Photo taken by Andrew Fabian

You know when you use a word in conversation that a listener doesn’t know, and they say, “what does that word mean?” Then you try to put a suitable definition together but realize you’ve been using the word so long you only know its definition intuitively. So, you resort to tossing out synonyms, hoping the listener can intuit the meaning on their own. In this haphazard way, an essential meaning is agreed upon, one that at least allows the conversation to keep going so long as the original train of thought remains firmly on the rails. The same thing can happen with food.

Bodrum Restaurant in Venice serves a dish called beyti kebab. Essentially, it’s a kebab of ground lamb and spices grilled on a skewer, then wrapped in lavash. Lavash is a thin flatbread eaten widely in Western Asia that looks a lot like a flour tortilla but has the more wholesome bread-like flavor of naan or freshly baked pita bread. But once the beyti kebab is doused in butter, yogurt and tomato sauces, these nuances of lavash are buried in a delicious mess. In fact, if I ate the dish often enough—and I hope to do so—I might forget all the above aspects of its manufacture, absorbing its essence into my subconscious like the word “tawdry,” a word I use frequently but cannot define. If this happens with the beyti kebab, I imagine I might define it in conversation as a “Turkish enchilada.” 

It’s not quite right, but it’s close enough to keep the conversation going. 

Bodrum is open 11:30 am to 9 pm, seven days a week at 225 Miami Ave. W, Suite 5 in downtown Venice.

Photo taken by Andrew Fabian

Check out their full menu here.