Lesson Transcript

Herkese merhaba. Welcome to TurkishClass101.com. Nasılsınız? Ben Seda. Nasılsınız? Her şey yolunda mı?
Okay, today we will talk about top 10 fast food in Turkey.
Okay, I have other videos where I talk about Turkish food.
You can check it out in the channel.
But before I start with the content, I need to explain something.
Turkish cuisine is pretty, pretty rich.
And we have so many variety of food when it comes to food choices.
From vegan to vegetarian, from fast to slow cooked meals.
And this is not because of the modern food trends.
For example, in the US you see different types of diets and restaurants aligned with these diet culture.
But it's not like that in Turkey. This is our normal.
We normally have a variety of food.
You wouldn't see fast food stores like vegetarian stores, things like that.
But you'll definitely find any type of food you prefer.
Of course, foreign brands like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, blah, blah, blah are also available in Turkey.
But I'm strictly talking about Turkish food here.
And also in big cities, there are all kinds of restaurants.
But the food I will be talking about will be the ones you can find everywhere in Turkey, even in small villages.
Okay, enough with the intro. Let's get started.
Okay, one more thing.
You may be surprised not to see certain types of food in the list.
For example, döner.
Because I talk about those in top 10 street foods.
So street foods are fundamentalist fast food.
So I didn't want to repeat myself.
So I choose different foods.
And you can check the other video for the street foods.
Okay, the first one in our list is köfte ekmek.
Köfte, it's a meatball.
And Turkish cuisine has a rich variety of meatballs.
But there's one type, we call it tükürük köftesi.
I will translate this. Don't get shocked.
It is a spit saliva meatball.
It's an urban legend that the chef, which is generally a guy outside the street with a grill stand, spits his hands to be quick with making the meatballs.
That's not the case, of course, hopefully. I hope so.
Somehow, those outside grill meatballs are always the most delicious ones.
This is a street flavor that creates long queues with smell rising from the grill.
In front of the stadium after a football match or the exit of a concert, something like that.
I remember we had a stand across my school when I was like 8-9.
And sometimes we would go out and buy for lunch.
That was so tasty, the best meatball ever.
So basically, this is a grilled meatball inside a fresh Turkish bread and some greens and onions in it.
You should definitely try if you see one.
Okay, the number two is ıslak burger.
This you can translate as wet burger.
It is like a regular burger, but they dip the crispy buns in some kind of garlicky tomato sauce.
So it's wet and it is served to you like hot and dripping.
It drips literally.
And they sell this in buffet type of restaurants, like buffet restaurants.
And this buffet types of restaurants generally are very small and always sell fast food.
You can grab your food and go or just sit outside on a small table or a high chair.
Anyway, the most famous ıslak burger is in Taksim region of İstanbul.
You should try if you go to Taksim.
Okay, number three is dürüm.
Dürüm is like a Turkish wrap or burrito.
It can be vegan or meat wrap, chicken, lamb, beef served inside the dürüm.
And sometimes you can find çiğ köfte dürüm as well.
And they put the main ingredient and then some greens and onions and lavash bread.
Lavash bread is very thin flat bread and dürüm is very common fast food that you can find anywhere.
Anyway, the number four is lahmacun.
You can say this is a Turkish pizza.
Although they make the vegan version of lahmacun, the real deal is with the red mince meat.
The very name of lahmacun is coming from Arabic meaning a dough mixed with meat.
So you get the picture.
Anyway, this dish is very thin, flat and crispy.
It's quickly made and served with lemon, some greens and onions and sometimes tomatoes.
And I notice we add onions everywhere.
Anyhow, you add the greens and tomatoes and squeeze the lemon on and you roll it like a wrap like this.
Then eat it like a burrito with your hands like that.
So you got to try that on your next trip to Turkey.
Number five is menemen.
Menemen is an egg dish actually and generally a breakfast item.
But it's also eaten as a quick lunch dish.
It is basically scrambled eggs cooked softly with onions, peppers, paprika and some herbs.
And generally most restaurants have menemen on their menu.
So it is fast and tasty dish.
The number six is pide.
This is also kind of a pizza.
We can say it's a Turkish patty and it's made like patties from a well knitted dough.
And it can have a different ingredient in the middle.
It can be with cheese, with meat, with cheese and meat, with pastırma, beef, bacon and so on.
And all the kebab restaurants have this dish.
Kebapçı, you should try.
Pide is one of the best.
And number seven is meze.
This one is different than all the others because it's not like one dish.
Meze is the name of a dish type.
Meze is like appetizers, especially when you drink rakı.
You order a lot of meze before the main dish or in the fish restaurants.
And meze has so many varieties and they are precooked cold dish, generally cold.
So they are fast.
You can just eat them without ordering anything.
You don't feel heavy on your stomach.
So you can ask for more than one serving of this dish without thinking much.
It's very healthy.
From vegan to fish based meze, you'll have a variety of options.
And the eighth one is çorba.
Çorba, soup.
This is basically soup.
I know it doesn't sound like fast food, but it's the fast food for us.
This is very basic, but a very common Turkish fast food, as I said.
Every restaurant has a daily soup in their menu, generally one of these.
Ezogelin, mercimek, domates.
Ezogelin is a mix with lentil and bulgur.
And domates soup is like tomato soup and mercimek is like lentil.
And they are generally very cheap, very healthy and very fast.
And we have so many other varieties and Turkish people, I think, love their soup.
You should definitely try either, you know, any type of soup will be perfect.
We even have soup restaurants, just soups.
Okay, the next one is gözleme.
Gözleme is the fast food, which is similar to a crepe.
It's a flat bread that is filled with cheese, meat, you know, potatoes, some vegetables inside.
And it's cooked on gözleme sacı.
Gözleme sacı, something like a waffle plate, but it's big and actually very fun to watch it when it's getting cooked.
In some places, you see a woman on the floor opening the dough and cooking gözleme on that plate.
Anyhow, the last one, the tenth one is piliç çevirme.
This is basically rotisserie chicken.
You can buy the whole chicken cooked.
It doesn't even have to be a restaurant.
Sometimes the butchers sell it cooked, you know.
They have special ovens for the chicken with long sticks and they put the chickens on the sticks and slowly cook it.
And you see a lot of chickens side by side and you just order one and they wrap the whole chicken
or half the chicken or less than half, I don't know how much you want.
And then they wrap it and you take the chicken home and you eat it.
Or you take the chicken with you and you eat it.
It's slowly cooked, these rotisserie chickens are slowly cooked.
But since they have a lot of slowly cooked, ready to take chickens on the special ovens,
it is a fast food, but it's healthy.
Okay, this was our top 10 list.
And I don't know if you tried one of these.
What did you think about these?
Or which one would you like to try?
Leave some comments and I will see you next time.
Görüşürüz, hoşçakalın.

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