These aren’t just abstract thoughts for me. Turkey was in fact my stepping stone to the U.S. I started my undergrad in Ankara, spending a year and a half before transferring self and credits to the States. It was my first time away from home for any length of time, let alone in a land where I didn’t speak the language. (The education was in English, if you’re wondering, and that gave those of us from former colonial holdings of the once-global British Empire a decided academic advantage over the local students!) When you’re young every new situation is exciting, every challenge an incentive to explore and discover and broaden your horizons. When all your belongings fit in one suitcase, after all, what do you have to lose?

So Turkey had a formative influence on me. The food experiences were new too. Baklava (which we would consume by the plateful in pastahanes, where they were moist and flaky and served warm ... nothing I’ve had in any restaurant since has equaled that experience), halva, feta cheese, olives, doner kebab (aka gyros or shawirma), these all constituted new stimulation to a palate jaded by curries and variations thereof.

You can imagine, then, that the news of a Turkish restaurant opening in the Twin Cities brought back fond memories and I was eager to try and recapture a past that often seems as if it was another life. Istanbul Bistro is a bit of a hike—it’s about a mile west of I-494 on Highway 12 (I-394)—and the drive just prolonged the anticipation.

Istanbul’s menu is reasonably extensive and there’s a separate lunch specials sheet as well. The specials include gyros, chicken shish kebab, a few salads including an Aegean pasta salad, a penne dish, a pizza wrap and a vegetarian flatbread pizza. All of these come with soup and/or salad. I never had anything that was called gyros or pizza in Turkey, although I frequently had dishes that were similar—called, respectively, doner kebab and pide or lahmacun. I suppose the owners of Istanbul have swallowed national pride in the interests of presenting familiar lunch items.

Neither of us ordered from the lunch specials anyway. The main menu is more authentic (including in its terminology) and features several appetizers, salads, and entrees, along with a few soups and sandwiches. Combination platters and side dishes are also listed. We started by sharing the ispanakli börek, or spinach pie. We followed this with a soup each; I went with the daily special, a tomato basil with rice, and B ordered the traditional red lentil soup. For our main dishes, I got the doner kebab sandwich and B the lahmacun.

In Greek restaurants one usually finds spinach pies with a combination spinach-and-feta filling; here the börek was mostly spinach, with a minimal amount of (probably) kayseri cheese. The crust was a thin layer of phyllo. One appetizer order consisted of a large triangle, half of which apiece was plenty. This was a back-to-the-basics rendition of a spinach pie, with the minimal phyllo and the mostly spinach filling. The phyllo was slightly burnt, otherwise it was quite good.

I liked my soup, which was quite hearty with the long grain rice nicely cooked, not overdone. B’s lentil soup was spicy and intense. It appeared to be made with yellow lentils rather than red if its color is anything to go by.

My doner kebab sandwich was undistinguishable from a gyro sandwich ... but I’m not sure what the difference is anyway (a question to this effect of our born-and-bred-in-Minnesota waitress didn’t enlighten us any). The meat was tasty but dry; I suspect I might have got the first slices from the rotisserie that morning. The meat and the usual lettuce, tomato, and yogurt sauce were served atop a flat "pide" bread.

More than any other dish, it’s the lahmacun I remember from my days in Turkey: a round flat bread with ground beef, herbs, spices and, if you like, some other toppings—a fried egg used to be a favorite. Simple everyman fare but when made well and served hot it was wonderful. I found Istanbul’s rendition acceptable but no experiences were relived.

On the beverage front, about 20 wines are available by the glass and the small beer selection includes the Turkish Efes Pilsner. In the absence of any Turkish wines I had the pilsner, which would probably have tasted much better if I had been sitting in a café in Turkey. I finished my meal with a Turkish coffee, which came, very unauthentically, in a large espresso cup, almost full, the effect further marred by coffee grains all along its rim. It was more of a weak espresso than anything Turkish anyway.

Istanbul’s décor doesn’t attempt to recreate a Turkish setting either. The place has the look of a more-or-less typical suburban restaurant, with dark wood and a waist-high partition running down the center of the long main room. The partition is adorned with plastic vines and grapes. A built-in wine rack makes up part of a back wall. There are some effective touches. The walls have authentic copper kitchen ware and bas relief works showing various Turkish scenes.

