After a crazy long day in the bright sun and crazy humidity, today was planned as an easy, go with the flow, kind of day.

Even though I got drunk the night before, I was up and about by 8:30 this morning.

By 9:30 Nathan and I were starting our day.   Our only plan was to visit the Kadıköy neighborhood in the Asian side of Istanbul and, beyond that, we were going to play it by ear.

Kadıköy

Kadıköy is only a 5 minute metro ride from the main touristy part of the city.

Yesterday, our tour guide Panar had briefly shown us around the area at the end of our tour, so we kind of knew the lay of the land.

The part of the neighborhood we were exploring was filled with restaurants.   We v-lined straight for a restaurant Panar had recommended that offered traditional Turkish dishes.

The restaurant though was empty and the menu was probably more appropriate for lunch or even dinner.

It’s was 10am and we wanted breakfast!

Lo and behold, literally right across the street, I spied a little place with big, bright photos of their food on the wall.

I saw a photo of an egg and sausage dish and I knew right then, we had found our breakfast place.

The dish, called Sucuk Tava, is panfried garlic sausage served with eggs and peppers.

It was amazing and hit the spot.   The sausage wasn’t spicy or greasy at all the the combination just worked.

I was craving another dish though.   The waiter had tried to sell us on a dish called Menemen to share between us and we initially turned it down.

However, because I loved the first dish so much, I decided, what the hell, let’s get this other one too.

Menemen is a dish of scrambled eggs mixed with tomato sauce and green peppers and then topped with cheese.

Sooooo good.

It literally tasted like a cheese pizza and I could seriously eat that dish every day.

After breakfast, we kind of walked through the small, cobblestoned streets browsing the various shops.

Nathan and I each bought a couple of tshirts cause we’ve been going through two a day because of the crazy humidity.

For $7 a pop, it wasn’t too bad a deal.   Nathan got medium while I got large.

Of course, it wasn’t until later on that I got to try it on and found out quickly that large size here is not even close to what large is back home.   My shirts were medium at best.   Anyway, I ended up giving them to Nathan.

After taking the metro one stop to another part of the area, we again walked around for awhile.   Luckily most of the streets were pretty shady because of how narrows they were, but man, when we were out in the open, it was hot as hell.

I’m thankful I bought an amazing thermos that keeps water cool for a day or two.   It’s probably one of the best travel purchases I’ve made.

Having said that, the tap water here in Turkey isn’t drinkable which means I’ve gone through multiple water bottles to fill my thermos.

The current water bottle count is at 10.   We’ll see how high that number gets by the end of this trip.

Anyway, after walking for a bit, we went to a restaurant I had previously marked on my map.

The place offered gluten free pita bread for their kebabs and, you know me, I can’t resist a place that gives me some gluten free stuff.

I wasn’t really hungry because I had just eaten that big breakfast not so long ago, so I got it packed up to take back home to the hostel for later.

By 2pm we were back at the hostel.   I headed up to the empty rooftop patio/bar and ate my kebab while I finished writing yesterday’s blog.

For the rest of the afternoon, we just hung out in our nicely air conditioned room.

Eminönü

At 4:30 we put together a plan to walk over to the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar.

It was initially planned for a couple days from now but we had time right now and nothing planned so we just decided we may as well knock them off our list now.

On our way to the market and bazaar we went through the Eminönü neighborhood which is the main ferry port for this part of the city.

To get there you literally just look for the mass of seagulls circling in the sky overhead.

Along with being the main ferry port, Eminönü is also known for their rows of sailboats selling fish sandwiches.

Naturally, we were on a search for a fish sandwich.

We actually passed by all the boats because I had remembered recently watching a youtube video of a guy telling us to skip them and go to this other place across the square.

So, we headed to the place he recommended and, well, while the meal was good, we may have spent a tad too much there.

We each had a fish sandwich which is mackerel, onions, and lettuce on a bun.   We opted for wraps instead and, of course, thanks to my gluten allergy, I opened up my wrap and used a little fork to pick out the pieces of fish.

The fish was 340tl ($17), which is obviously way too much money.   The dude also upsold us on a “big” side of fries for 160tl ($8) and a couple slurpee type drinks.   In all we each spent $25 each which, for Istanbul, is way too much.

