Between a simit cart in Europe and a fish sandwich in Asia lies the most efficient food tour in the world — a twenty-minute ferry ride.
Start on the European side in Karaköy, where fishermen sell their catch straight off the boats by the Galata Bridge and simit sellers push red carts stacked with sesame-crusted rings of bread still warm from the oven. Eat one plain, standing up, the way everyone else is — it's breakfast, not a snack.
Work your way through Kadıköy market on the Asian side for the things a menu can't capture: a wedge of lor cheese from a stall that's sold nothing else for thirty years, wet walnuts pickled in syrup, stuffed mussels (midye dolma) sold from a tray balanced on one arm. Wash it all down with a glass of tea poured from a samovar that never stops boiling.
For dinner, find a meyhane — Istanbul's answer to a tapas bar — and let the waiter walk you through a tray of cold mezze before the grilled fish arrives. Order rakı, the anise spirit that turns cloudy with water, and pace yourself; a proper meyhane meal runs three hours and several courses longer than you plan for.
