.

www.hocapasa.com.tr

HOCAPASA PIDECISI

SIRKECI, ISTANBUL

I arrived spent, tired and cold in Istanbul.

I hadn't slept a wink on the 11-hour flight and it took nearly two hours to clear passport control.

To make matters worse, to save a buck, I took the subway -- meaning with sleep deprivation, I had to make an underground transfer from one line to another.

Then whey I arrived at Sirkeci Station, I had to ride three or four lengths of terrifyingly steep, seemed like football field length escalators -- all with bookbag on back and luggage in tow.

The early evening air was much cooler than I expected, with the nearby Golden Horn/Bosphorus bodies of water fueling the nippy breezes.

I was starving, but also felt like I could throw up.

One of the reasons I love Sirkeci is the wealth of local restaurants on little streets too narrow for a car to drive on,

Operators speak enough English to assist tourists, but the local trade drives the economy -- meaning prices are low and quality is high.

I had read about Hocapasa Pidecisi -- opened in 1964, the year I was born.

When I got to it, the outside tables were packed. It was sundown and an observant Muslim city was breaking the long daily fast in observance of Ramazan.

www.hocapasa.com.tr