Aya Sofia restaurant, St. Louis
Partially inspired by a reference to turkish cuisine in "Have Spatula Will Travel", a great article on culinary travel in last Sunday's NY Times travel section, Khalilah and I went to Aya Sofia last night. We had heard about this Turkish/Mediterranean restaurant a few times, but this was our first visit. Based on last night's experience, we'll definitely be back.
To start off we were served warm pita bread with a delicious olive tapanade. We also had the Kizartma appetizer (fried eggplant, zucchini, peppers and potatoes). It sounds heavier than it was; the preparation seemed more like a saute, but I imagine a higher temperature was used to keep the vegetables firm. The sauces that were served with the dish, a warm tomato sauce and a cold cucumber-yogurt sauce went well with the dish.
For entrees, Khalilah had the Sebzeli Musakka (vegetarian musakka) and I had the Izgara Kilic Baligi (grilled swordfish steak). The musakka was great. The flavors of the vegetables really pulled through. The swordfish was also great flavored, but I always forget that… I don't really like swordfish. It always sounds so good on the menu, but I'm not a fan of it's meat-like texture.
All in all, the meal was very good, reminding us of dishes we missed from Cousin's in Chicago as well as from Turkey.