Do You Like Jacket Potatoes?

Just before the end of the one-way system going out of Girne past the Savoy Ottoman Palace Hotel, on the right-hand side, there is a small café called Canteen and if you like jacket potatoes this is the place to go and enjoy a huge potato with fillings of your choice from a large selection on display.   Outside there is an old fashioned potato baker so these really are proper authentic baked potatoes.

Besides jacket potatoes, the Canteen offers omelettes, toasties, burgers, kofte, salads and many other interesting dishes as well as cold drinks, tea and coffee and Efes.

Being in the area recently, we decided to have a snack so called in for a jacket potato and a coffee which in fact is more than a snack and feels more like a full meal by the time you have finished.   After we had eaten we had a chat with the owners who are an extremely nice Turkish couple.

The Canteen Café has been run by Barbaros and Seyla Uydan since September 2006, and they have lived in North Cyprus for 11 years.  Seyla told me a little about themselves and was so pleased and flattered that we wanted to write about them.   Barbaros is from Izmir and Seyla from Adana, they actually met in Fetiye in Turkey and Seyla said when she first met Barbaros she decided he was the one for her and she actually proposed to him.   Well done Seyla.  They have been married for 8 years and now have a daughter of 22 months who is called Ipek-Masal Angeligi (Angela).   

Seyla was very proud of her daughter’s third name, Angeligi, which is Greek and she told us that her grandmother was born in Crete of Turkish origin so she was very proud of her Greek roots, but in later years the people of Turkish descent were moved from Crete to Turkey.   In recent years Seyla has met up with some Cretan people who now live in South Cyprus and she has formed a friendship with them and they like to think that in a sense, spiritually,  they are the god-parents of her daughter as they like her so much.   I thought this was a lovely story. 

I mentioned to Seyla that we had recently spent a short time in Izmir which we were surprised to find was such a large city.  Seyla said she is very fond of Izmir and they call it the second city of Istanbul. 

Seyla appears to be a very modern woman with very forward–thinking views and it was a pleasure to sit and talk to her.   She mentioned that when her daughter was 2 months old she developed a serious medical condition (now successfully resolved) and we will be writing about this in more detail after further research.

By Margaret Sheard

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