Sofra (its been a long time coming)

What do you do the day after you run a half marathon?
Take a lazy, sunny trip to Sofra with friends, of course, of course

What do you do after an afternoon of particularly high stress babysitting?
Stop by Sofra on the way home, of course, of course.

What do you do the morning after a lovely late night with a friend?
Continue the conversation over breakfast at Sofra, of course, of course.


I will tell you about the post half marathon trip with LZA, JRD, and SSS.

Sofra sits on the edge of Watertown and Cambridge off of Mt. Auburn. The cafe is a product of the continued collaboration of Ana Sortun and Maura Kilpatrick. Much like their restaurant, Oleana, the flavors are primarily inspired from Turkish and Eastern Mediterranian cuisines.

The four of us sat outside in the beating sun on the sleek patio they recently finished building secretly hoping the sun would color our cheeks a little. The atmosphere is a combination of contemporary chic and an old Turkey I have never seen.

We ordered a mezze platter where we got to pick 5 different spreads to eat with their housemade pita and fingerling bread.
-Lentils and carmelized onions.
-Beet Tzatziki (my fave)
-Whipped Feta with sweet and hot red peppers (JRD's fave from Oleana).
-Whipped Celery root with almonds garlic
-Smokey Eggplants with pine nuts (I didn't love it, but I don't usually like smoked things).

They have this egg sandwhich with cheese, optional bacon and a cooked to order egg on a rich, soft brioche with a spiced top. This is one of the best egg sandwiches I have had.

We also had poached eggs swimming in a tomato curry with toasted pita crumbs, a tasty and welcomed new take (for me) on usual breakfast fare.

The Turkish breakfast was an array of fresh flavors. This was a soft boiled egg with cucumbers, olives, thick yogurt, a sweet jellied fruit, fig and phyllo noodle shreds.


We ordered a sampling of treats.
-The Bee Sting - Honey, almonds, brioche. This sounded better than it was.
Persian Donut - Oof! Not too sweet, delicately fried!
Strawberry Rhubarb tart - a delicious classic.

Good coffee was had, a Rhubarb mint drink (very sweet - we added some seltzer when we got home!) Orange Blossom Lemonade - MK told me to get this a long time ago and I thank her for that. Their iced housemade chai is a little different than you might expect, very very sweet (undrinkable way too sweet for some), but very good (to me!).

We took so much home too so that the experience could last the entire length of a day!

An absolute must are the incredible fluffy clouds of not quite pita that you can buy by the bag full. We did.

Plus Milk Jam. Milk jam is essentially carmelized milk and sweetened condensed milk and is good on most things, including your pinky!

-Earthquake cookies are beautiful, and chocolatey, with a very thin crunchy layer and a chewy inside.
-Molasses cookies have a sweet spice, crunchy outside, soft inside.
-Chocoloate Hazelnut Baklava is a more complex, less sweet version of the traditional.
-Almond Rose cake has a light crumb with a strong almond but gentle rose flavoring.
-Kunefe is shredded phyllo with a sweet cheese inside which makes for such an interesting texture in your mouth and the flavor is simple and deep.

Sometimes the floral flavors are too heavy handed for my taste especially when I am not warned. I have ordered some things and sure enough there is the rosewater, there is the orange blossom and I just didn't want it there. In the lemonade it is clean and delicious but I don't need it everywhere!

I could go on and on about all of the different things I have had over the past 8 months here and I haven't even talked about the flatbreads and schwarma. Look at the menu on their website to learn about all the other options. More importantly, go! They are a cafe with some limited options but they have something everyone whether it be, vegetable tarts, flatbreads, soups, dips, or sweets sweet sweets.

These picture by JRD and SSS are pretty self explanatory and may cause extreme cravings. In that case stop what you are doing, pick up your phone, give me a call, I will pick you up, we will go. Trust me.