Pando Kaymak

Nichts gegen Stadtpläné, aber in Istanbul helfen sie manchmal nicht viel.
Märkte und Plätze sind nicht zwingend ausgeschildert
DIE Adresse für Kaymak, türkische Clotted cream.
Absolut empfehlenswert
Ein geschmacklicher Traum. Der Inhaber Pando Sestakof
Schöpft die göttliche Schichtsahne selbst und serviert sie vorzugsweise
Mit Honig. Unbedingt beachten: nur bis nachmittags.

Pando Kaymak is being evicted as of August 2014! Get over there as soon as possible! This kaymak is quite possibly the best in the world. Excellent quality ingredients. There’s no menu. Just order the breakfast. With extra kaymak.
I wrote about my experience at Pando Kaymak here:

I sat outside and had breakfast today, and it was lovely.
I wasn’t planning to order the kaymak, since I’m not a sweet-​tooth, but I figured it would be blasphemy given the restaurant’s name. I’m so glad that I did — it was delicious spread on bread. The cream is savory and the honey a beautiful complement.
The eggs with sucuk were delicious, and I had a plate of cheese/​cucumbers/​tomatoes/​lives and hot milk as well. (I haven’t had that since I was a kid, but for sure I’ll be making that more of a habit when I get back home.) The total was 25 TL (less than $ 12 — bargain!!!).
Pando’s wife waited on me; she didn’t speak a ton of English, but I was able to order my food and pay quite easily. Lovely joint.

Pando Kaymak is a tiny little restaurant in Besiktas. It has 4 or 5 small tables and only serves until 3:30. There is no menu so ordering is easy enough. Olive, cucumber and tomato plates with house made white cheese. Farm eggs fried with your choice of plain, sausage (sucuk) or sausage and white cheese. And the star of the show their house made katmak (clotted cream) with amazing honey. They also offer warm milk as a beverage. If you are sensing a dairy theme that is because all the dairy comes from their 3 happy cows! Their photographs are on the wall so you can actually see where your meal is coming from. This is the best kaymak I have had in Turkey and I think the best honey as well. Worth checking out!

The space inside Kaymakçı Pando is tiny and run by the very gentle and elderly Pando and his wife. The bright blue door and the line of people waiting for a table especially on weekends make it easily recognizable. Kaymakçı Pando serves one of the best kaymak (Turkish clotted cream) and this place has been in business for about 50 years with no change in ownership. A young Turkish fellow ahead of us in line asked how we knew about this place. Oh, from food blogs, we tell him.
We stand in line and peek through the glass window where Pando’s wife constantly scoops a spoonful of kaymak and honey onto each plate as the orders come in from the tables. In between that, she ladles up warm cow’s milk into small drinking glasses. After a quick wait standing in line, Pando comes out to tell us we could get inside to be seated. Of course he says that in Turkish which we could not quite understand but the group of young fellows behind kindly translated that to us in English.
English is barely spoken, if at all, but do not let that intimidate you. We learnt some useful words which helped us go quite a long way when ordering food even if it meant that we were not speaking in complete sentences. As long as you can get the point across, that counts, right?
The kaymak is absolutely divine. We smear it and the accompanying honey onto a slice of bread and we’re in clotted cream heaven. I’m not sure if I will ever come to a point where I’ve had enough of kaymak. We also had a glass of warm inek sütü (cow’s milk) and some çay (tea). Request for the fried eggs to be prepared with sucuk [soo-​jook] which is a spicy Turkish sausage. The eggs are crisp on the edges and the thin layer of oil that is flavored from the sausage when cooking enhances the taste of something so simple like fried eggs. Pando may not speak much English but he sure knows how to say «egg» in English.
At one point, Pando came over and surprised us with his ability to ask us about the food in English… «very good?». Yes, the food is very good.