Tasting Notes
Küçebaşı is on Sütçü Sokak, a side street off İnönü Caddesi a short walk from Dağkapı Square; locals call the lane Elektrikçiler Sokağı. The name comes from küçe, the local word for street or alley, and its tagline is “Halkın Ciğercisi”, the people's liver shop. It is a plain, inexpensive place built around a charcoal grill.
Liver for breakfast, the Diyarbakır way
Eating grilled liver in the morning is a Diyarbakır habit, and this is one of the shops that serves it from early in the day. Lamb liver is cut into cubes and threaded onto skewers with small pieces of tail fat, so the fat bastes the liver as it cooks over the coals. Besides liver there is Adana kebab made from hand-minced meat, cubed lamb, chicken wings, and skewers of spleen, heart and kaşhe for those who like offal. Skewers are priced by the piece.
What comes with the skewers
Every order arrives with free sides: thin lavaş bread, onion salad with sumac, a spicy ezme, charred peppers and tomatoes, and fresh herbs. The usual way to eat is to pull a piece of liver off the skewer into a strip of lavaş, add onion and herbs, and eat it straight away while it is hot. A glass of frothy ayran is the standard drink.
“Come in the morning like the locals, take a low stool and order liver skewers; wrap them in lavaş with sumac onions and drink a cold ayran alongside.”
LR Kitchen — field note