Köfte's Balaban Kebap & Çibörek

Köfte's Balaban occupies a single address on Atatürk Bulvarı in Odunpazarı, the old quarter of Eskişehir in western Anatolia. Everything on the table turns around balaban, the dish the city is known for: freshly made köfte (spiced meatballs) or grilled kebab laid over hot flatbread, then finished with a house sauce and melted butter. Balaban is the name of the dish rather than of a business — other places in Eskişehir cook it too — and this kitchen runs two registered lines side by side, one for the balaban grill and one for çibörek.

Çibörek came to Eskişehir with its Crimean Tatar community: thin dough folded over spiced minced meat and fried, crisp outside and still juicy inside, which is why it goes straight from the pan to the table. The third pillar of the menu is hand-rolled mantı, small filled dumplings served under garlic yoghurt and hot butter. Desserts stay traditional — baked rice pudding browned on top and studded with walnuts, milk-soaked shredded kadayıf with tahini and walnut, and ekmek kadayıfı, a syrup-soaked bread pudding under clotted cream.

The house also makes its own şıra, a lightly sweet unfermented grape must served cold, poured mainly with the balaban plates. Doors are open every day from half past ten in the morning until ten at night, and there is no delivery — the food is served at the table only. Sitting inside Odunpazarı's district of restored Ottoman houses, the place draws both regulars from the neighbourhood and visitors walking the quarter.