really?! That's so strange...^^;; IT would make sense if they're close by but Turkey and Japan are so far from each other!

There was this Turkish guy in my Japanese class and he told me Turkish(the language) has exactly the same grammar rules as Japanese, though the words are different, it was very easy for him to learn Japanese cos he just replaced the wording and the sentence structure is the same. How odd!!

I didn't know Turkey is so close to Lebanon! A co-worker is from Lebanon too (him and I both work under the Turkish-British Art Director). Both of them not sure where Baclava really is origin from, since many countires claimed its orgin (ex: Greece, Lebanon, Turkey). According to my AD, Turkey is such a "middle person" country, they're rejected by Europe and resent/hated by middle east, totally stuck in the middle and rejected by both side. But my AD is total British-ized, for a long time I can't tell what ethnicity he is since he speak in heavy UK accent and looks like he could be some sort of mediterrean or Italian or something, only his name gives away.

Oh I have never tried Lebanese food, but yeah it must be similar to Turkish food(map). You should ask your art director to recommend some proper nice Turkish restaurants - if he knows any. Since you are running out of French restaurants to try, maybe you can start exploring ethnic food?

The chef was preparing to cut the meat I guess....^^;;;; The sausage-looking thing is grilled lamb meat - very nice. The other one is grilled chicken.

So Baclava is that dessert thing~~~It was very good, though quite oily. I would have wanted Turkish coffee or chai rather than tea, but it was the gourmet ML party so I didn't choose the menu(and dunno the name of the food ^^;;;).

The "cheese" thing is actually yogurt with some red but not spicy oil. The rice has favour too - v. nice!

wow looks great~~~ What's the chef doing with the bat? hitting very loudly? ^^;;

Is pic 20021 some sort of sausage? It has those french fries' cut shape haha! The green pepper rice looks yummy~~

Yeah the dessert is that 'Baclava' that you once asked me about~ oh the tea cup is so pretty~

gosh I'm so hungry now, I want to eat that cheese (?) meat plate~~X0 The storm is back in LA, it has been pouring since last week and won't stop for awhile. It's crazily abnormal for LA and made it really inconvinient to go out to eat~~

Hey the food look kinda like Lebonese food! They have that green thing (4th pix) as well as the meat stic. From the website there're baclahva, Hummas too...perhaps a similarity among many middle eastern countries? There are couple Lebonese restaurants around IF that I often go to. Most of them are crappy looking places that I just get to-go. They're not nice looking and well presented like Izmir~~

I recently found out that my art director is Turkish-British (UK-born Turkish).

It is turkish food - the bread is really really good. And inside the green pepper is rice.