Food Glorious Food! Wednesday 4th October

 Culinary Backstreets of the Bazaar Quarter

Today we did a food tour with Culinary Backstreets (previously Istanbul Eats) and it was truly fantastic. You can find my trip advisor review here: Great food, great guide - Culinary Backstreets -Tours, Istanbul Traveller Reviews - Tripadvisor

Our guide, Gonca (Gon-jah), was absolutelt amazing. She gave us all of the background details of what we were eating, where it cams from, how it came to Turkey, who makes it etc. She also pointed out amazing architecture, told us how to eat with the locals, and where to get the most amazing food. 

The tour was meant to be 9:30-3:30, but ours went on until about 5pm. Gonca took photos of us all (tours have max 7 on them) and then sent them to us, along with some of her home cooking recipes. We walked all day, ate all day, and lkaughed all day. We then didnt eat anything else and just felt full in the hotel room for the rest of the evening! 

The food, and the photos

Instead of giving you a run down of every little bit, here's the photos with a small explanation.


 A pretour selfie!

The Orient express train station - location of our amazing breakfast!

The round bread is simit - sold everywhere! Everyone is loyal to their simit seller. Dipped in buffalo milk clotted cream and honey - delicious. 

Our 'chai guy'. These men have a 'zone' where the locals are loyal to them - noone swaps areas, or chai guys. They are hidden away, but to find them, sit on a random stool next to others drinking tea, and he will appear! 

The only female simit seller in the city. 


Sheep intesting kebab... I'll leave you to make your own judgements.. Ben liked it!

Pide! (it's Pizza)

A roofotp with amazing views of the city. Our tour grop with the amazing Gonca front and centre. Below, a shoe shiner who thought that it was important we take a picture with him. He didn't stop eating for the photo hence why he has his hand over his mouth! 


The grand bazaar - we only went in a little way - but it is a maze! Always be aware of which gate you enter by, but dont trust them - this looks like gate 1 doesn't it? It's gate 18. 

 

Literally 'in the backstreets'




This is a 'han'. Basically a building full of shops, except every shop does the same thing. This was a silverwork han, with shops dowenstairs and the workshops upstairs - Gonca is very friendly with the locals and he let us into his workshop to see the incredible things he was making! 

 






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Proposed Itinerary - Follow our journey!

Image
Journey around Rwanda Trying to finalise a 10 day trip around a country the size of Wales is no mean feat, especially when booking a rental car is more challenging than the Mensa IQ test (another post on that later).  Here I will put a vague itinerary of what we are planning, and as I write them, link to each of the daily blogs. Each daily blog will include a review of activities and prices, plus a review of the accommodation.  I have added a little bit below about what would could have done (and chose not to) too!  When you do book things, generally the National Parks and bigger hotels are very helpful with answering questions, and Akagera even gave us this helpful list of recommended companies (that aren't likely to rip you off!) -  Member List | RTTA Proposed Itinerary We are flying with BA, from Heathrow to Kigali. The time difference is only 1 hour as it is almost directly below the UK, so the flights are both night time flights so that you can (hopefully) sleep...
Read more

Journey to Gisakura and Kings Palace - 4th June

Image
Driving in Rwanda  Firstly, they drive on the right, so make sure you’ve thought about that! Rules of the road are generally the same, traffic lights, stop signs etc.  Make sure you are looking in your mirrors A LOT. There are so many of the little scooters and they are a bit like a swarm of flies you are trying not to squash. In the city this was hard, but they got fewer as we drove further out.  There are police stationed regularly around the city, and there are a lot of speed cameras (photo to come). Everyone is fairly relaxed though and there’s no beeping other that to let someone know you’re there in case they haven’t seen you trying to overtake.  You will need to have your driving license and an international drivers permit. We were informed by Kingfisher that the police WILL pull us over at some point. Give them all the documents and answer any questions they have politely. They may check the car and your luggage. Be polite and they will be polite back. We are...
Read more

Akegera National Park Safari - 9th June

Image
 Picking up our guide We picked up our guide, Felix, from reception at 6:30am - and he was keen to get going straight away. He hopped in the back seat and we set off into the park. Just to now be aware, that it gets a bit picture heavy from here on in... The map was huge (right) but we mainly made our way up and down the right hand side, dipping in and out of the loops by the lakes, and then to the plains, Mohana and Kilala. Animals, animals, everywhere... It's almost easier just to list what we saw and when (because I took a list) but I'll tell you about the best bits, and then put all the rest of the pictures at the end. One of the first animals we saw was an adult male water buffalo, who was injured, potentially by a lion. We reversed to see it closer but Felix was fairly insistent we put the car back into drive in case we needed a quick get away!  We then made our first turn towards the lake to see if anything was having an early morning drink and were met by five beautifu...
Read more