Last week I shared a post about a foodie walking tour that we did in Istanbul. Today, I am going to talk about some of the food highlights from the rest of our trip.
It seem a bit strange but I am going to talk about Chinese food first. It does make sense I promise. When we first booked our flights we were going to be flying via Dubai, including a stopover on the way back. However, with everything going on in the world, we had to decide if we were going to cancel our trip or if we were still going to proceed. In the end, we decided to rebook our flights via China. That meant an 11 hour layover in Guangzhou. What to do in a very boring airport for that length of time!
It turns out that the good people at Guangzhou have a solution. If the times work, and your layover is more than 6 hours there is a free city tour that you can do. This includes stops at Huacheng Park where there is a really great view of Canton Tower, Archaeological Site Museum of Nanyue Palace (ruins of a 2000 year old palace), and the shopping streets of Beijing Road. And, most importantly, it included a free yum cha lunch in a local restaurant. The dishes included noodles, dumplings and spring rolls.
The most surprising thing we tried was a cheese and pumpkin pancake which is not something I have had before and it was so good! It almost tasted a bit cheesecakey which was a surprise. I would totally order this if I saw it on the menu somewhere.
One thing that was interesting is that the guide shared with us a particularly Cantonese tradition of using the first pour of your tea to in effect wash your chopsticks. Again, haven't seen that before.
I do have to mention we found a really lovely Chinese cake. It was light and fluffy with what was like a custard flavoured layer. We had one cake before we went on our day tour, and then we bought two more before we got on our flight. We then bought another one on our way home. You could say it was a hit.
Now, onto Turkiye! We had some really, really great food during our time in the country, and I learned some things about myself.
As an aside, if this is how much I have written about the first day, this is going to be a very long post, so I am going to sort of skip over a few things even though they were highlights. On our first full day in Istanbul, we did a lot of walking, but we also had our first of many baklava and we went on a dinner cruise on the Bosphorus which featured a 3 course dinner and cultural dancing. It was a really fun night and the food was fine. The next night we had a lovely dinner with our daughter and her partner who had come to spend the weekend with us. They live in London and we hadn't met her partner before. We were at a rooftop restaurant with an amazing view!
After doing the walking tour we knew that we wanted more Turkish breakfasts, and we had a couple of really delicious ones over the first few days. The first one in this photo was up near Taksim Square, after which we walked down İstiklal Avenue. And yes, we had kunefe for as our second course for breakfast!
However, if you want to talk about the total experience, probably my favourite Turkish breakfast was the one that we had at Dolmabahce Palace, which was literally a 5 minute walk from where we were staying. We sat right on the waterfront and watched the ships go buy. It was a beautiful morning and the typical Turkish breakfast was really good! Even our travel companion Ellie enjoyed it!
Of course we had to get ice cream from one of these guys. Have you ever tried Turkish ice cream, which is called Dondurma. The dondurma is delicious, so creamy, but it has a very different texture to our ice cream, to the point that it is possible to eat it with a knife and fork. Because of the ingredients it doesn't melt in the same way and it has a kind of chewy texture.
One of the more unusual things that we tried was jug kebab. The idea is that all the ingredients are put inside a clay jug, and it is then cooked. It is bought to the table and then they break it open while you watch! So fun!
One thing that surprised me was the Turkish Delight. In Australia if you buy proper Turkish Delight it is in the traditional cube shapes but in Istanbul in particular there were many, many shops where your could buy different flavours and the big piles just look so gorgeous in the displays. Among the flavours we tried were banana and walnut, rose, kanefe inspired flavour and more.
Once we on the tour, obviously there was a lot of time on a bus. When we visit new countries we like to try some of the snacks and along the way we tried a number of different types of biscuits. We particularly like the cheesecake flavoured biscuit
One of the reasons why we went to Turkiye was to attend the Dawn Service at Gallipoli on Anzac Day. The town that we stayed in was called Cannakale. One of the regional specialities is a baked polenta dessert which was delicious. Another specialty that we tried on a different day was a yoghurt dish that is apparently only made at one specific roadside stop. It features yoghurt which is then topped with honey and sesame seeds. It is not dissimilar to the clotted cream and honey that featured at most breakfasts. It was so good.
I mentioned that I learnt a couple of things about myself. One of the things is that generally I don't enjoy nuts or honey. It turns out that when it comes in baklava or kunefe format I am more than happy to eat it. Maybe it's only shop bought Australian honey that I don't love. Or maybe I just need to try it again here to see how I feel about it now. And as for nuts, I think it is mainly only peanuts that I don't lvoe.
I haven't even touched on all the kebabs we ate, or the great pide I had in a city called Konya, home to Sufi sect and the whirling dervishes, the various flavours of tea that we had in copious amounts or the lunch that we had at a restaurant in Cappadocia.
Speaking of Cappadocia I have to mention our balloon trip there. Whilst this cake and drink would not necessarily be that special in any other circumstance, it was served up after we had done our dawn balloon flight which was an experience of a lifetime!
As you can hopefully tell, we had an amazing time in Turkiye. We loved Istanbul including visitng the mosque, the Basilica Cistern, Topkapi Palace, experienced a Turkish bath, cruising the Bosphorus and more. The experience of visiting the Gallipoli Peninsula and attending the Dawn Service was inspiring. Visiting places like Ephesus, Pammukale and Cappadocia was awe inspiring. We would love to be able to go back!
Saturday -
Sunday - Chips, cheese and gravy
Monday - Pressure Cooker Spag Bol
Tuesday - Spanish Tuna Pasta Bake
Wednesday - Pie and chips
Thursday - Korean Chicken Burger
Friday - Egg Curry
.png)
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
No comments:
Post a Comment