Turkey in Easter...

Most years husby and I have always gone away on a city break for Easter.  But since Tilly came we have spent it at home with family and lots of eggs.  But this year husby got his travel bug on and booked us a trip to Istanbul.  And when I say us I mean only the 2 of us!  Since he booked the tickets 6 months ago, I have been dealing with a lot of feelings about leaving Tilly for 4 whole nights, but finally about 2 hours before we left, I embraced the opportunity for us to see a beautiful city together and have some US time.  

The city is amazing.  But that will be in the next post.  Now for some talk about the food.  

As you can see it was tremendous!  

Mediterranean food is the best.  And Turkish food is all that with a little spice.

From the doner kebabs, to the dolmades, to the aubergine to the fish.  Its all amazing.

We tried street food and restaurant food, and it was all good.  Fresh, organic, home cooked, loved and delicious.

Here are our tips:

1.  Sarnic -  a traditional place set in an old water cistern.  Sometimes seemed touristy but was lovely all the same - dinner was meze and lamb chops of course.

2.  Mikla - equivalent of a Michelin star place (but they don't give out stars in Turkey) which is on the top of a hotel Marmara Pera.  Amazing setting.  Chef is half Swedish! 

3.  Balikci Sabahattin - amazing fish restaurant.  You must book and don't listen when they tell you starters will be offered at the table.  That's only meze and not hot starters.  I missed my calamari.....

Some more tips and some more info on the flavours of Istanbul.

My advice is to try everything.  The surroundings, sights, smells all add to a once in a lifetime experience.  

My favourite meal however were the 2 on the plane.  We got upgraded to business class on the way there (i know!!) but we didn't get to have the menu option as husby had ordered a 'special meal' for us, which they just brought.  That would have been nice as an economy passenger but not this time.
 It was nice but I had to add a lot of salt.  Then on the way home when we were regular passengers they brought another menu which sounded lovely but wondered about our 'special meal'.  So I read a little in the in flight magazine and saw that special meals were for special religious or dietary needs and had to be ordered when booking the flight.  So when we received our 'special meal' again, I added a lot of salt.  I was so curios as to what special need husby had chosen for us, and after looking through our booking page I saw he chose BLAND meal.  Hello, bland?  WTF.  Why would anyone order bland and is that really an option.  Anyway guess who's booking our next flight!

Bon Appetito!