Of fancy restaurants and stylish places

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had several evening events this week.  First was a dinner with our clients at Nobili Park restaurant on Monday night.   On Tuesday night I met a friend of a friend, Handan, who lives here in Izmir and she took me to a wonderful restaurant, La Cigale, at the French Institute of Turkey.  It was so good I took the team back there for lunch on Wednesday.  And Thursday night all 4 teams were treated to dinner by Dr. Mustafa, the president (rektor) of ITYE University.

Here is a picture of Handan and I at La Cigale.

I didn't bring my camera with me to the other events so I will now completely and unabashedly steal the rest of this blog post from Serina!

So after trudging through quaint villages and old historic cities, it turned out that this was a week for fine wining and dining. Perhaps it’s a good thing, so as to rejuvenate before our next expedition tomorrow to the ancient city of Hierapolis and the thermal springs of Pamukkale.

We started off on Monday, with a dinner at the Nobili Park Balçova which is located half way up a hill and of course there were extraordinary views of the city below and sea in a distance.


Food ranged from fried calamari, chicken tacos and cheese rolls to the traditional Turkish appetizers, a cheese platter, several salads, a perfectly made Chicken Schnitzel for the main course and we finally had to skip over the Tiramisu and chocolate mousse so as to try some of the renowned Turkish desserts.



Goes without saying, we didn't leave till we got out Turkish coffee. And it was served with a dark chocolate mousse.





Escaping from work on a Wednesday afternoon has never been more pleasurable for we discovered a hidden restaurant in a secret garden. In the back garden of the French institute of Izmir was La Cigale, a very contemporary style restaurant with a varied European food menu. Finally a Turkish menu card with some translation.... well, just my luck it had to be translated to French not English!

After a fab chicken pasta and lemonade, I ended that meal with a chocolate cheesecake.  Then I totally broke tradition and indulged in my first cappuccino since I'd arrived in Turkey.




Boğaziçi, was something extraordinary all together; not just another a seafood restaurant situated on a pier. On Thursday evening, we were seated on the first floor glass balcony of this very classy restaurant where you could see the city lights all along the coast and the lights on all of the ships anchored across the sea.

And then it was 4 hours of nonstop seafood, some traditional, some not, but everything delicious. To keep with tradition, we didn't just end our dinner with Turkish coffee but it was also time for some coffee cup fortune reading thanks to Kayahan and his skills.



Whether it was the ambiance of these places, the excellent views, the food or just the great company, each one of these outings were truly memorable.