Mikla, Istanbul
This was my first restaurant book in Istanbul. In short, it was not good. The service was very straightforward and minimal, which frankly I did not care, yet the main problem was the plates. Anyway, let's go back to the beginning. The restaurant is located at the European side of Istanbul at a roof of a 10+ floor building, so it has a stunning view in the evening. I was rushing to the restaurant after checking in in hotel, in a heavy rain. The restaurant gave me a table in the precise middle of the dining area while there were many empty tables by the windows. I guessed they did not care service at all. I would even say it is old fashion, maybe, as all waiters and chefs are all in white chef-style clothes, and the service was to put the plate on the table, list the ingredients and leave. Even the menu was printed in old fashion way, simple without any decoration. I thought it was a good start, as it means the chefs were probably confident enough to not care. However, I was wrong, at least for the tasting menu.
Menu
I got an interesting canapé, a slice of fish, sea bass if I remembered, on top of a thin cracker paired with creamy sauce. I was curious how they managed to stick the sea bass as a whole on the fragile cracker, I guess I will never know the answer. The food itself was also fun. First the sea bass was fully cooked, which I have not had such way of sea bass for long time in fine dining. It was surprisingly not dry at all because the cracker is very crunchy and with light syrup sweetness which contrasted well with the fully cooked sea bass. Separately, the sauce is very mild and creamy, but not too thick. I think the chef said it was made from cream and butter. This sauce added another layer of flavour and 'hid' some dryness from the sea bass.
Canapé
A plate of cured beef caught my interest. First, cured beef is not very common in European fine dining environments, but probably only used in Islamic countries. Did it taste different from cured pork? Yes. Beef was much more chewy and tougher. I felt it was more difficult to cut; however, it could be due to the thickness. Also cured beef has darker colour than pork, which was close to darker brown/red or even black in some areas. Anyway, I found it different and new. The cured beef here was paired with fully cooked cauliflowers, or I would even say, overcooked. It was an interesting texture, slightly harder cured beef with almost no shape nor texture cauliflowers. I am not sure if I liked it.
Dried beef tenderloin
Then let’s move to a plate I disliked, Charred Calamari. It was certainly very nice calamari ingredient, well-cooked, and tendered, however it was way too greasy to me. It made me feel a bit too heavy. I was not sure if I should interpret it as Turkish style or it was simply not well-balanced dish. Separately, I understood what ‘charred’ means, yet I taste nothing that reminded me of charred. Instead, the vegetables gave strong charred flavour, namely bitter and lightly burned.
Charred Calamari
The first main was the fish of the day, which was sea bass. It was nice paired with olives yet that was just it. The second main dish, Braised Lamb, was also not very good. The main problem is way too dry and tough even for braised lamb. I could easily cut vertically since it was the direction of the muscle, however, impossible on horizontal direction. The only thing I found interesting was a light lime flavour.
Braised Lamb
The things I liked the most turned out to be the ice cream, namely, Black Mulberry Soup. In short, it was not pure sweet but sour punching from mulberry then followed by light sweet from the ice cream. The dish had some herb flavour from cardamom which was very nice. Cardamom was combined well with the Raki, a local alcohol. Last, it was the Turkish style ice cream which was sticky. I think it is very interesting representation of Turkish.
Black Mulberry Soup
Overall, this restaurant was a no-no for me. The service was not very good, which I care less. The food was boring. The thing I remembered was some bad factors, e.g., greasy and dry. In fact, I even forgot to take the picture of daily fish as I was so bored then.
🐼 Score: 1/5
