Foods I ate in Istanbul

I love Turkish food. I don’t eat it as much anymore, but at my old house in Bishkek, we lived near several Turkish restaurants that we went to all the time. When I went to Istanbul last month, I knew I would enjoy eating as much Turkish food as I could. My week of eating in Istanbul can be summed up as a lot of seafood and dessert. Since Kyrgyzstan is landlocked, I wanted to take advantage of a nearby source of abundant and fresh seafood. And dessert because, duh, I love sweets.

A typical Turkish breakfast, it’s pretty much the best thing ever. I ate some combination of bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, jams, honey and olives every morning and loved it. This might sound weird, but I have some strange feelings towards raw tomatoes (I refused to eat tomato products for a few years when I was a kid), but somehow, in Turkish Breakfast format, I love them.

Little fried fishes, spritzed with lemon juice and eaten with bits of raw onion.

This thing? Oh this thing was interesting. It’s chicken pudding. Basically, it’s a regular pudding, good enough on it’s own, but there’s finely shredded chicken breast mixed in. Why? I have no idea. It gives the dish a bit more heft, a thicker texture. It’s interesting and nowhere near as gross as you might think. It doesn’t taste like chicken at all.

Don’t stare at it too closely or you’ll see all the bits of stringy chicken.

Blocks of mashed white beans and a plate of roasted vegetables, covered in olive oil and herbs.

Another wonderfully fresh fish. Bishkek has many things, but decent seafood is still hard to come by.

Luckily I didn’t eat this monstrosity: a greasy, soggy burger filled with doner meat, sitting in a steaming display box all day that Farrell talked about wanting to eat all week. It’s probably awesome hangover food.

Looking at these photos is really making me miss those desserts. A tower of crunchy pistachio rolls, dripping with syrup? Yes, please.

And another bowl of pudding, this time without chicken. Still delicious though.

Best find of the week, ice cream without those horrible, horrible server dudes. (None for Darwin, womp womp!)

Not pictured, all of the many many Turkish coffees I drank throughout the week.

I always make sure I eat well when I travel, what about you? What was your favorite food find in a new country?