Turkey is one of the country that opens for traveler right now with some requirements .
According to the requirements, if you plan to visit Turkey, please note that that the Turkish government has announced a lockdown during the Ramadan holidays on 12 - 16 May 2021.
This is the country that I wish to visit someday. So excited to explore their beautiful cities, culture, and definitely their culinary. Since I still do not have any courage to travel again (I am sure most of you feel the same, too!), so I am happy to find a Turkish fine cafe that has opened since December 2020. I have been so curious to try baklava, a Turkish patisserie since a long time ago!
I visited Mardin Fine Baklava Cafe. Mardin is the name of a city is Southeastern Turkey as the trading center and connection to the other cities. That is why, the owners chose this name as their culinary business brand.
This cafe consists of two floors that have both of the smoking and non smoking area. It feels so homey and comfortable to be here. They have open kitchen as well, so that we could see the making process of the pizza, dishes, and sand coffee. During the pandemic, they follow the health protocols by doing temperature checking, providing hand sanitizer, and everybody requires to wear a mask. They do not provide menu book, so we could scan the barcode that is available on the table to access the menu through our mobile phone.
Mardin Fine Baklava Cafe provides variant of appetizer, side dishes, salad, main course, Turkish pizza and another Turkish delicacies, dessert, ice cream, bakvala, and beverage.
Let’s see what we tried!
Mix Pide
This is a type of Turkish pizza flat bread with mix toppings, such as cheese, sucuk (spicy and fermented sausage), chopped and minced beef, parsley, along with sliced red chili. If you want to have a sweet with a little bit spicy taste, you could also add the chili sauce.
Cheese Kunafe
This is a kind of Turkish warm dessert. Kunafe is served very sweet, so the staff suggested us to try Cheese Kunafe with separated sugar because we preferred something that was not that sweet. Cheese Kunafe is a shredded filo pastry with kadaif noodles (thin Turkish noodles), mozzarella cheese, and garnished with the pistachio. The taste is good with some crunchy part. Luckily, the sugar was served separately so that we could adjust it. Otherwise, this kunafe will have a very sweet taste.
Baklava
A very famous Turkish patisserie that you cannot miss when you visit Turkey or at least a Turkish cafe. Mardin Fine Baklva Cafe serves some kind of Baklavas that are made with pistachio, walnuts, cashew, or chocolate in different shape and texture. We chose the original one with minced pistachio inside the pastry, the one with pistachio filling, fully covered with pistachio, and the last with chocolate. All of them taste so sweet except the one with chocolate. Sweetness overload indeed!
Since I am not a big fan of a sweet taste, so I could say that I am not a fan of baklava as well. But for those who loves overly sweet taste, do try baklava 
Ottoman Sand Coffee & Turkish Sand Coffee
Finally, to neutralize the sweet taste, it will be good to have a cup of coffee. This is a unique coffee making process as the coffee is made on the hot sand. The barista said that this coffee uses the bean from Brazil.
Ottoman Sand Coffee is the combination of coffee with chocolate and herbs, whereas Turkish Sand Coffee is the pure black coffee.
Watch the video below to see the making process of sand coffe and the variations of baklava in this cafe.
Fasting and Ramadan will come soon. For the Local Guides who celebrate it, what is your favorite food and drink to have for the Iftar?
Cheese Kunafe is one of the famous sweet dish for Iftar 
