ISTANBULS BESTES ESSEN 🇹🇷 | Teil 1 | Cinematic Food Guide

Istanbul Food Guide: Dishes and Preparation Notes

This is a restaurant and street-food tour, not a set of recipes. The subtitles provide few exact quantities, so the descriptions below reflect how the dishes were prepared or served on camera.

Breakfast and Street Food

• Menemen: Eggs cooked with tomatoes in a small copper pan. The host praises the strong tomato flavor and soft, well-seasoned consistency. It’s served with white bread for scooping, cheese, honey, and tea. The breakfast shown costs €8.
• Grilled mackerel sandwich: Half-fillets are grilled, then skinned and deboned. The fish is served in bread with onion, peppers, salad, spices, oil, and pomegranate seasoning. The host notes the contrast between the hot, crunchy fish and the crisp, cool salad.
• Simit: Sesame rings served fresh from the oven with tea, olives, cheese, cream cheese, and strawberry jam. The host recommends eating them warm rather than settling for a dry one.
• Stuffed mussels (midye dolma): Mussels are steamed, halved, filled with seasoned rice, and closed back up. They’re served with lemon. One portion contains 13 pieces and is described as costing about €3.
• Grilled lamb intestine and fat: A charcoal-grilled street food that the host tries but says isn’t for him.
• Lamb intestine filled with offal: Served with rice, herbs, and spices. The host finds the meat more approachable than expected but says the dish is rich and strongly lamb-flavored.
• Vegan çiğ köfte-style wrap: A meat-free version made from a seasoned, powder-based mixture, served in dürüm bread with lettuce, lemon, and pomegranate syrup. A meat version is also mentioned as being available in restaurants.
• Beef and chicken dürüm: Hand-rolled wraps with chopped meat, herbs—especially parsley—and sauce. The chicken version is served with yogurt and roasted paprika oil; the host recommends adding lemon to the beef wrap. Both are praised as juicy and convenient to eat on the go.
• Turkish ice cream (dondurma): Made with goat’s milk. The presenter mentions orchid-derived salep and condensed milk as ingredients contributing to its distinctive texture. It’s stretched and served with a spatula as part of a playful vendor performance.

Home-Style and Restaurant Dishes

• Stuffed vegetables and grape leaves: Eggplant, cabbage leaves, and grape leaves are filled with rice or bulgur, herbs, spices, and, in some versions, nuts. They’re served at room temperature with yogurt. The host praises their juicy filling and minty, slightly spicy flavor.
• Perde pilavı-style rice and chicken: Rice and juicy chicken are cooked with broth and spices, then enclosed in pastry. Raisins and nuts are also mentioned.
• Hünkar beğendi: Smoked or grilled eggplant is made into a béchamel-style base and topped with lamb and tomato braised slowly at low temperature. The host highlights the tender meat and rich, smoky eggplant.
• Meze and accompaniments: Warm bread is served with items including spicy yogurt, braised vegetables, village cheese, hummus topped with pine nuts, and pickled vegetables and fruit. The host recommends trying a range of small plates.
• Grilled kebab: The restaurant serves a classic version and a pistachio version. Both are grilled and served with bread and yogurt. The host says the pistachio flavor is noticeable in the pistachio kebab.

Desserts

• Cold baklava: Baklava served chilled in cold milk and topped with cocoa and chocolate shavings. The host says it should be eaten very cold and praises its juicy pistachio layers.
• Classic baklava: Presented alongside the cold version as the traditional alternative.

Serving and Practical Notes

Turkish tea is presented as the usual breakfast drink, and bread is used to scoop up dishes such as menemen. The host encourages trying street food but notes that some dishes—especially mussels—require substantial hand preparation.

For lamb belly, the chef’s challenge is to render the fat, keep the meat juicy, and make the skin crisp at the same time.

Presenter and Channel

The video is from deliziös; the presenter is identified in the video metadata as Bernd Zehner. The subtitles mention Instagram links, but the links themselves are missing.