Eating Like a Local in Istanbul

Shortly after the devastating earthquakes in Turkey that killed some 50,000 people, I took a previously planned trip back to Istanbul I had been organizing for a few months. The area where the quakes were is about a two-hour flight from Istanbul, so I felt completely safe, but obviously there was a kind of PTSD on the faces of many locals. The quakes affected everyone. Still, I visited friends I hadn’t seen in awhile and as always, took a Culinary Backstreets tour through an undiscovered neighborhood that seemed to last most of one day. The food in Turkey is a delicious melting pot of several cultures, since the country sits on the axis of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Here’s my recap focusing on the legendary breakfasts and that Backstreets tour: