Rejection that leads to love

Long before I blogged, I had an incident occur that would have been blog-worthy. Moving from Singapore where our family had delicious roti prata every Saturday morning, we arrived in Turkey wanting to have Saturday morning breakfasts out as a family. But there's no roti prata here and there's no hawker center. So, we decided to hop a bus to McDonald's for breakfast (before we owned a car). We took our jumbling, bumbling bus ride to the nearest Mcd's. We got off. Mmmm, we could almost smell the hotcakes and coffee as we walked up.

Closed. Apparently, breakfast was not served at the Mcd's in Turkey. We were so disappointed. And hungry. All we could do was hop a bus back home and try to scratch up some pancakes for some very hungry kids. We crossed the street and held out a hand signal for a bus heading back home. The bus stopped and I tentatively inquired if he was heading to our neighborhood. At that point, the bus driver threw his head up. Looked like a yes to me, so I started to hop on. What I didn't know that first year of living here, is that a head thrown back, with raised eyebrows meant, "No!" So, I stepped on the bus, and he promptly began driving and shutting the door on me. I did catch my balance.

We went home hungry and confused. They say necessity begats invention. And that day was the birth of our famous Saturday morning breakfast at Dostlar. We inquired of this local restaurant called Dostlar after that Mcd's rejection. We found out that, though they open only for lunch, they are there preparing food at 9AM. We asked if we could have breakfast there, and they were happy to oblige. They had a Turkish dish called gozleme, similar to roti prata. We took our own honey. Over the years, the breakfast has grown into a feast, and the restaurant has named it after my husband. We are usually the only patrons, but I've been told our friends on occasion have come in for breakfast and the owner says, "Do you want the _______________ (insert hub's name here) breakfast?"

The only problem is that today is a big holiday here, so Dostlar is closed. CC still wanted to take us out to breakfast and he 'heard' Mcd's (after 7 years) has begun serving breakfast. Guess what? He was right!
It was a nice switch. The kids got hotcakes (and I slipped into the grocery next door to buy them a juice to save a little $$$). CC got the 'big breakfast' and I got a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit, with (in my opinion) very good chicken sausage. We sipped our coffee while the kids played restaurant in the empty patio with our used coffee cups and trays. And it was a very nice morning. But, don't worry. As soon as Dostlar is open again next Saturday, I'm heading back for the _______________ (insert hub's name here) breakfast! Our original rejection at Mcd's led me to my new favorite breakfast and there's no going back!