On our first day in Istanbul, we joined a walking food tour with Culinary Backstreets. This turned out to be the perfect idea because we were introduced to all sorts of Turkish cuisine that we never would have tried or known how to eat. My palate for Turkish food isn’t nearly as developed, but this food tour definitely opened it up. Below are some common Turkish food that you'll most likely encounter on a trip to Istanbul and ones you should definitely try!

Börek

Börek turned out to be one of my absolute favorite dishes in Turkey, so much so that I scoured for it on the menu in every single restaurant we went to. I’m actually salivating right now just looking at my past pictures and describing its deliciousness to you.

Börek is a thinly layered flaky pastry filled with either feta cheese, spinach, parsley, potatoes, or meat. The cuisine originated from the time of the Ottoman empire and it’s still a very popular dish served throughout the day at most bakeries and restaurants. Many bakeries make a fresh batch early in the morning for commuters to munch on on the way to work. However, we’ve also seen them on display in restaurant windows late at night for those midnight munchies.

There are many different types of börek and everyone has their own version or style of making them. It’s a little confusing because everybody simply refers to them as börek, so at restaurants I couldn’t really tell which version I was ordering and always hoped for the best when it arrived. Now that I’m home and I’ve done a little more research on the dish, I’m better at distinguishing the different types of börek.

Su böreği

When I type that into Google Translate it directly translates to water pastry, which is exactly what it is. Making this particular börek involves boiling the phyllo dough to soften it up and create a pasta-like texture. I found su böreği to be the most common type of börek when ordering at restaurants. It’s usually cut up into rectangular pieces where you can see the layers of boiled phyllo dough with the melted cheese peeking out and the crispy shell on top. It’s actually very similar to a sauceless lasagna in both appearance and taste. Although the water börek was tasty, it wasn’t my favorite type of börek and the one I salivated for throughout the trip.

Sigara böreği

Another direct translation, sigara böreği, also known as cigarette börek, is named specifically for its shape and appearance. These crispy goodies are again usually filled with feta cheese, potatoes, parsley, spinach, or meat. Making cigarette börek involves cutting up the phyllo dough into triangular pieces and rolling them forward until you have a cigarette shape. Then you simply take your cigarette pieces and fry them in oil until they’re golden brown. It’s very similar to lumpia minus the different filling inside. This type of börek is not as filling as the water börek, so it made a great snack for me at the airport while I was waiting for my flight to Cappadocia. However, this one is still not my favorite type of börek.

Kol böreği

You guessed it, another literal translation! Kol böreği translates directly to rolled pastry, and yes this one is the mother of all deliciousness that is börek. This is the first type of börek that I tried on that food tour, the one that I hunted for throughout my entire trip, and the last thing I ate before heading to the airport and back to the US.

Rolled börek, like its name suggests, is a large sheet of phyllo dough rolled up like the cigarette börek, however it's not sliced into smaller pieces. The result is one long roll which you can either start spiraling into itself to make a circular shape, or line it up to make an oval shape. Instead of frying or boiling, this börek is baked to perfection. Once out of the oven, the chef cuts the pastry horizontally and you end up with beautifully bite sized pieces that are crispy on the outside with just a touch of soft gooey dough on the inside. Loaded with the potato filling (my favorite!) kol böreği is easily my favorite dish from this Turkey trip.

Baklava

A staple of Turkish cuisine since the Ottoman empire, Baklava can be found at pretty much every restaurant that has a dessert menu. It’s a baked pastry made up of layers upon layers of phyllo dough stuffed with chopped nuts and held together with a sweet syrup. When we ordered them at restaurants, they were often served cut up into 3-4 rectangular pieces garnished with nuts.

The most famous and arguably best baklava in all of Turkey just happened to be a block away from our hotel in the Beyoğlu neighborhood. Just walking by Karaköy Güllüoğlu I could already get a whiff of the sweet pastries calling my name. Karaköy Güllüoğlu rolls out their dough over and over again to make it as thin and light as possible in order to stack at least 30 layers of phyllo dough mixed with chopped pistachios and syrup to make their famous square baklava with pistachios.

