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Please bear with my ignorance,  but today I was in a Turkish restaurant that served light meals (I had a delicious  chicken-vegetable soup). On the table I noticed what looked like a red spice mix, in a jar that pizzerias use for parmesan cheese.

What do you think it was?

My first guess based on a couple of Turkish cooking classes would be Allepo pepper or urfa biber pepper - with a small chance that it is maras pepper. I suspect which of the three is most likely depends upon the regional cuisine the restaurant emphasizes.

Well then, I'll have to ask the next time I'm there. Thank you for your educated guesses.

Yesterday I went back to that Turkish restaurant, mainly to ask about that red-colored pepper. I asked the Turkish woman who wears hijab and runs the place, apparently together with her husband. The language barrier forced me to rephrase the questions repeatedly. She said it was red pepper or hot pepper but couldn't offer any further specifics.

I ordered the chicken soup, and it was good, but not out of this world as it had been the previous Tuesday. The difference was that the previous time the top note was dill, and this time the top note was black pepper.

What was still out of this world was the pide bread that they served with the soup. I ate all the pide bread in the basket.

I gently expressed my disappointment about the soup, saying it was much better last week, and the lady in charge said that some other customer had complained about the dill, but that if I let them know in in advance that I'm coming, they can make the soup with dill. Meanwhile,the manager served me a complimentary cup of tea, very welcome on a cold January day.

It's tough to be an independent restaurateur in NYC if you care about the quality of the food; in addition to landlord-tenant difficulties you have to please customers with different tastes.

In the unlikely event that any of you reading this ends up in Sunnyside, Queens, the restaurant is the Sofra Mediterranean Grill, at 45-08 46th St., near the Sunnyside Arch.

Slightly late to the party but I imagine the name your looking for is 'Pul biber' usually translated as Aleppo pepper. It's not very spicy although can have a kick but essentially sun dried pepper flakes. Urfa or isot biber is even more delightful but has a more distinct maroon cloıur and slightly smokier taste. Those peppers are sweated as part of the sun drying process. 

You should just put a tiny bit on a fragment of bread and taste it!  It's there to be eaten after all

I agree, probably pul biber, but sometimes in Turkish restaurants  they put oil and ground sumac berries on the table, which look much the same as pul biber - it can be sprinkled on salads etc in place of lemon or vinegar, as it have a sharp acodoc flavour

Note: it's a special variety of sumac, most ornamental and wild varieties are toxic, but the packaged stuff is fine