With expectations driven by nostalgia, how can reality compete? You can never go even halfway home again.

Istanbul straddles two cultures and the Bosphorous in apparent comfort, even has European Union aspirations, but don’t scratch the surface too deeply, for beneath the Ataturk inspired veneer lies the old east where the wail of the muezzin is an ever-present backdrop to the machinations of the Generals and the insidious plots of the Islamists. Istanbul Café, on the other hand, almost straddles highway 394 and is not located in the most reachable of locations. The Lunch did succeed in finding it but it was a near thing.

It just wouldn’t be The Lunch if we led you straight to the food now would it? I have been to Istanbul, Turkey twice. The first visit is more memorable for all the wrong reasons. I was ten years old and my father had his pocket picked leaving us stranded in a foreign country with no money. After college my previously mentioned friend lived in Minneapolis for a few years in the late eighties (see the exploits of Jacques & Gerrard). One day he called me up very excited that a new Turkish restaurant had opened somewhere in Northeast Minneapolis. That was my first introduction to Turkish food though I had eaten Koftas and drunk Turkish coffee at my friend’s house before. Well that restaurant didn’t survive long and then for the longest time there was a drought of Turkish food until recently. First that excellent little Kebab shop on Lexington & University named the Black Sea opened with it’s terrific donar kebabs and now Istanbul Café, which has only been open a mere six weeks.

The restaurant is located in an unprepossessing little business strip that lies in awfully close proximity to a major highway. But in all fairness the din of the highway is kept at bay by a well-insulated, heavily-carpeted dark interior. There isn’t much in the way of Turkish décor with the exception of the odd brass trinket hanging on the wall and the ululating Turkish music on the sound system.

Our waitress was entirely uninformed about the menu. We will be uncharacteristically charitable and blame it on the fact that the restaurant is just a few weeks old and A didn’t help matters by trying to pronounce the Turkish dishes as God and Turkey had intended, nor by asking the difference between a Turkish donar kebab and a Greek gyro!

I started with a glass of Australian black opal Shiraz a fine inexpensive wine good as a daily table wine. A chose the efes pilsner, a Turkish beer.

Most Minnesotans will find the menu familiar and friendly even though the Turkish names might be alien. The food has been available in one guise or another for years. Think of Emily Lebanese Deli meets The Gardens of Solonica and you get the idea.

There are nine appetizers available from the tarama (caviar spread) to the everyday humus. We chose an order of ispanakli borek (spinach pie to you and me) to share. I found this to be quite different than it’s Greek cousin by having a lot more spinach and there is greater separation between the spinach and the flaky pastry that surrounds it. I thought the spinach a tad undone. There are three salads on the menu: coban (tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, parsley, Anatolian peppers and olives); anadolu (as above but with additional feta cheese); and finally there is the plain dinner salad. For soups there is a daily special, which was a basil tomato on this day and mercimek soup supposedly made from red lentils. I had the lentil soup whilst A partook of the daily special. My soup reminded me of a spicier version of the Anglo-Indian mulligatawny soup. I could have sworn that not a single red lentil went into the preparation of my soup but nevertheless I found the soup extremely palatable and probably very good for the soon returning Minnesota winter. I had a sip of A’s soup which seemed a lot more complex than any basil tomato soup I have had in the past. The menu for lunch is limited to three sandwiches (doner (gyro), tavuk (chicken kebab) and vegetarian) and lahmacun (pizza wrap). The menu informs us that the lahmacun is the most popular dish in Turkey and of course I had to order it. It’s a thin bread-like-pizza with toppings that include beef, lamb, tomatoes, parsley, onion and peppers. You roll all this up and eat it wrap style. I found this a disappointment; none of the flavors standout and indeed merge into a tasteless mush. A assures me that he’s had better version of this dish in Turkey and I am bound to take his word for this. The dessert menu is downright exotic: halva (Turkish wedding dessert – read plenty of cholesterol), baklava (enough said) and firin sutlac (baked rice pudding). A had the halva while I ordered the baked rice pudding, which turned out to be a mild vanilla infused dish; I was expectin an Indian style kheer baked but this was something altogether different. A had his Turkish coffee and the bill came to $42.00.

I think the place has potential. The location is abysmal but come on give the place a chance and see what you think. Thanks to my Turkish friend I like most things Turkish and this restaurant is no exception.