today we're in the amazing city of Istanbul, Turkey we are here to eat and
we can't wait to share this Istanbul series with you it's all about finding
the best food the city has to offer Istanbul's food culture is reflective of
its diverse past and draws influence from each region of Turkey this is our
fourth video from Istanbul and we're travelling all over the city to bring you
the best local food we eat the most unusual Turkish street
food you've ever seen a gigantic kebab feast and loads more in this four-part
series we're hunting down Istanbul's best food from unusual Turkish street
food to local favourites you don't want to miss this series get ready for some
mouth-watering food
I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate we hope
you're hungry, let's eat!
we're really excited about this video because we get to show you around the
neighbourhood of Kadıköy which is on the Asian side of Istanbul where we've been
staying for the past two and a half months now this area has a great local
feel about it it's quite residential but there are some great cafes so lots and
lots of bars and shops but it also has tons and tons of really traditional and
local restaurants and little shops it's just got a really great feel about it we
love it now our first stop is for kahvaltı or Turkish breakfast now in our
last Istanbul series we did the whole shebang we ate a really full on Turkish
breakfast it was amazing we'll put the link up there but this time we're going
a little bit off piste we're going to eat something called muhlama which
is from the Black Sea and it is a type of cheese fondue
this is like fondue on steroids there is a ton of butter that goes in and then
a tonne of cheese this guy is an absolute expert
I love breakfast time in Turkey because it's a particularly social meal
it's sharing style so you've got a few different platters on the table and you
just pick away and share all the food on the table and okay we have got a full
on spread here this is the muhlama so the cheese fondue so it's made up of
cheese, butter and cornmeal really really simple ingredients but just look at that ooze and check
out that layer of oil on the top from the butter and from the cheese Thomas
was just showing me the footage that he took when he was in the kitchen and the
amount of butter that went into the pan it was like this big, this thick
insane now in case we're not cheesed out we've got a platter with more cheese so
we've got beyaz peynir which is a hard white cheese some yellow cheese here
it's another hard cheese and then some soft white cheese we've got some olives some
cucumber and then some tomato and then to wash it all down of course
a çay, çay is the thing to drink when you're in Turkey the Turks
love their çay they're drinking it all day morning, noon and night I've got to get
into this muhlama so we've got a basket of bread here
so I'm just gonna I think try and scoop some onto that bread, look at that, holy moly
that is so cheesy all right let's try and get this in in one bite, impossible!
impossible
oh my goodness
if you love cheese you need to come to Istanbul
and you need to eat this dish it is phenomenal
it's actually got a really subtle flavour it's not overpowering so the cheese
is quite subtle still has obviously a great flavour about it but it's not too rich although that
was the first mouthful so it's probably going to be pretty intense by the time
we finish it oh man it's like the most beautiful
cheese sandwich
and the texture of it is so insane it's very very soft and gooey sort of just
melts in your mouth I'm really glad that we've got the tomato the olives and the
cucumber because they're very fresh and vibrant and they cut through the
richness of the muhlama it's really really cheesy and intense but it's so good we can't stop
eating it and then out of the three cheeses here this has got to be my favourite it's
very sharp and it's got a really pungent flavour
mmm you only need tiny bits
of it at a time
with this Istanbul food series we want to show you some unique and more unusual Turkish
Turkish food so foods that you might not have seen before this next dish we're gonna
have is called şırdan and it is one of the more unique looking dishes I have
ever seen so I'm not gonna tell you what it is I'm going to show you some shots
see if you can figure out what it is
so this is the şırdan and it is definitely one of the most unique
street foods I've ever seen such an interesting looking thing
this is şırdan eşo, eşo, ohhhh because you're from Adana obviously cause şırdan is from Adana and so
this is him right there this is his shop
now these are the şırdan so they're an incredibly strange looking street food so I know
what I think it looks like but I'll let you make of it what you will but what
this actually is is intestine so it's a sheep's intestine and what they do is
they stuff it and that's why it's all bulbous looking so they stuff it with
with rice and other things and then it's boiled or cooked very slowly in a broth
then once it's served they've covered it in some salt some chilli flakes and a whole
lot of ground cumin so really nice and basic the way they've served it I don't
know which end to go with first I mean let's go with the let's go with the
little end first
yum
you get a massive hit of that cumin
obviously because that's a strong flavour and there's a lot of cumin over there
but then the intestine is really well cooked intestine can be tough if it
gets overcooked it's really not but it's stuffed with a beautiful rice mixture so
it's a spiced rice mixture so you can see a really neat colour in that
rice
I want to rip into this wider bit so we can get a good look inside whoaaa look at that so
there you go you can see all the rice really clearly now and so how they do
