Simit, ‘daily food of poor,’ whets foreign appetite

Simit Sarayı and several other restaurant chains have taken simit, the Turkish bagel, indoors, creating a new sector. AA photo

Simit, once a very local taste generally considered the cheapest meal for poor people, has turned into a large business dominated by chain restaurants and attracting foreign investors.

Dubai’s Abraaj Capital and U.S. Colony Capital are competing for a 50 percent stake in Turkey’s Simit Sarayı, the top brand that has proved the great commercial potential of the simple food, according to its president, Abdullah Kavukçu.

“We will not sell it for less than $500 million,” daily Hürriyet quoted Kavukçu as saying yesterday.

The company, which has already expanded abroad with 18 branches, is also planning a public offering in the first six months of 2013 for between 10 and 15 percent of its shares, Kavukçu said.

Simit, which might be loosely defined as a Turkish bagel topped with sesame seeds, is a traditional form of pastry dating back to the 14th century, and was mainly sold by street vendors throughout the Ottoman Empire as well as in the modern Turkish Republic. Simit is the common name of dozens of similar products across Turkey and Simit Sarayı simit is a variation of the Istanbul type.

With well-deserved fame as the best accompaniment to Turkish tea and local types of cheese, it was also appreciated in court cuisine. Luxury restaurants still continue a more elegant simit tradition; however, the main group of consumers has become low and middle-income people who choose local simit over other fast-food options in the modern urban race against time.

´A Turkish brand´
Simit Sarayı, launched in 2002 as a bakery-cafe enterprise, was a pioneer of a new kind of business that offered simit in specialized restaurants at affordable prices and has encouraged many others.

“We have never considered selling Simit Sarayı in full,” Kavukçu said. “It is a Turkish brand, and we want it to remain so.”

However, the company is prepared to leave management of the brand to the future partner if this would help Simit Sarayı become a world brand, he said.

Simit Sarayı currently sells 83,000 simits on an average day, reaching 150 million Turkish Liras in annual revenues in 2012. Some 40 percent of the income comes from simit and tea sales, the executive said. It serves 400,000 customers daily, and the 204 restaurants of the chain sell other pastry products. Simit Sarayı plans to increase the number of stores to 280 this year.

“We will use the capital from the share sale in the simit business. We are not considering doing another job.”
Last year, a move to obtain a patent for simit by the Istanbul Simit Sellers Chamber drew a negative reaction in Greece as the neighboring country has discussed the pastry being originally Greek.

Source: here

Hansom is back for some time now and he started to feed his usual stuff (Kurdish, PKK) again.

That is what the topic is in Turkey.

Even if we all say that "we dont have a Kurdish problem", it wont go away.

It is better for you to live with the reality!

Hansom is stirring (and heating) up the threads as before.

Calm down.

Hansom is going through a period of nostalgia.

harp00n has too much time to waste with hansom.

Simit must be pretty good with cream cheese and coffee!!! If only one could find American style coffee in Turkey.. Sorry - you cannot change one´s coffee preferences. 

When in Rome, do as the Romans do

We wont change Turkish customs because of YOU!!! 

My addictions don´t care if I´m in Rome or on the moon, coffee in the morning, means coffee in the morning AMERICAN STYLE!  Overpriced starbucks with sugar and cream, way too bitter worth of a thousand calories, so be it. As long as you got that we can continue with Turkish customs..

This is an insult to Turkish coffee and as a result of that, insult to Turkishness!!

Turk dont serve imperyalist coffee in the morning. We will NEVER accept that. In the end, we, Turks, brought the coffee to the west. If it was not Turks, you would still be sitting in cafes and chat without drinking anything. Infact, if it was not Turks, you would still be living in caves.

I always bring my own coffee to Turkey.  I have a perk pot at my mother in laws house...I know it is time to go home when the coffee runs out.  

Although, I don´t mind Turkish tea, Turkish coffee is a bit like drinking a cup full of dirt.  SORRY!!!!!!!

