Soul food of Istanbul. How to make your belly happy?
Soul food of Istanbul. How to make your belly happy?
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Amazing Istanbul
When you think about Turkey, you think of history, culture, civilization, beautiful nature and of course their food.
Their food is simply amazing, very rich in textures, spices and extremely well combined. Their variety of dishes is so big, that you could cover the full range of tastes.
Istanbul is the biggest city in Turkey and also the widest range of food recipes is there.
With millions of people living and transiting the city every day, they have to keep their bellies full. Just think of anything you crave and for sure a restaurant in Istanbul is ready to prepare it.
The Turkish cuisine is so wide, that everything can be eaten at breakfast, as well at dinner time. In the list below, you will find a list of dishes, eaten by a non-Turkish citizen.
Breakfast Time in Istanbul
It is a sacred time. Breakfast is considered more like a ritual and it’s the pillar of the day. The hardworking Turkish people need a lot of energy to start their days, so they will have a proper breakfast.
One way to enjoy it, is by having a traditional Turkish Breakfast consisting of: olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, cured meats, sauces, eggs, cheese and bread. They also serve fresh fruit and jams with pastries and sweet butter.
Breakfast Menu
This is the first option for breakfast, but if you want to indulge in more authentic Turkish delicacies, you should also try:
- Cilbir (Turkish Poached Eggs) – they are delicious fresh poached eggs, served over a garlicky yoghurt.
- Yumurtali Pide – Turkish flatbread that is filled with cheese, tomatoes and peppers and topped with eggs
- Menemen – a vegie sauté (peppers, onions, tomatoes) with eggs on top (scrambled or not)
- Gozleme – Turkish flatbread that can be stuffed with various fillings. The most common are: spinach, feta, meat, peppers, muschrooms
- Borek – a filled pie, made of thin dough, with a variety of fillings (cheese, meat, spinach or potatoes)
Lunch Time in Istanbul
As a tourist in Istanbul, very few were the times when we spend lunch time in a restaurant. Mostly, we are on a run to discover or to shop (yes, we do shop a lot) and grab something on the go.
A very traditional lunch on the go is a Simit Sandwich (like New York bagel) filled with cream cheese and salami or cured meat. If you are in Galata Bridge area, you can go to a restaurant (that is on the bridge) and grab a Balik Ekmek. This literary translates as Fish Bread. It is a bread filled with fresh grilled fish, lettuce, red onions and tomatoes. Beware that the sandwich is very big.
Lunch Menu
If you decided that you deserve to relax and have a proper lunch at a restaurant, you should try these:
- Islim Kebabi – it is like normal kebab, but instead of pita bread, you have your meat wrapped in eggplant
- Midye Tava – buttered and deep-fried mussels on a stick. This is usually considered as street food.
- Ic Pilav – Turkish rice with vegetables and pine nuts
- Patlican Salatasi – Turkish traditional eggplant salad
- Biber dolmasi – stuffed peppers with meat or rice and vegetables
- Ali Nazik Kebab – lamb stew topping an eggplant and yoghurt puree
- Sis Tavuk – the classic chicken kebab
- Dolma – usually young grape leaves stuffed with rice, meat and vegetables
- Inegol Kofte – grilled meatballs
- Mercimek Ciorbasi – Turkish lentil soup, served with lemon and chili flakes
Dinner Time in Istanbul
The perfect time to go to a restaurant in Istanbul. Please pick one with a view. It is quite hard not to find one, but you should enjoy your big city or Bosphorus view.
For dinner you can order one of the dishes listed above, they are just my top traditional main-courses. After you feel full of meats and vegetables, there is mandatory to grab a dessert. Even if you feel like you are going to explode (very big portion size in Turkey), somewhere will be room for dessert.
Turkey means baklava and pistachio and the best desserts in the world. Sometimes we prefer to skip the main course, just to be able to eat something sweet. Their sweet taste is something incredible, nothing compares to eat.
In my opinion, it is impossible to find a dessert in Turkey that is not good or so and so. They are delicious, interesting and unforgettable.
Dessert Menu
- Turkish Baklava – filled with nuts or pistachios, this is perfections. Remember: no day in Istanbul should pass without eating a baklava
- Kunefe – my official all-time favorite dessert. It is made of crunchy baked kadayif with melted sweet cheese in the middle
- Turkish Lokum – the traditional Turkish delight. Tip: buy a rolled one with Nutella filling.
- Lokma – little doughnuts covered in sweet syrup
- Kadayif – a special pastry, small pasta like, baked and covered in syrup and filled with nuts
- Gullac – special Turkish pastry covered in milk, rose water and pomegranate. It is also one of the favorites.
- Dondurma – The Turkish ice cream. For us is the best in the world, even better than Italian Gelato.
What Turkish people drink:
If you are a coffee lover, sometimes in Istanbul you can be a little bit bothered. The big majority of hotels, serve at breakfast time filtered coffee or instant coffee. In 6 visits, we couldn’t find a hotel that would serve you an expresso.
It is strange to say it, but thank God for Starbucks. There are quite a lot of them in the whole city, but they do make the proper coffee to wake you up. This may seem like a surprise, but Turkish coffee is not something to drink in the morning or all day long.
Turkish coffee is more like a ritual, not only a simple drink. It is served near some lokum and it should be tasted not drank. The coffee comes in little expresso cups and half of it is the ground boiled coffee.
Another wake up option is their tea. The Turkish black tea is served constantly, day and night. Everywhere you turn your head, you will see someone drinking its tea from a special glass. If you are not a fan of black tea, try instead apple tea. It is delicious.
Turkish people, when they eat, they don’t drink water or juice, they drink Ayran. It is a traditional salted thin yoghurt that goes perfectly with every main course. I personally love it, but for those who are lactose intolerant, run away from it.
The traditional alcoholic drink from Turkey is Yeni Raki. This is an unsweetened, anise flavored appetizer. It goes two ways: either you are a fan of or you hate it. The anise flavor is quite strong for our taste.
So delicious!
In conclusion, when in Istanbul, or every other place in Turkey, please forget about pizza, pasta and burgers. Turkish food is one of the most delicious cuisines in the entire world. It is so tasteful and so rich, that it is impossible not to find something you like.
Please keep in mind that a trip to Turkey can make you gain at least 5 pounds. It is impossible to resist and after tasting you will want more.
So, in our opinion, eating in Istanbul is so delicious and also so …
Travelicious.
