When in Istanbul - Part 2
Recap - If you ever find yourself in Istanbul, Turkey (and I highly recommend making it a destination), there are two activities you must experience - a food tour and a Turkish Bath. I spoke about the Turkish Bath in my last post, so this one is dedicated to the food tour.
After a bit of internet searching and reading the reviews about various must dos in Istanbul, I found a Food Tour on AirBnB with a guide named Latif that came highly recommended.
The description sounded perfect for our group of adventurous eaters: "Eat your way through the history rich streets of old city and chic neighborhood Kadikoy of Istanbul on Two Continents including 20 minutes ferry ride. Stopping at 10 food stops to sample delicious traditional Turkish Cuisine like a local. Learn history, food, and culture in amazing way.” This description was spot on and the tour did not disappoint!
First up, was a walk through the historic spice market and through the surrounding streets to source our breakfast like a local.
After a delicious breakfast at a local tea house, we hopped on a ferry for the shortest transcontinental trip ever - moving from the European continent over to the Asian continent in about 20 mins.
Our next stop was for traditional Turkish Coffee, which we let each of the kids try. Given the incredibly strong, bitter taste, it is not something they’ll want to try again anytime soon.
After coffee and a short walk, it was time for a small lunch from world famous eatery, Ciya Sofrasi, which I absolutely adored. This restaurant and its chef Musa Dagdeviren, Master Chef of Turkey, have been profiled in numerous foodie publications across the world. The focus of the restaurant is to recreate forgotten dishes, lost tastes, and “wiped-off-cultures” that have been carried from hand to hand and from taste to taste. This includes flavores from Mesopatamia to Ottoman lands, from the Balkas to Caucasia and from Asia to Arabia. Every bite was packed with flavor and the hummus was the best I’ve every had.
After our delicious lunch, we continued to walk through the beautiful streets of the Kadikoy neighborhood, described by our guide as the “Brooklyn” of Istanbul. Having only hit 3 of the 10 stops on our food tour, our guide peppered us with small bites at several local favorites including mussels, street tacos called Tantuni (sooooo delicious), baklava, kokorec (lamb intestines, which would have been much tastier had we not known it was lamb intestines), local handmade calzones (not what they call them), a long-standing family pickle restaurant, which Ben did not like, and a vegetarian tartare made from walnuts. The final stop on the tour was to the famed Iskender kebap - a restaurant and recipe passed down through 4 generations of the Iskender family. Despite how full we all were, we couldn’t help but devour the final dish drenched in butter.
This nearly 7 hour food tour was well worth it, not only for all the food we got to taste, but also for all the information our guide shared about the culture, politics, and rich history of this region. A definite must if you are ever in Istanbul!
