Surly They Won't Make It

4/2/25

We opted for crepes for breakfast. Something ever so slightly different. Frankie went out to get lemons while Jonathan cooked the batter. It was a nice slow morning.

We headed towards the Grand Bazaar. Everything seemed to be over the Galata bridge in the touristy Eminönü area. It was a long uphill walk through ridiculously busy streets and an insane number of shops. It looked like the online store Amazon if it took on a physical appearance. Miles and miles of the same indistinguishable crap. Who was buying any of it?

When we eventually got to the Grand Bazaar it was a little underwhelming. It was a huge covered market. Hundreds of streets with a roof. But the stores lacked the pizzaz that we expected. There weren’t huge troughs of spices and an authentic atmosphere. It was more of the same touristy stuff. Everything was blatantly overpriced and if you dared to more than cursorily glance at the wares you were immediately the subject of their attention. We didn’t spend long here.

Frankie had found that the Turkish have a food called ‘çiğ köfte’. It’s traditionally made with raw meat but also often with bulgar wheat. It’s served cold, in a wrap, with a little lettuce and lashings of sweet and sour fruit molasses. Cheap too. We had one ‘mega’ one to share from a little restaurant in a side street.

Then we headed to the Egyptian or Spice Bazaar. We actually wandered through it the day before. It was all overpriced. Having spent a month in Turkey already we knew what everything should cost. In fact, the whole place wasn’t anything like the culture we’d discovered. It was a little too fake. It’s obviously expected from a big city, but it meant we didn’t enjoy it as much as someone fresh off a plane potentially would. 

We did find a sweet stall, we didn’t see another one, that sold ‘lokma’ and ‘halka’. These are basically deep fried dough, soaked in sugar syrup. They appear all over the Middle East with different names. In Iran they’re called ‘zoolbia’ and ‘bamieh’. We kept going further and further up the street till we eventually found a shop selling nuts and dried fruits that weren’t extortionate. Turkey really isn’t any cheaper than other European countries anymore. 

We bought dates, figs, dried persimmon, cashews, almonds and hazelnuts. Enough to last the week. We headed back over the Galata and then past our house before going steeply uphill. There was a vegan shop in the suburbs. It was pricy. But we still bought some nut ‘cheese’ and some vegan ‘sucuk’ which is like salami. 

We also visited the carrefour for some coconut milk, oats and also apples and kumquats. The latter were only £1 a kilo. Back down the hill, past the bakery to buy simit, and a small vegetable market to buy aubergine. Then finally home to make a curry. 

It was already quite late when we finally ate dinner. Afterwards we had the lokma and some dried fruit and nuts. We had found this show called Paradise to watch. We won’t spoil it but the premise is quite good if not a little out there. Your mileage may vary.