After a somewhat late night Saturday out dancing with friends, I kept a low profile on Sunday, mostly staying in and taking care of a few things. For one, I moved from the 1st floor apartment in the building I am in to the 5th floor one (as planned when I booked the place). Then I did a little bit of work, took a brief walk around the neighborhood, and in the evening I was getting hungry so went in search of something simple. I stumbled upon this restaurant nearby named “Gani Gani”, and although it looked a little too cute inside with its “traditional” style room decor, I was too hungry to go further. I looked at the menu and ordered a kind of Turkish pizza that I had been hearing about (called Lahmacun), along with a yogurt drink (Ayran) and a water. While I was waiting for my meal to arrive, the cheerful waiter passed by with a dessert for another table. He then stopped by my table to show it to me, told me it was “special dessert, like Turkish Viagra.” I smiled a kind of queasy smile at him and nodded, not at all sure what he was implying. He then said I should try it, “maybe with girl you bring”. Was he ever reading me wrong. Anyway, I said thanks, no, perhaps some other time, and he scurried off in the direction of whatever table of undersexed (or oversexed) lovers he was to deliver it to.
A few minutes later some food arrived at my table, but it did not seem like what I had ordered. It was a giant puffed bread and some spicy-hot mincemeat something on the side. I asked the waiter if this is what I ordered and he said,
“This appetizer. Make you hungry. Food coming later.”
And although I was pretty sure he was adding things to my order, I went with it and dug in. It was actually super delicious, and while I was eating it my lahmacun pizza came, and it was also super yummy, I have to say. Here is what they looked like:
Between the two things I was pretty full when done, and so I asked for the check and he said,
“No yet, dessert coming.”
And I just knew I was about to eat Turkish pastry Viagra whether I wanted to or not. He scurried off before I could protest (I am sure he must do this all the time) and came back a couple of minutes later with this:
I thought what the hell, I would try a few bites. It was pretty good, but way too rich for me at that point, made with a tanker’s worth of sugar and melted cheese, I had about a third of it and finally got my check. Although the waiter had indeed added on these things to the bill, the total still only amounted to about thirteen dollars, so I didn’t much care. And everything was really delicious.
Surprisingly, I was not turned into a heaving sexbeast after eating the dessert, I wonder what went wrong?