It was our bad though… we’ve literally been in the middle of tourist central all this time and we’ve just kind of accepted paying too much for food.

Spice Market

The famous Istanbul spice market was right next door so we popped on in to take it in.

It was, as a suspected, a bunch of stalls selling different spices.   There were some other stalls selling treats and some selling souvenirs, but mostly it was spice after spice.

I did come upon one stall that had the little faces carved into their mounds of spices (see photo above).   It’s actually a cool little marketing technique.

I mean, why not stand out from the crowd of stalls selling the exact same thing?   Honestly, if I was in spice buying mode, I’d totally pick that guy over the rest just because of the faces.

Grand Bazaar

Our last stop this afternoon was Grand Bazaar.

Again, we had no intention of actually buying anything but we wanted to check it out cause, apparently, that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re in Istanbul.

We did, however, come upon a nice little store with little tables and chairs set up outside.

Yup, it was time to try some Turkish coffee!

Now, I’m not much of a coffee drinker.   I actually can’t even remember the last time I had a cup of coffee, but this was different.

It was Turkish coffee and I wanted to experience it.

It came out piping hot and was pretty bitter for my tastes but after sipping it for awhile, it went down pretty well.

Of course, midway through I ordered a slice of cheesecake they had prominently displayed in a glass case beside us so that helped with the bitterness.

Although I have a gluten allergy, I figured I could still eat the cheesecake as long as I didn’t have the crust.

All in all, I nice experience.

As we headed back to the hostel we passed one of the many stands in the city selling roasted corn on the cob.

I initially had been hesitant about ordered one on previous days just because I didn’t want corn stuck in my teeth all day but figured we were heading straight for the hostel anyway, so what the hell.

Delicious!

I also bought a small bag of chestnuts.

I had never had chestnuts before and, uh, yeah, not a fan.

Oh well, can’t like everything…

A potato adventure

Let me start off by saying I have craving Kumpir for weeks now ever since I first looked at things to eat here in Turkey.

Kumpir is a basically a baked potato topped with your choice of unique toppings.

The other day we had passed by a Kumpir stand while on our walking tour.   Obviously I couldn’t have it at the time but I certainly made note of where it was.

So, tonight, at 8:30pm, we headed out to grab dinner.   A Kumpir dinner!

You know how you get so excited about something and the anticipation is so wild that you can’t stand it?

Yeah, that’s how I was as we walked the few blocks to where the stand was.

We turned the corner, went up the hill and came to the stand.

Closed!

Nooooooooooo!

My excitement dashed.   My anticipation dashed.

I won’t lie, at that very moment, I was a broken man.

After regrouping myself, I pulled out my phone and searched Google for Kumpir stands nearby.

There were a couple that closed at 9pm including the one we were at and then I found one open til midnight.

Only problem though was that it was literally where we were this morning.   Across the river on the other side of Istanbul.

Hmmmmm…

You could literally see the gears turning in my head.

After a little back and forth and making sure that Nathan was okay with it, we decided we were gonna have Kumpir tonight come hell or high water.

Potato adventure activated!

Yeah, you guessed it.   We walked to the metro, took it over to the other side, and found the Kumpir stand.

In total, it was probably a 30 minute detour there but, man, it was soooo worth it.

First, they take a baked potato and open it up.   Next they take the contents and add more potato from a second potato just to, ya know, give you extra potato I guess.

The guy then whips up the potato with butter, salt and cheese til it a smooth almost pudding texture to it.

Then you pick your ingredients.   They are all lined up in containers almost like you see ice cream flavors in an ice cream shop.

I picked corn, red peppers, sausage, and Russian salad.

The base price is 150tl ($7.50) and each topping was only 5tl (25c) more.

Considering the prices we’ve been paying for food since we got here, paying $8.50 for this meal seemed like a huge bargain.   I honestly can’t believe the topping were only 25c each.   Crazy.

Anyway, that potato was by far the best potato I’ve ever eaten and I even mentioned to Nathan that if I lived here I’d probably have it every day.   Of course, I’d be super fat, but man, it was that good.

So, yeah, the detour was well worth it and the potato adventure was a huge success!

We got back to the hostel around 10:30pm and called it a night.

Tomorrow we’re exploring another part of the city and going for an authentic Turkish bath and massage at the older bathhouse in Istanbul.