Day 24 - Istanbul

Espresso Freddo: 0

Today we had a food tour of Istanbul.  It was offered by the same company that we used for our Athens food tour.  Based on how much we had to eat that time, we made sure to be hungry today.  We started the day with just a coffee in the hotel cafe (much to the pleasure of the concierge).  To our displeasure, we weren't able to have Turkish coffee as they were all out.  I had to settle for a (quite decent) espresso.

Next we headed out to brave the weather.  It was windy today and rained on and off all day.  The hotel had umbrellas we could borrow thankfully, but we still got damp and a cold at times.

We had to catch a tram to get to the meeting point.  We are on the European side and in the old city.  The meeting point was also on the European side of the city but across the river in the "new" town - i.e. the bit that is only a few hundred years old.  This part of the city is more residential and less touristy.  We managed the public transport system flawlessly and felt very smug.

Our guide was a young woman called Defne who has a masters in anthropoly and had to do a 2 year course to become a registered tour guide.  They take guiding seriously in Europe.  There were 5 others on the tour also.  All from the USA.

Mary and I were expecting there to be a lot of overlap with Greek food, given how close the two nations have been, but that wasn't the case most of the time.  It was true for our first stop which was at a street kiosk to get the Turkish equivalent of a pretzel.  Here in Turkey they are called simit.  They have sesame seeds like the Greek version, but aren't brushed with honey so they don't have the vague sweetness so I prefer the Turkish version.

Next we wandered through a market/street that was all for people wanting to do household DIY.  We've noticed that streets/areas here in Istanbul tend to specialise.  There was an arcade with nothing but menswear shops, streets with nothing but jewellers and this area which had basically just small shops/stalls selling hardware.  We visited a collection of such shops in an ancient han - the Turkish word for caravanserai.  I think it dated from the 16th century but had bits of Roman marble that had been pilfered from nearby locations.

Here we stopped at a tiny teashop for tea.  I don't remember if the owner was 73 years old or had been in business for 73 years.  Either could be possible.  Turks offer tea at the slightest provocation.  However, we learnt that this obsession with tea only dates from WW 2 when coffee became too expensive.  

We then wandered around a bit more before stopping at a small (slightly bigger) tea shop where we had 2nd breakfast.  This was plates of the Turkish version of pastrami, two types of cheese (sheep and goat), olives, a paste made from tomatoes and capsicum, zaatar (aka mountain thyme), rose jam and a buffalo cream cheese topped with honey.  We had a different sort of bread here.  It was more like a brioche, so slightly sweet.  Also, of course, more tea.

Next stop was a very upmarket baklavaria.  Here we had baklava and Turkish coffee.  The baklava wasn't as sweet as I'm used to so it was quite Good.

After this we caught the ferry across to the Asian side.  This is much newer and not as interesting to wander about in.  It is very much were the locals live and shop, so just large, slightly dirty big city.

We wandered around the local food market which was very interesting.  Unfortunately, the order in which we ate things depended on when we came across the shops so it was a bit odd at times.

First stop was a shop that sold sweets like halva and turkish delight.  We had halva made from tahini.  I'm not a fan but it was a good version of that type of thing.

Next we stopped at a place that had some mystery meats cooking on spits over coals.  This was chopped fine and spices were added.  We had small bites in bread rolls.  The mystery meat turned out to be sweetbreads wrapped in intestines.  Tasty but a nasty shock after halva.

We then visited a shop that sold nothing but dried fruit and nuts.  We had two types of pistacchios, hazelnuts, dried apricots and dried figs.  All very tasty.

After this we visited a deli that was like the Lygon Street Food Store on steriods.  It was the type of place where, as well as cheeses and salamis, you could buy premade appetisers to impress your guests when you are too busy to cook.  Here we had dolmades (with currents and cinnamon in the mix so slight sweet - Disappointing), stuffed eggplant (Good) and a rissole-like thing made from lentils (?) that Defne said you find in the fridge after your mother has had a party.  You could understand why it gets left behind as it was very dull.

The second last stop of the day was for lahmacun which is a flatbread topped with spiced minced meat.  You squeeze lemon on it and top it with parsley before rolling it up and eating it.  This was very Good.  My favourite stop of the day.

The last stop was for gelato.  Italians do it better.  I had pistacchio - of course.

We were then abandoned by Defne on the Asian side but successfully got the ferry and tram back to our hotel.  We had another coffee (they still haven't replenished their supplies of Turkish coffee) before having a post-tour nap/rest.

We are doing another, history, tour tomorrow so after our rest we wandered around the old town for a bit and made sure we knew where the meeting point was.  We wandered about for a bit, ignoring all the touts trying to drag you into their restaurant (very annoying) before randomly choosing one called Ti Amo (?), that specialises in traditional Turkish dishes.  We just shared a mezze platter (dolmades and 5 sorts of dip), bread and a dish of iman bayildi (baked eggplant).   It was all Good.

Oh, I just remembered I've left out a stop on our food tour.  I think it was on the European side.  It was the Turkish version of a burrito.  It was minced meat (beef I think) rolled up in a soft flatbread.  You were supposed to stuff a spicy pickled pepper into the roll (too spicy for me) and then squeeze lemon juice on it and put some parsley & mint in your mouth before taking a bite.  All Good - minus the pepper.  With this we drank ayran, which is a salted yoghurt drink.  It tastes like you'd imagine.