Some recipes are more than 1,000 years old
Published in the July 9-23, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
Caner Yalcintuna carves meat for a gyro in the new Bosphorus Grill on Monterey just north of Tennant Avenue.
Cuisine from the ancient Ottoman Empire is finding its way to Morgan Hill with the newly opened Bosphorus Grill restaurant which features authentic Turkish dishes once savored more than a millennium ago by the people of that ancient Mediterranean world.
Natives of Turkey, co-owners and chefs Ibo Yilmaz and Caner Yalcintuna have created an eatery similar to what travelers might find on the bustling streets of Istanbul, the legendary city straddling the Bosphorus Strait and thus giving the restaurant its name. Opened in mid-May, the restaurant is located in a niche Morgan Hill shopping center just north of Tennant Avenue on Monterey Road and features a bright and fun décor with ornamentation from Turkey.
“Our sultans loved to feed our soldiers with the best food so that they could go out there and gain more land and more properties,” Yilmaz said, explaining the origins of the restaurant’s unique menu items. “The Ottomans learned (about) and cultured other dishes that were before them… and then used olive oil and garlic and all the stuff that they can grow as they built up their cities and villages….What we kept originally in the ingredients is the herbs and spices. It does not have any add-ons. It’s all made in-house — that makes its taste so unique.”
Bosphorus’s chef Yalcintuna studied the culinary arts in Istanbul and then spent time traveling around Turkey learning about the various regional foods of the country. Using the freshest of ingredients and herbs, Turkish cuisine served at Bosporus is both savory and healthy, he said.
“Different parts of Turkey have different tastes based on the region,” he said. “So during my training I traveled around Turkey to see specifically how they make things. Everyone can cook, right? But there’s a way of cooking. You have to season it, you have to adjust the temperature. It’s a process.”
Some of the dishes prepared at Bosphorus use recipes that are more than a thousand years old from time of the Ottomans, he said. The chefs have kept the recipes 100 percent authentic so they have not been altered for American tastes like diners might experience in other Turkish restaurants.
The menu includes house specialties such as a musakka featuring eggplant, beef, potato and onion lightly covered with mozzarella, bechamel and tomato sauce served with yogurt. The kuzu pirzola are flame-broiled lamb chops marinated with oregano and served with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. The ismir kofte are charbroiled beef patties spiced with Turkish herbs. Bosphorus offers chicken as well as lamb and beef doners (also commonly called gyros) with the vertically roasted meat thinly sliced and served with rice and grilled tomatoes.
For dessert, Bosphorus offers a house-baked kunefe which is flaky filo wrapped around unsalted soft white cheese baked with a mixture of butter and lemon syrup. The restaurant’s other dessert is kazandibi, a baked caramelized milk pudding flavored with frosted vanilla butter cream and cinnamon.
The beverage list includes a selection of white and red wines from Turkey as well as dark and light versions of the hard-to-find and very popular Efes beer imported from Turkey.
“Our clients started to ask to take home (Efes) as a six pack, but we’re not suppose to,” Yilmaz said. “We can not sell it to them (that way).”
Many of the restaurant’s customers are familiar with Turkish cuisine from traveling in the Mediterranean and say they are impressed with the authenticity of the items on the menu, Yalcintuna said.
“All those plates, all those dish specialties, are from different parts of Turkey,” he said. “We try to make our menu varied. So we try to give different options.”
