Day 3 :Street Food and Ottoman Fine Dining Restaurant

Like any cities of the world, Istanbul,too, has its own variety of street food, which are generally more affordable that eating in restaurants.

the hawker stall above sells "simit"

a circular twisted bread sprinkled with sesame seeds

each piece sold for 1 lira

the 'pide' or 'pideci' is Istanbul's version of the pizza

each piece cost 5 lira

enough for 2 persons

'borek' is like the Malaysian 'karipap'

the plate of 6 pieces cost 5 lira

With a heavy breakfast at the hotel on the 3rd day in Istanbul, we decided to just sample the various types of street food above instead of having a sit-down lunch in a restaurant. It was a very long day and we did quite a lot of tours and walks through the bazaar, markets and mosques. We finally returned to the hotel at almost 8 pm and after a quick wash, decided to walk round the corner of the hotel to an Ottoman Fine Dining Restaurant.

Pakdokter tried a bowl of the lentil soup for starters and pakdokter's partner ordered a plate of salads. For the mains, we tried out the chicken dish cooked inside a paper bag - quite like the 'beggars chicken' dish famous in the Banting district of Selangor - except the chicken came in cubes and cooked with pieces of vegetables in a tomato-base sauce. We also ordered another fish dish that came with a dollop of pilav, vegetables and a baked potato.