Dinner in Kars

 Turkish bread is the most wonderful, they make one like a French loaf, in wood burning ovens and it is better than the French bread. Other than that they make all kinds of flat breads which are all wonderful.

 For the most part we ate at restaurants recommended by Lonely Planet and the prices were reasonable and the food is good. We love the grilled meats. We opted for Bulgur wheat instead of rice or potatoes.

 

Ari complained that the both ends of the eggplant weren't stuffed but this is a tasty dish. It's amazing to see the differences in the two boys, Zac would read and learn the Turkish numbers while Ari would read the food section. So Ari knows his food.
I noticed that they do cheat visitors, we walked into a restaurant one Sunday evening, thought we'd have a quick and cheap meal by ordering from the food that has been sitting in the Bain Marie the whole day long. It ended costing us more than if we had eaten in a fancier grill place with an a la carte menu. We were shocked. This meal costs us 38TL, the fast food place costs us 51TL! Well, we had our Lonely Planet guide in front of us when we sat down at this restaurant. They know if they treated us badly, all the readers of Lonely Planet would hear about it. We stayed in a new Riad in Marrakesh a few years ago. I promised the owner I'd give them a good write up in Tripadvisor which I did. Subsequently I started to read a lot more great comments for the same Riad. I remember for this trip I avoided going to a certain hotel bcause they had one write up and it was a bad one... it said 'avoid this hotel.'
While we were eating at this restaurant we received a visitor. He came over and chatted and I realised he was the guide in Kars recommended by Lonely Planet. I asked, 'are you Celil?' He said, 'yes.' It seems he goes to all the hotels mentioned in Lonely Planet looking for new arrivals to offer his services. He can drive to all the sites mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook. He went to our hotel and found out about us, then he tracked us down by going to all the restaurants recommended by Lonely Planet and found us. But he already knew we have our transportation to Ani because when we checking in, our taxi driver came in with us and reminded us that he's coming the next day to pick us up. So the hotel clerk gave this information to Celil but we had another day we could have used Celil's service but I didn't because he doesn't come cheap.