Real estate. It’s unreal, it’s state. A hole in the wall is no more. The walls are all too new for holes. Downtown anyway. Where there were holes to be found, rubble was replaced with gleam. Looking for something a bit under the radar, something where !Location!Location!Location! is not the draw, you better look in a mall, a strip mall. Strip. Maul. Apt moniker.
That’s where you find em these days. Out in the reaches – nearer and farther, in rectangular concrete boxes, where the price is right and the walls are plumb.
Columbia Pike, where Atilla’s dwells, is not the far reaches – there is a sidewalk after all. Not many strolling on it though, primarily clutches of waiting bus riders, bunched like penguins. One can dream – Atilla’s two outdoor tables have been anticipating occupants for the 15 years I’ve been passing by. And, the website lures with promise of a grand dining room. Never been there. Of the joint’s dual personalities, I’ll take the hole-in-the-wall lobe. In the strip mall.
Sucuk and Kasar Cheese on Pita Bread was hot and pleasantly squishy. Plus oh so salty, with a trickle of orange grease slithering out. A telltale of deliciousness. I admit this looks a little, um suggestive, but closed up it resembled a deflated punch-ball. Barely suggesting food, I’d say.
Horsemeat is illegal, yes? So this sucuk must be beef. Mmm, drying makes this sausage dense. The better for frying, my dear. Betcha it’d be good with eggs, over-easy yolks busted into pools.
Did a little reading up on kasar cheese and, according to the Turkish Culture Portal, “Cheese is one of nature’s most tasty foods.” Huh, who knew? Okay, okay, it’s easy to tease. A little ribbing is not gonna ding the glow on this cheese’s chrome. Sheep’s milk it is and boy does it melt nice. Produces a “pull” to make my food stylist’s heart leap with joy. Pretty.
The Lunch Encounter 
