We are now rounding out our trip and managed to sneak in another day in Istanbul at the end. This time, instead of staying in the busy Sultanehment area, we instead chose a hotel in Sisli.

It was a quiet morning - we grabbed breakfast at Fill Coffee - the most amazing bowl of tahini oats - highly recommend giving it a try. We then walked through Karakoy on the way to the Bazaars and Harneet was inspired to try a San Sebastian cheesecake right near the Galata tower (closed for renovation). I've made this before. It's also called a burnt basque cheesecake. Not my favorite but his craving was satisfied.

Caffeine in our system, it was now time to shop. But we stopped quickly at the New Mosque first. Such a gorgeous mosque.

We spent too many hours browsing the Grand Bazaar, Mahmutpasa Bazaar, street shops (reminded me of Linking Road) and my favorite - the Spice Bazaar. But before any purchases, we got some lunch. I got a grilled fish sandwich (balik Ekmek) from the Tarihi Balik Evi fish house where I also tasted a stuffed mussel (stuffed with seasoned rice). Harneet had a durum chicken wrap from Durumcu Mustafa which was also delicious. No pics since we ate while we walked.

We were now energized to shop and bought way too many ground spices from Arifoglu where we were treated to so many samples, that we just had to get it all. The sweet guy there threw in a bunch of freebies too and did not price gouge us.

He also gave us recommendations on where to get the best Kunefe.

Following one of his recommendations and exhausted from all the walking, we stopped at Safa for some Turkish tea and a plate of fresh Kunefe. The guy was making these on a coal grill.

Exhausted from way too much walking, we spent some time in a free hamam in the hotel we are staying in. A couple of hours later, we were back outside finding a good place for dinner. Our original target was the famous Durumzade. After a 30 minute walk, we found it was closed for Ramadan so we started looking for something else. And found Durumce Taksim.

As we pored over the menu, Harneet did the thing he does and yet again, it backfired - or did it? He looked at the menu and wanted the Adana Kebab - a plate came with two kebabs. He wanted to share a plate with me so asked if he could have an extra kebab added to the plate in English. This is how the conversation goes:

Harneet: can I get just one extra kebab

Server: huh

Harneet: point to Urfa kebab plate on the menu and says, can you give me just one of these with the other Adana kebab plate.

Server: yes, yes - one Urfa, one adana

Harneet: yes please

10 mins later, we have two full plates with two kebabs each (2 Urfa and 2 Adana) 🤣. Fortunately, we were starving and wiped our plates clean.

Tomorrow, we head back home. I'll do one more post before I get on my flight outlining the itinerary we did in case you want to do a Turkey trip in the future. Our feet ache so for now, good night!