Tastes of Turkey – Restaurant Review: Ficcin
A first meal in any new country can be a harrowing, dizzying, even terrifying experience. It certainly helps when the establishment feels like home. In Istanbul, there are few places that are as instantly welcoming as Ficcin Restaurant. One might have to don slippers and engage in a little B&E to match the atmosphere engendered by one the city’s most charming and delicious eateries.
Opened in 1996, the establishment keeps growing, like any good home should. It has expanded to three dining rooms and a healthy plot of street real estate on a tiny walkway connecting busy Mesrutiyet Caddesi to the wild expanses of the Istiklal, one of Istanbul’s most vibrant thoroughfares.
Despite (or perhaps a reason for) the restaurant’s success, the service remains some of the most laid back yet attentive in the whole city, always seeming to extend a permanently warm hand to the lively Beyoglu community it nourishes. Ambling tourists try and squeeze amongst a vibrant local scene content on making Ficcin their go-to spot. In the mornings, fashionable young professionals eagerly gather for a wide, traditional Turkish breakfast spread that feels more like a private gathering of friends than a quick, compulsory meal before a long workday.
Even with the vigor of the morning rush (if only there was such a kind of group enthusiasm in America, going to work might not be such a horror), the lunch and dinner service is where Ficcin truly shines. The restaurant sets itself apart with its Çerkez, or Circassian specialties, a rarity in the city despite the large number of Turks tracing their lineage back to the Caucasus Mountains region of the same name. These dishes tended to be bolder (and perhaps a little heavier) than their Turkish counterparts, like in the Çerkez version of a Turkish dumpling (Manti). Stuffed with cheese or beef, they come smothered in a thick, velvety yogurt sauce that is enlivened by a healthy dousing of red pepper oil. The crispness of the oil finely accentuates the luxuriousness of the sauce, all blending well with the crumbly bits of meat or cheese stuffed into chewy, perfectly boiled pierogi shells.
The restaurant’s specialty is the eponymous Ficcin, a Circassian Borek with little similarities to the ubiquitous Turkish flakey pastry. Instead, it fluffily rises up like a cake after baking, with layers of dough piled on top of richly seasoned ground beef.
The restaurant also serves enigmatically prepared Turkish standards, with a veggie heavy selection of stuffed, baked, and olive-oiled (only in Turkey is that an adjective) dishes. The firin mücver (baked mixed vegetables) is served as a hearty square patty with a heavily crisped outer layer. Inside, the outstanding moistness of the greens and carrots and peppers resemble a slowly simmered stew.
Another standout is the zeytinyagli semizotu (olive-oiled purslane), served cold with heaps of crunchy purslane meat soaked in olive oil and mixed with potatoes, green beans and carrots. A lemon garnish helps add a welcome layer of citrus to the subtly seasoned, delicate blend of vegetables.
It’s hard to say whether exuberant dolma rollers might be found in every thriving household in Turkey, but it wholly felt like it though after an inquisitive peep into one of the restaurant’s dimly lit dining rooms elicited a welcoming call to observe (and admire) a clinic in grape leaf technique. The tightly rolled, cigar-shaped Mediterranean favorites prepared by two charming female cooks were as long as their smiles as they broke down the steps to a perfect dolma. This might seem like a far-away place to some, but at Ficcin, everyone’s just part of the family.
Prices: entrees – $4-7
Address: Kallavi Sok. No:13/1 – 7/1 Beyoglu
Phone: (212) 243 83 53
Website: www.ficcin.com