Best Istanbul Street Food Guide! – Part 2
In our part 1, we have mentioned the hot Istanbul street foods such as Kebap, Döner, Börek, Pide, Lahmacun, Mısır, Kestane and Balık Ekmek. If you wonder what are all of these traditional street foods, you can check out our Part 1.
Apart from hot Istanbul food, there are delicious and addictive cold Istanbul food too. Even though they are not as much as the hot ones, we recommend you to try these at once.
Simit
This one is crispy and called ”gevrek” in İzmir because of that. This food is ring-shaped and covered with sesame and one of the most popular street foods in Istanbul. You can see a simit seller in nearly every street or corner of Istanbul. In old times, it was used by people carrying big trays on their head and yelling ”simiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit”, but nowadays, it is being sold by street sellers with glass-fronted push cars and they don’t yell anymore. The taste and the production of simit differ from region to region and place to place. You can play simit from two main places, street sellers or the patisserie simit. Patisserie version is sold at most of the shops and it is softer and you can find many varieties of this one. But the actual simit sold by the street sellers is very crispy and fresh. If you want something bigger but still resembles simit, we will now talk about Açma, another traditional ring-shaped food.
Açma
It looks a lot like simit with its ring-shape but it is not as crispy or hard as the simit. You can find it at many street sellers who also sell simit and it is a lot softer than simit and has different ingredients inside such as olive, potatoes, mincemeat and etc.
Poğaça
This one is more flaky and savory pastry but it is one of the most popular ones and you can find all three of them in most of the street sellers. You can choose plain (sade) poğaça or choose the ones with different fillings such as the açma: peynirli (with cheese), kıymalı (minced meat), or the zeytinli (olives). Even though they are seriously delicious and mouth watering, don’t forget to take tea with them since they are inseparable duos.
Çiğ Köfte
Çiğ Köfte differs from the ones below since it is not a good idea for breakfast. Originally, it is a dish made of raw ground meat with different spices and pounded wheat. But now, since it is dangerous to use raw meat inside because of the date of expiry, the original version of Çiğ Köfte is cannot be found at the street sellers nowadays. But even so, this version will definitely make you feel like eating one more after the unmatched meeting of ayran and çiğ köfte.
Dangerous Ones!
Apart from all of these snacks, if you wander through Istanbul’s streets enough, you can come across to a different street seller too. Even though they are all delicious when fresh and prepared well, sometimes it can be dangerous for your health and you have to always choose it from trusted sellers or ask one of your Turkish friends. Moreover, you can ask for help from our Sultanahmet Hotel, Sura Hotels personal too. Let’s check what is this dangerous duo:
Midye Dolma
The literal translation is stuffed mussels. After a heavy night, you cannot believe in yourself how much you can eat from these. But since they can be really dangerous if not prepared well, always choose from a real and trusted restaurant.
Kokoreç
It is grilled sheep intestines roasted on a skewer and prepared with lots of spices. You can’t even smell the intestine from all these spices but for the fans of this snack, it is something out of this world. Most of the night out people prefer this one after a heavy drinking. This one is sold on a skewer too just like the döner but while döner skewer is vertical, kokoreç skewer is always positioned horizontally.
