Almost all of western Turkey sits across the Aegean from Greece. So it's not surprising that many Turkish dishes have Greek counterparts. The meze is composed primarily of vegetable dishes such as braised artichokes, broad beans in tomato sauce, vine leaves stuffed with rice, currants and pine nuts, mustard greens, beet salads, and eggplant in several different forms. Turks typically drink raki, an anise-flavored spirit, with meze. The wine industry is still fledgling, but it is showing signs of improvement.
Entrees are usually lamb or seafood.
Lamb is traditional for eastern Mediterranean countries and especially so here because Turkey is predominately Muslim and thus shuns pork. In a typical meal at Ugur, a restaurant where we had lunch on our way to the ancient city of Ephesus, we ate freshly slaughtered baby lamb cooked in a tandir, a tile lined pit very much like the Indian tandoori. Condiments of olive oil and spices like cumin were provided for dipping. Elsewhere, we often at lamb in the form of kebabs. Kebabs can mean almost anything grilled or baked, but they are usually associated with lamb on skewers.