Turkey's Breakfast Beast of the East

Yigal Schleifer

A typical Van breakfast spread

Van, a city in far eastern Turkey, is a place that runs on breakfast. The town is crammed with small restaurants, known as "Kahvalti Salonu," that serve nothing but breakfast all day long. And not just any breakfast, but a monstrous, multi-item thing that puts other meals to shame.

Robyn Eckhardt, writer of the Eating Asia blog, recently wrote about the Van breakfast (and it's recent arrival in Istanbul) for the Daily Zester food site. From her piece:

As Philadelphia is to cheesesteak so Van is to kahvalti, or breakfast. The city is dotted with single-purpose kahvalti salonu (breakfast "salons"), and its downtown boasts a "Kahvalti Caddesi" (Breakfast Street) where, in accommodating weather, patrons hover over impressive spreads at outdoor tables. Eaten in, taken out or delivered to one's door, Van kahvalti is an anytime-of-day meal. The only rule is that it be hearty. 

"We do like our breakfast," acknowledged 19-year-old Vanli (Van native, as they are known) Erhan Caliskan, preparing to tuck in one morning at Sura Kahvalti Salonu, a neat and tidy working man's breakfast salon several blocks from Breakfast Street. 

 

Like most kahvalti salonu, Sura beckons with its window display: bins of glistening olives, slabs of honeycomb half submerged in amber stickiness, blocks of cheese, bowls filled with clouds of airy churned butter and plates stacked with delicate sheets of fresh kaymak, Turkish-style clotted cream made by skimming the fat that rises to the top of vats of boiling milk (sheep's milk is used in Van). Sura's owner Erdem Solbas takes orders and assembles the kahvalti's cold portion up front. Hot dishes are prepared in a kitchen at the back, and pide (flatbreads) and ekmek (crusty loaves) are brought in from a nearby bakery to order, so they always arrive at the table warm.