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.
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