this is they tie it all together so when they served it they pulled a string out
for us so that's what holds it all together in this pretty unusual shape
but look at that rice so you see little bits of tomato in there and stuff
so it's full of a few different ingredients
really good a very simple flavour so the chilli flakes are not too spicy the
cumin is very strong really nicely salted the intestine is really well cooked
it's got a little bit of an offal-y taste so after your mouthfuls you've
swallowed and you've let it sit for a little while you get a good little offal-y
taste quite strong but nice and I like that this is a legitimate street
food I mean we're literally sitting on the road there's a bus right there
that's really good now you might notice that I'm dressed differently and I have
a different haircut to when we started this piece and introduced what we were
doing next that's because this is a late night food so it's it's known as like a
drinking food and a always a late night food so last time we came it was
actually a little bit early in the day by about an hour
so they didn't have it so we're filming this a few days later so that's why I
look different so if you want this one you've got to come late afternoon or
right into the night time
now it wouldn't be a Turkish food video if we didn't eat kebab so we are off for a
kebab feast this is a type of meal that is really good to share with people ha
we found friends perfectly these are Josh and Ashley from The Way Away our
YouTubing friends so they're gonna join us for this feast
now we've had a couple
of months here in Turkey so we've had a lot of time to research about what food we
want to put into these videos this place really stood out we've actually eaten
here I think three times since we arrived because it is so good so we
really can't wait to show you guys this insane meat feast
so there's a serious pit of charcoal here to cook and this is all the meat that's
going with our giant platter
Abi it looks so good we've just ordered three cups of
ayran now ayran is like Turkey's national drink it is so delicious it's a runny
water and yogurt salty drink and restaurants will sometimes have this
machine which keeps the ayran churning so it creates this beautiful foamy
delicious texture so this is the fresh ayran and you've got to order it if you see it
it is so good
holy moly our kebab platter has arrived and it is humongous let me talk you
through what we've got so in the middle here we've got some şiş kebab that are
pieces of lamb which have been put on a skewer and then grilled then we've got
some tavuk kanat which are grilled chicken wings then we've got these minced
kebabs along the side here and they are Adana and Urfa so minced lamb we've got a bunch
of different salads we've got some blistered peppers and in then some stacks of
lavaş which are flatbread
all right I've loaded up my plate but I just want to rewind and talk about what
a kebab actually is if you don't know already so a kebab is just a general
term for any type of meat which is fashioned onto a skewer and then cooked
over the grill and usually over charcoal so we've got all types of different kebab here
on this platter and I love this style of eating in Turkey it's very convivial you often share
food and so it's just a really fun way to eat so enough talking though let's
get into this food so I've popped onto my flatbread some onions and they've got a
tonne of sumac over the top sumac is the spice here it's actually the dried crushed up
berry from the sumac bush and it tastes a little bit like lemon and it also
adds a great hit of colour to food I've got parsley I've got tomatoes I then I think
I'm gonna put some of this Adana kebab in here as well so Adana is just minced
lamb and it's spicy so it's got some chilli flakes in there alright let's give
this thing a taste
oh man that Adana is so smoky its minced lamb but it's minced quite rough and
it's loosely packed so it's quite light there's a really great mix of fat and
lean meat in there and it's spicy so it's got a great hit of chilli and I love
the fresh vegetables they add a lot of tanginess especially those onions and then the
tomatoes are really sweet
if you've watched our videos before you'll know
that I am a massive chicken wing fiend and so we have basically eaten well I
have eaten my weight in chicken wings since we've been in Istanbul I love the
way that they do them here so chicken wing it's got a beautiful crispy charr
on the top where it's been over that charcoal and then it's just got a bit of
chilli over it
this is very good it's not heavily marinated so you can really just taste the chicken flavour
it's got a great smokiness and the meat is super tender now to go
with out kebab feast we got a plate of pickles so if you've seen our first Istanbul
video we take you to a pickle shop so pickles are very very common in Turkey
some gherkins cabbage some chillies and some carrots and then ezme which is the
type of salad so it's got pomegranate molasses on the top there's some tomatoes
parsley and chilli and it's a great accompaniment to the meat, the pickles are
especially good because they cut through the richness of the meat
we are slowly making our way through the huge huge tray of food I'm so glad that we've got friends
to help us with this one because it is a serious plate of food but like Sheena
said it is the best way to have a meal like this when you have more people you
can get a bigger size you can order these in a personal size but definitely
having friends to enjoy it with you it's the best way to go about it
it's a video
what a meal and a huge thank you to Ashley and Josh from The Way Away go
check out their channel it's going to be down in the description and we'll chuck
it up on the screen they were a very big help with eating that absolute feast, it was delicious