Trip to Istanbul: Food

I will start this post by telling you about the food market on the asian side, the Anatolian side of Istanbul, located east of Bosphorus. We took the bus from Besiktas to Kadiköy and on the way back we took a ferry. It is a main zone for shopping. This is the first time i’ve been to a food market and i just loved it, so beautiful, shop owners inviting you to come inside their shops. 

A big area with small streets and narrow corners enriched with people, food, shoppers, tourists. It was great, I was so pleased and happy mingling in these streets. 

The shops offer a wide variety of fruits, fresh and dried, vegetables, fish, bakeries. And of course the restaurants, bars and ice cream stands. 

variety of vegetables

olives

Continue for more photos…. 

Fruits

I have tasted many things there. The food is good. The meal i liked the most is the Lahmacun (in Arabic, dough with meat) is a thin flatbread covered with a layer of spiced minced meat, tomato, pepper, onion or garlic. 

Lahmacun

On breakfast we used to have their traditional food which is the Böregi, type of Borek, a pastry made of a Yufka (phyllo dough) filled with either cheese or spinach or minced meat and vegetables. 

Peynirli Gül Böregi (cheese)

Peynirlì Gül Böregì & Peynirlì Sìgara Böregì (with cheese)

 Main dishes contain either chicken or meat, or kofte (minced meat with parsley and onion) served with grilled vegetables like tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplants, tomato sauce. 

Pilic Izgara

Pickles

Sandwiches

Another typical rural Turkish food is Gozleme made of lavash bread or phyllo dough folded and filled with cheese and parsley, spinach, minced meat or potatoes cooked on a saj. 

Gözleme (cheese)

Gözleme and a bowl of lentil soup

Another traditional bread i tried is the Simit. It is a ring-shaped bread covered with sesame seeds. It is generally served plain, on breakfast , or with cheese or jam. And it is delicious. 

Simit

Window of Simit

Abotu the sweets, they have a very wide variety of desserts… I’ll start with the famous traditional Baklava, a sweet pastry made of layers of phyllo dough filled with either pistachios or nuts, and it is baked into large trays. And served with sugar syrup or honey. 

A tray of Baklavas

A Baklava

Now i’ll just post some food pictures i took from here and there. 

Traditional ice cream vendor

Yummi ice cream

Tulumba, a deep-fried dough dessert until golden color, then a sugar syrup is poured over while it’s still hot. It is eaten cold. 

Tulumba

Tulumba

Deep-fried pastry with syrup

Lollipops

 If you like chicken added to sweets, you will like this one. Tavuk gögsü, dessert pudding made with chicken and milk. 

Tavuk Gögsü

Pistachios sweets

Looks delicious

Corncob & chestnut vendor