For about $15, the diner is treated to rice and 10 or more other dishes in small portions, including mildly spiced beef, fowl, fish and vegetable concoctions.

For me, that means a fabulous pot-bellied pita sandwich ($6) made with paper-thin slices of basturma, the spiced, air-dried beef that is the Black Sea equivalent of pastrami.

GERALD O'FLYNN also makes and sells the great local treat of spiced beef.

"I hope you don't regret that," muttered Furbetrance, burying his nose in a huge vat of savory beef, onion, and tomato, highly spiced salmagundi the way Dragons best like it.

There was a Constantinople-style dish, pastroumali, a buttery pie of house-made phyllo stuffed with fresh tomato, thin shards of spiced, dried beef, and aged kasseri cheese, that was alluringly tart, smoky and salty all at the same time.

In the longer second part of the book, David gives recipes for such dishes as spiced beef, smoked fish, cured pork and sweet fruit pickles.

As my wallet got thinner, I found myself subsisting on pizza and cevapcici (a sausage-like spiced beef).

They do a cold spiced beef, Richard, which I really must recommend.

Dishes such as the spiced beef with lovage and black currants, the soulful nettle soup, sea bass with braised leeks and noisettes of lamb sauteed with exotically spiced wild mushrooms turn Irish ingredients and notions into world-class dishes.

A highly spiced beef and tofu stew with lentils would alone satisfy me on most occasions.