HUGE TURKISH FOOD TOUR IN ISTANBUL | Foodie Heaven!

They're already.

They're burning.

They're burning.

They're burning. Come on, the order's waiting.

What about this one? I think it needs more time.

It's day three in Istanbul, and today we are exploring the city in one of our favorite ways that we know.

How would it be a proper care and aid series if we didn't do a food tour?

We've sampled some of the food here and there, but we're really looking forward to diving deep into it today.

So before we get started on today's tour, I want to introduce you to our tour guide. This is Latif.

Hello.

Now, before we get started today, I have a very important question for you. Today's the first day of Ramadan, which means that people are fasting.

It's true.

Are they going to be mad at us for eating?

No. It's a secular country. Even though we have 90% Muslim population, people are very friendly with the travelers and they know that they don't have to do that.

Okay, perfect. I was a little worried about that. Yeah, no worries. Now I eat a lot.

I'm not fasting, too.

Okay, that's good. I would have felt really bad if you were fasting. No, don't worry.

Chili pepper, cumin, thyme, mint, other red chili peppers. We have walnuts, some raisins, other sign. Jesus. This my friend, his name is Mehmet. You can call him Mr. Breakfast.

Yes, you are. Nice to meet you.

We're starting the tour with some traditional Turkish breakfast. So we came to Lateef's friend's shop near the spice market, and we're trying some cheese and olives. He said if he has a breakfast and there's not cheese and olives on the table, he complains that you have to eat that for breakfast. So we're picking some up and taking it to eat somewhere else.

Let me buy for us a couple. So we can't do that.

Yes, the circle bread. The average Turkish person can eat three times their body weight in bread every year.

Which is my kind of breakfast. And I've learned that it's called cement and not circle bread.

So what about our breakfast? So here, this is the first thing I want to introduce you. It's the feta cheese, goat cheese, and here is the pastorami. Pastorami is made out of beef. Because we are in a Muslim country, there is a spice coverage around here. It's made out of fennel, garlic and tomato paste. And here I have two things which can change your life forever. You can quit your job. You're going to come seldom in Turkey and you're going to eat these two things every morning.

I'm looking forward to this.

Yeah, this is hazelnut cream smooth one. And the crunchy one. You can call it like Turkish Nutella.

It looks life changing. You might be right.

And the second life changing thing coming. And may I ask you in English, do you call your partners my honey? My. Something like that. To show your affection, your feelings. In Turkey, we don't just say honey. We say my honey and cream. I love you.

That is beautiful.

We believe that only honey is not enough. So honey and cream completing each other. And the best thing you can ever have. And this together. Honey and cream and hazelnut cream. It will be a calorie glass. And our teas are here. Everything is ready, so nothing can stop us.

What do we eat first?

There is no in a certain rule in a breakfast. Some people like from savory to sweet. From sweet to savory, you can just dig in.

There's no rules.

There's no rules.

Put your shirt back on.

There's one rule.

I'm going for the goat cheese first.

So goaty, but probably the best I've ever had. Okay, now I'm going to try the beef pastrami.

The spices that this has been aged in are so strong. He said that if you eat too many in the summer, it seeps out of your skin and you start to smell like a walking pastrami. That would probably be me if I lived here. I can't wait to dig into the rest of this. Our first Turkish breakfast.

I'd say we did pretty good. Wow. That was top five breakfasts of my entire life. It was the perfect mixture of salty and sweet. And the whipped Nutella stuff was like the best thing that I've ever had. If you told me that I had to eat that every day for the rest of my life for breakfast, I wouldn't be sad.

That really says something.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. And that was just such a good way to start. Yes.

We're gonna continue our breakfast. This time we're having only soup.

We're having breakfast part two. It is called beiran. It's a lamb soup made from the neck and the shoulder of a lamb, and it's cooked overnight. This soup is very hefty.

Oh.

Very hot.

But so good.

Wow.

Oh, my gosh. It's like this savoriest, warmest, make you feel all fuzzy inside soup I've ever had. This is one of the most unique palate cleansers I've ever seen. It's just a plate of arugula. If you have a really heavy meal, you can just eat a bite of it with some lemon and some salt and it's delicious. And for our third stop, we're getting back on the ferry and going across the water to Asia.

Istanbul University's tower built in 18.

And we are back in Asia. Lateef told us that over a million people a day transit continents by either ferry, metro, or apparently there's a tunnel that you can drive on underneath the road. It's a lot of people changing continents every day.

My favorite continent.

I always say this is more European than European side.

We definitely missed out on the most hip and happening part of this side of the water yesterday. There's all these little outdoor cafes, people sipping espresso. And now we're going to another market. But it's nothing like the one yesterday. This one's called food market and it's there every single day.

Pickles and it will be Nice experience, please.

Nice experience.

It's a pickle museum. You can find. Almost everything is pickled here.

It smells very pickly.

Bananas, the corn, watermelon, the egg.

We've been told that the best pickled something is actually just the pickle juice that is the most popular. Not sure how I feel about this.

And you say.

Cheers.

It will take some time to get used to.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

So delicious.

Adds pickle juice.

This is a cocktail of pickle juice of cabbage, beets.

Beets.

Cabbage, beets.

And salt.

Salt.

Oh, man, that's tough.

We gotta finish the whole thing before we can leave. We just watched a lady come in here and order a glass of this.

A double size of this.

And she drank it in like five seconds. But she just chugged the whole thing.

