Our Wallpaper and Time Out guides almost insisted that we visited Leyla for breakfast... so we set off on a damp and very hilly Sunday morning to see what all the fuss was about.
Our stroll soon became a hike as we learnt the hard way just how undulating Istanbul is. Cowie soon became frustrated by our progress as I stopped at every turn to take photos of all the amazing stencil grafitti on display on the trendy walls of Biyoglu.
We walked straight past Leyla and spent the next quarter of an hour asking bemused Turkish people to help us with our tiny map! Then a charming woman from a pizzeria laughed and explained that it has changed its name to Meyra and was just around the corner!
Thank God we found it. The place was throbbing with young Istanbulites sipping coffees, reading papers and generally chilling out and catching up with mates. Looking back at it, we're reminded of Central Perk in Friends... but much better!
We sat at the bar and tried to work out what everyone was eating. I immediately spotted what looked like a cast iron balti dish with something eggy in it. Cowie was drawn to the pancakes and muesli.
My Turkish coffee was deliciously muddy and made my teeth look like I had just eaten a mouthful of soil! Perfect!
They have a great range of breakfasts from Norwegian, Turkish, English, French, Polish, Spanish etc... great fun.
I managed to decypher what the balti eggs was and ordered what turned out to be a classic Turkish breakfast egg dish called menemen.
It is utterly delicious, especially when you add a healthy glug of Tabasco. Once spiced up it reminded me of an amazing eggy dish I had in a beach hut in Ghana called Eggs Sambal. Heaven. It was even better when wrapped up in a crepe. Bliss.
We sat at the bar for ages. People watching. Taking sneaky photos. And feeling smug that we had found such an ace place for breakfast even though they had been cunning enough to change their name!
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