The Man from Mosel River

Tablo restaurant in Essen

I had some business in Essen the other day, and my good old friend Uli Hillejan came to meet me for a dinner reunion.

Years ago, Uli had worked in this city at the heart of the Ruhr region which was once famous for its mines.

He also had a recommendation regarding the restaurant we should go to. It was the “Tablo – tuerkisch essen” restaurant owned by Yilmaz Dogan and his family.

I must apologize here for the low quality of my photos. I don’t know why I did not get it together that night. Maybe I was too excited? Who knows. Fact is, the following four photos of the food are all blurry.

We had a starter each and then a main course. Only much later did we learn that Tablo restaurant is famous for it’s ‘mercimek corbasi’ or in German ‘Linsensuppe’ (lentil soup), according to the waiter the “best in town”.

Baked goats cheese

Some cold vegetables

Lamb cutlets

Baked zucchini under cheese

It was a good meal. The food was very tasty, the service efficient and the waiter was very helpful, advising us also on the wine.

We wanted to drink a wine from Turkey with our meal. He suggested to take a bottle of ‘2007 Selection Öküzgözü-Boğazkere’ by the award winning Kavaklidere Winery.

‘2007 Selection Öküzgözü-Boğazkere’ by Kavaklidere Wines

Kavaklidere Wines is one of the big wine businesses in Anatolia, Turkey with as astonishing tradition. The enterprise is more than 82 years old and has about 562 ha under vines.

The selected wine was a blend of two indigenous grape varieties Öküzgözü (also called “ox-eye”) and Boğazkere. The latter usually displays dried fruit and fig flavour; the “ox-eye” grape shows some red berry taste of raspberries and cherries.

What a beautiful dark red colour

We both liked the wine. It has a strong body and a long finish. It’s alcohol content is rather low (12.5%). It had some oak but it was not overwhelming. All in all, a very good and very enjoyable wine. The price of 32 Euro was reasonable, I thought.

If you visit Essen look out for Tablo, the Turkish restaurant.

Address:
Tablo tuerkisch essen Restaurant
Huyssenallee 5
D-45128 Essen
Tel: +49-201-8119585
Fax: +49-201-8119584
www.tablo-restaurant.de