Topkapi Palace and the Asian side of Istanbul

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For day 3, we started our day at Topkapi Palace which served as the sole administrative palace for the Ottoman sultans for more than 400 years. It's quite the complex, and again the Iznik tile work was the most amazing of anything we've seen thus far. There are two areas in the palace that you have to wait in a super long line to get in, the first being the treasury that has golden cradles, swords, and the jewelry of the sultans. It features an 86 carat diamond and a literal bowl full of emeralds. Stunning! The second is the Holy Relics room which has the supposed staff of Moses and the footprint & beard hair from Mohammed. Walking through was like being herded cattle!



After the palace we went back to the same place for lunch as we went our first day since we were close, with the great view of the Blue Mosque. We think lunch was even better this time and had the same lamb kebob with pistachios and a new dish of minced lamb meat baked in phyllo dough. We were in heaven. We took a stroll through a smaller bazaar before visiting the mosaic museum which is very small but features some truly remarkable mosaics in terms of artistry.



We stopped for a beer at a English style pub to rest our feet before finding ourselves another Cag Kebob place nearby that we learned about on our food tour. This is the pure lamb horizontal cooked meat that is thinly sliced and placed on skewers before being crisped up very quickly and served with lavash, onions, and tomatoes. I think Matt and I could eat this every day of our lives its so good. No sauce needed.....it's so moist and flavorful. We couldn't get enough!



We took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel, stopping at a candy shop. We sampled some good flavors of turkish delight and I bought some of the sesame candy I liked from the food tour called Havla. We had one final stop for a cappuccino before turning in to do the ritual of downloading photos and weeding out the keepers.



THURSDAY:



It's not very often that you can bounce back and forth between continents in a single day, but today we took the ferry to the Asian side of Istanbul to the part of the city called Kadikoy. It felt a bit slower and where you feel most people may actually live. In our research, you could not read one blog or article without the mention of a restaurant there called Ciya, so of course that is where we set out to have lunch. Mostly we walked around for awhile before finding our way to the restaurant. Lunch was good, but honestly not as great as some of the other meals we've had so far. Pics show what we ate.



We caught the ferry back and headed back to the hotel to freshen up and then wandered up to Taksim square and walked around. We ended up eating dinner at Pay Me Na where we had some good meat kabobs and the creme de la creme.....Kunefe. This is the dessert we had on the food tour and I will say I think it's one of the best desserts I've ever had. I LOVE IT! I can't take overly sweet desserts and even when we were sampling the various types of baklava I could only handle a couple of bites before it was sugar overload. This dessert is made with very finely shredded dough that is pressed into a special metal dish, cheese similar to mozzarella is added and then covered in more dough. It's pressed down and then cooked over a flame until crispy and starting to char a bit on both sides. Sugar syrup is poured over the top and it's then finished off with chopped pistachios. I am sure many of you are cringing at the thought of cheese and sugar syrup but I can't describe this amazing combination of flavors....it's uniquely wonderful!



Tomorrow is our last day and we plan to hit a few favs and visit the Chora Museum.

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Comments

[Tom Lyle]

Topkapi Palace
Erin, can you replicate any of the desserts, or the crispy lamb kebab .......sounds good. Are you ready for your Breast Cancer Walk after all your walking in Istambul.....I knew Boo would find an English Pub for a beer..... Was it one you had had before or Turkish.....enjoy your last day! Dad