Copy cats, the sequel

Like 2 days ago we ended the day with some great baklava, again at Karaköy Güllüoğlu.

Once more with feeling

We revisited the restaurant from 2 days ago.

The proof is in the pudding...

... or at least the chicken breast is.


Burn baby burn.


Isn't it romantic to eat burnt chicken breast pudding?

Chicken heaven is called Saray Muhallebicisi.

Another day, another runch

And a good one at that, at Karaköyüm Restaurant.

Greek salad:


Dolmades:


Sea bass with vegetables:

Cultural Istanbul

We visited the Blue Mosque, then spent some time standing in front of Aya Sofya and Topkapı, trying to decide whether we could care less. It turned out we couldn't.

Instead, we visited the art museum at Istanbul Modern and went to a "caz" (jazz) concert in the evening. No glorious dinners, because we had to hurry, but our quick pide was rly tasty.


Alp Ersönmez trio featuring Alexandre Tassel.

Under the bridge downtown...

... is where we ate balık ekmek.

Baklava for desert

Baklava from Karaköy Güllüoğlu.

Dinner with rakı

We had dinner at a great little restaurant that we recognized as such because all tables were reserved (we got a table anyway because we can't seem to get rid of our quaint early eating habit).
We apologize for the photos, which do not do the food justice.

Istanbul street food

We said goodbye to Tuncay on Friday evening, and took a night bus to Istanbul. We love Istanbul so far: there is food EVERYWHERE!!


Lunch:


Thanks to one of Ghillie Basan's phenomenal cookbooks, we only momentarily mistook this funnily dressed guy for the village idiot, and recalled that he sells delicious cherry juice.

A little walk to help digestion

After lunch we had a look around in Ihlara Valley.


Frans and Tuncay show the beautiful surroundings.

Runch in Ihlara Valley

We had lunch in this cute little hut in the river at Ilhara Valley, just before the hordes of tourists arrived.


Lunch was expensive, but fortunately we did not know this while eating, and it was pretty tasty!

Underground cities

We visited some underground cities, that were apparently used to hide from enemies. The wheel shaped stone was used to block off the entry. Although it is not know exactly how far these cities extend, they are most definitely humongous and they have 8 levels at some places.





Tuncay and Anke really look eerily animalesque as cave dwellers.

Meet the Flintstones

Our hotel room was a cave.

A modern stone age family has a jacuzzi in their cave.

Runch in Ürgüp

After riding around for a long time, looking for La Padella restaurant, we had to admit defeat and ate at Adana Ocakbaşı, which was not too bad, not too bad. In fact, it was wonderful wonderful.

Capadoccia, part II --- biking edition

We rented three mountain bikes to explore Capadoccia. It was a lot of fun (for Frans and Anke) and a painful experience (for Tuncay, since it was his first full day bike ride, and the first time on a bicycle since he was 12). This is the start of the day, which can be seen from the smile on Tuncay's face.


Çavusin


This is the end of the day, after a long climb uphill on a busy road, followed by a steep cobblestone road downhill. Fortunately, Anke took the photo in such a way that you can't see the pained look on Tuncay's face :)

Dinner at Alaturca

Meze:

Kayseri Mantısı:

When the site of the restaurant is back up, we will try to find out what the name of this dish was: How could we forget! We made a variant of this dish to prepare for our visit to Turkey! It is Hünkar Beğendi:


And the piece of the resistance, Ali Nazik: