Be warned, my friends, this post may make your stomach groan. The first sketch was a random stopover before hitting up the Archaeological Museum, but the second was penciled at one of my favourite dürüm places, Dürümzade. Anthony Bourdain likes it too. A dürüm is a wrap sandwich which is pretty hard to get wrong in Istanbul, but there are certainly some places which stand out above others. The crew at Dürümzade know how to season their kebabs to perfection, and rub their lavash (the bread component in this equation) with a pleasantly spicy paste before loading it up with onions, parsley, tomatoes, and the meat. The greatest part of the dürüm is that last five centimeters, where the meat juices lovingly mix with the tomato and the spices— I can't resist flipping my dürüm over to skip ahead to this part.
That night, while attempting to lick my fingers clean with as much grace as I could muster, I debated over whether or not I should sketch the man across the tiny room, who was dining on a bowl of soup. He was out of his mind— barely present, and this worried me a little as his reaction to being sketched might not be positive, if I was discovered.
He was so stratospheric, he never noticed.