Maybe you brought it but WE made it TASTE good!  Now you´re still drinking that bitter dark drink while dreaming about our tasty starbucks but you´re afraid to admit it. 

I was watching on (a Turkish) TV something about health benefitsof coffee. The (Turkish) doctor there at the end said that "Of course I am speaking of Turkish coffee! The other ones (going through some industrial process) are not good for your health."

Probably you will not find supporting this claim when you do a web search. But think about it. Turkish coffee is more natural and I personally like (and also prefer) natural things.

Well I dont know what industrial process that might be.. 

Beans are almost same beans. I see it everyday: The guy puts the beans into the machine from the top, they are crashed and the hot water goes through the ground coffee I doubt that there is an industrial process from the point of grinding to the place where they get the ground coffee. Then frothing the milk..

I know the process because not that I have a capuccino every morning but I like watching them( before having my delicious Turkish coffee).

Btw. you can drink your Turkish coffee in posh places too :  http://www.kahvedunyasi.co.uk/news/press-releases/kahve-dunyasi-brings-turkish-coffee-to-london 

I bet your Mother in Law has been complaining about your disrespectful behaviour  to her neighbours as soon as you leave. And calling Turkish coffee ´like drinking dirt´ can be considered a crime against Turkishness and  that itself a good reason to get divorced!!! You might be SORRY!!!!

You are living in a dream world!!

Never!!

I like Turkish coffee but I cannot think of it as real coffee. If I had to give up real coffee I doubt if Turkish coffee would even alleviate my withdrawal symptoms.

But "Turkish coffee" is the real coffee!! 

This article is interesting:

The history of coffee:

Ethiopia - 11th century

Turkey - 16th century

Europe - 17th century

http://www.turkishcoffeeworld.com/History_of_Coffee_s/60.htm

Well, she is Turkish.  I am sure she has been plotting my divorce since my wedding day!!  

Exactly, coffee was brought from Ethiopia, not from Turkey. And not until it got to Europe, we made it an addiction that we then sold in the US and made money!! 

That is exactly what happened to me!! One friendly soul even gave me a free Turkish coffee at a restaurant cause I kept asking about coffee.. but it did nothing to me! I was in withdrawal for 2 weeks... 

Interesting, FWIW....I much prefer Turkish coffee. It´s what I make it at home. Other than that real expresso is good. Turkish coffee was hard to find when I was in Turkey, it seemed Nescafe was the thing....yukk. Turkish tea is great. Those herbal infusions also known as tea were nice too. 

Sometimes in the mornings I go to a little Ethiopian cafe and get a nice cup of expresso. I´d like to try real Ethiopian coffee like in the photo below...some day...

Your tasty starbucks? Is it something like your tasty mcdonalds?

Do you even know what starbucks uses to make those latte type drinks? They use espresso like any other coffee shop. Have you ever drunk the espresso they make? It tastes like burnt plastic because they use over-roasted and stale coffee.

Roasted coffee beans go stale in a few weeks even though it`s stored in an air tight pack, but starbucks uses beans that were roasted years ago. And they use all automatic espresso machines which make horrible coffee.

So starbucks is the mcdonalds of coffee shops, it`s junk coffee and their customers are those who know nothing about coffee like you. No wonder it`s an american brand.

She is roasting green beans. Then she will ground it and she will repeat the exact same process everytime she brews coffee. That`s how real coffee is made. It`s all fresh.

Unfortunately the only place in Istanbul that serves Turkish coffee made of freshly roasted and grounded beans is a place called Mandabatmaz in Taksim.

There are also two microbreweries in Taksim that make espresso based drinks with fresh beans. Their names are Kronotrop and Cherrybean Coffees.

hansom likes Abla

vona (aka scalpel) is trying to be ... umm, well, whatever.

Last word: sana taş atana sen ... (complete it as you want)

Note: This message is not for vona who is supposed to read it 3 days later.