We ordered the special sampler that included various flavors, nuts, and arrangement styles. Opening up the box my eyes are immediately drawn to the glimmering syrupy glaze and vibrant pistachio garnishes. Using my fork and digging into the layers, I can hear the crisp crackling of 30 thin layers of phyllo crunching underneath. The taste was very surprising to me because it wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet. Usually when I have baklava, it’s drenched in syrup, but this baklava was very light with just a touch of sweetness, the focus for me was definitely more on the crunch of the layers.

Kaymak

This is one of the food items that I wouldn’t have known how to eat if we didn’t learn about it during our Food Tour. Our first meal on the food tour was a traditional Turkish breakfast, a large spread that consisted of various types of cheeses, bread, olives, honey, and cold cuts. At the very center of the table sat a dish that looked similar to a melty slab of butter drenched in honey. Our tour guide was quick to explain to us that this dish was kaymak.

Made from water buffalo milk, Kaymak is the Turkish version of clotted cream. It’s cheesy, buttery, and creamy all combined together. Kaymak is heavenly when covered in honey and spread onto bread. It has such a creamy spreadable consistency and the honey helps soften it even more and adds that hint of sweetness. It’s very delicate though, and can go bad in barely a day so it must be delivered fresh daily.

Luckily our hotel had it stocked every morning as part of the breakfast buffet, although they didn’t premix the honey into the dish. So I’m very thankful that I learned about the honey during our food tour and was able to enjoy it the right way.

TURKISH DELIGHT

Served virtually everywhere, you won’t leave Istanbul without encountering Turkish Delight. Even when we boarded Turkish Airways, the first thing we were offered minutes after takeoff was a piece of Turkish Delight. When we checked in at the hotel, the first thing delivered to our room was tea and Turkish Delight. When we finished our first experience at the hamam bath, we were offered a beverage along with Turkish Delight. When we were leaving our hotel in Cappadocia, the kind manager of the hotel gifted us with a box of Turkish Delights. Like I said, it’s unavoidable and probably the one thing you’ll eat most in Istanbul.

Totally fine by me because I have a huge sweet tooth. Turkish Delight is a form of gel candy made of starch and sugar. It’s commonly cut up into cubes and coated with powdered sugar. It comes in many different flavors from flower petals (rose is my favorite!) to fruits and nuts. They’re a perfect souvenir to bring home to share with family, friends, and coworkers.

Pide

Pide (pronounced like pita) is essentially Turkish pizza made with a base of flat-bread and cheese with various toppings and cooked in a brick oven. It’s similar to pizza but with the different toppings and base crust, it has its own Turkish kick. It also doesn’t have a layer of tomato sauce, so it’s a bit drier and flatter. In fact if I held up a slice of pide by the crust, it couldn’t stand on its own like most pizza, it would droop down and eventually I would lose all my toppings.

It’s a quick and easy meal to grab on the go and it’s not venturing too far from a normal American palate because of its similarity to pizza. So if you haven’t completely opened up to Turkish cuisine yet, try pide!

Kokoreç

“Try it if you dare!” That’s what we were warned of as we were approaching Kokoreççi Erdinç Usta, a hole in the wall just a stone’s throw from the Grand Bazaar. As we walked up to the stand, we could see the chef tending to the mysterious meat on the horizontal skewer, a clear distinction between döner which is more commonly cooked on a vertical skewer. After slicing off pieces from the meat and filling it into white bread, the chef doused an incredible amount of spices onto it to help mask the natural flavor of the meat. After taking the first bite of the sandwich we could already guess what it was: intestines, specifically lamb intestines.

Growing up in an Asian community, eating intestines isn’t too much of a shocker for us but I can understand why people recommended that we just try it first and then ask what it is later. It’s actually pretty delicious and with the combination of fluffy white bread and an industrial amount of spices, you can barely taste the texture of the intestines. Don’t knock it till you try it!