Spinach borek @ Taza Supermarket
145–163 London Rd, Liverpool, L3 8JA
We’re blessed in Liverpool with some excellent international supermarkets, from L7 Village Market in Fairfield to the venerable Mattas on Bold Street to Manchester Superstore on Lodge Lane (where a banner proclaiming them the BBC’s Food Retailer of the Year 2015 still hangs from their roof). But I think there’s a case to be made that the recently opened Taza, on London Road, is the best of them all.
The shop is stocked with an enormous range of food, ingredients and condiments from Africa, South and East Asia and – particularly – Turkey, Central Asia and the Middle East.
Best of all, contained in a tall, heated shelving unit at the end of the store’s first aisle are a selection of delicious baked savouries — large chicken, lamb and vegetable samosas as well as meat, potato, cheese and spinach Borek (filo pies).
The potato version is filled with earthy almost mushroom-tasting mash, the cheese one is filled with sharp, white Beyaz (Turkish Feta, more or less). The real pick is the spinach borek, though — punchy, bitter-sweet leaves wrapped in either a long, double-barrelled tube or squat spiral of greasy, flaky pastry.
Beside the stand of savoury bakes is another glass case of sweets – beautiful bright-puce Turkish delight; heavily-pistachioed baklava and rose-flavour muhalabi (Kurdish milk pudding). All delicious. Grab something from here for dessert and a bottle of Uludag Gazoz Orange on the way to the till.
The Lidl bakery section simply cannot operate on this level.