I don't understand.

Just small sips.

This is the most popular, one of the most popular street food options in Istanbul. Histories of Istan. Simply after I get the mussel, they clean it and start with the rice. Cinnamon, onion, pine nut filling.

My first stuffed Turkish mussel.

So much flavor. It's gonna be worse back here. It takes the mussels, dip it in the water.

Yeah.

Okay. Get out of the.

I'm gonna leave before I get.

Stay here, bro.

Thank you.

This is a deep fried muscle dipped in garlic sauce.

That is so good. I love garlic. And it is so freshly fried, like right here. So crunchy and like puffy.

Puffy.

Oh, because of the carbonated water.

Yeah, it's true.

Apparently normal water would make it like strange, but this is carbonated. It makes it fluffy better.

Cool guy.

He's a master.

Look at this skill.

Best of the best.

Wow.

Wow. That was amazing. All right, next up, we're having Turkish tacos or more officially, tantuni. It's basically a tortilla with freshly sauteed steak and onions and herbs and some spices. It looks amazing. Can I hold it with my hand?

Mmm.

Mmm.

That is amazing. It's like a burrito sloppy joe. There's so much going on. It's all just dripping out. It's so good. And we're washing it down with some traditional ayran. It is a foamy, salty yogurt.

I actually don't mind this. We've tried it a couple times, and it's grown on me a lot each time.

This street is so pretty. This is actually really hilarious. So our guide just took us to where we were supposed to get some sandwiches called coquerette, and it's what we had yesterday, the lamb sandwiches.

Turns out it's not lamb meat like we thought it was when we ate it yesterday. It's actually lamb intestines.

And we thought it was so good. It was lamb intestine.

We were just, like, eating those sandwiches up. We posted on Instagram how much we loved them, and then everybody replied and.

Told us we were eating intestines.

But it was really good. When you don't know what it is, it's delicious.

So we told him we had already had that. So we're moving on to raw meatball.

It's something from the city of Adeyama. Something we like to eat. Yes, an original recipe. There's a raw meat in it. Made up the beef very finely grounded a couple of Times. And in 1960s, that was commercialized. Some people got sick and the state said no more meat. And the people to get around of the new regulation, they simply took the meat out of the recipe and they kept the rest same, which is Bulgari, red chili pepper, tomato paste, garlic, cumin, black pepper, and walnuts. So instead of meat, they put added nuts.

A vegan raw meatball.

Exactly.

That is so hipster.

This became so hipster that customer profile changed. From the big belly guys to university students, the girls doing yoga.

P. Ladies, raw vegan meatball. Here we go.

Oh, wow.

I think because of all the garlic and salt and pepper and even the texture, like you would think it was ground meat.

That's so confusing.

That is delicious.

I love these.

And healthy.

Exactly.

Is this the place where we got the raw meatballs? It's a chain, so there should be more. If you come to Istanbul, try this stuff. It's so good.

I get a hat.

For our last stop, I'm making Turkish pizza.

Thank you.

We have two different things of pizza. One open comes like a boat shape.

And the other one, which is similar to.

Yeah, if you do it fast.

Yeah, I need to do it faster.

Oh, wow. Good job.

Still wasn't very good.

It's the base. Spinach, cheese.

Always more cheese. That's my pizza. Ground meat.

I shouldn't wash my hands.

Now we're gonna seal it. Touching the flour a little bit.

I put too many toppings.

It won't close. So this is Black Sea style Turkish pizza. They kind of close it up like a calzone. We haven't had this yet.

Don't be scared.

Don't be scared. Oh, it's stretchy. Pat it down.

Now you're gonna get to chef.

Wow.

Beautiful. That is so long.

That is a lot of butter. Just a tad bit of butter on top.

Like that.

Yeah. Just like, give me up my.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now I have the honor of trying Kara's overstuffed Turkish speed egg. They also gave us some yogurt sauce to dip it in with some spices.

Okay, we'll try that again. Round two.

I hate to admit this, because I don't want your head to get too big, but this is without a doubt the best pide that I've had since we've been in Turkey. It's so good.

I think it might be the sausage and the spinach and the homemade dough that they use, but you did a really good job too. It's so good. Great job.

Couldn't do it. We had to get a to go bag. And then we said bye to Lateef. It was a wonderful day.

The great thing about this food tour is that you didn't just go try, like, all of the classic Turkish things that are easy to get everywhere. Like, we got way past kebabs, baklava, Turkish ice cream. We learned about a bunch of foods that we didn't even know existed today.

And not only did we get to try all these new foods, but we learned why they're part of their culture, which is one of the things we really love about food tours is you learn so much about the country through food. What better way to learn about history?

It's a fantastic tour. We highly recommend it. We're going to link the company that we went with below, and now we're heading back here.

At least my hair didn't go in the honey.

Why is one bigger than the other?

Because I'm a tour guide. Like I give you. And keep kickback.

You can feel in my mouth.

Yeah, exactly. Use your mouth to eat. Use your hands to dip in the sauce. I'll do that other way. It's still hard.

It's very dense too.

Oh, so good.

It's so strange. We take my photo.

Other identical seasoning. In the Roman time, they were using seeds like a counter weight in a scale to measure gold. And have you ever curious why we use a term to tell the pureness of the gold with number like 1822.

It comes from this carob seeds. Wow. Everything's clear right now, right?

Yes.

You feel eliminated.

I feel it. Earrings.

It all makes sense now.