Exploring the streets of Istanbul

This is yummy. I stood a whole year over this. Oh, that's your favorite. I feel like the world owes Turkey a debt of gratitude for introducing this to the world. And it's gonna be yummy. We've been walking like miles and miles today so that we can eat so much food. Welcome back to our Turkey series. If you are new around here, I'm Heather, this is Brady, and we recently sold everything we own to travel the world with our two daughters, Alexa and Chloe. We are currently on a road trip traveling around the beautiful country of Turkey, exploring its diverse scenery and unique history. Today we go on a food tour around the city of Istanbul. We are so excited because today is all about food. We are going to travel around the city and find some amazing food to eat, and we are starting with a traditional breakfast. So this is the start of the traditional Turkish breakfast. He said this was the first part. It doesn't all fit on the table. I don't know what's coming next because this looks amazing. So we have some sugar-free Turkish jams, Turkish salad, honey, cheese, olives, bread, a cheese assortment here, and a bunch of things that I'm really not sure about. This is like an avocado thing, this is a tomato-y thing, olives. I can't remember what he said about that, but it all looks really, really good. You need a bigger table. Settle down. This is menemen, I think. This is very traditional in Turkey for breakfast. It's eggs cooked with tomatoes and peppers, and it is absolutely delicious. They also brought out some assortment of pancakes and other things. Oh my goodness, this looks so delicious. We are in for a treat. So I think, aside from the menemen, my favorite thing so far is these Georgian pancakes with honey and what was this called? The cream? Clotted cream. Clotted cream, which really is nothing like anything I've ever had before. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's just so good. Don't eat it all. I haven't tried it yet. So, funny story. The last time we had a traditional Turkish breakfast, they bring out a huge assortment of cheeses, and I was going around trying every little bit, and then I grabbed a big chunk of a soft cheese, and I bit into it, it was delicious. Later on... Hold on, you said, that is like no cheese I've ever tasted before. I did say that's like no cheese I've ever tasted before, but in a good way. Later on, the waiter let me know that that was actually a stick of butter that I had just eaten and not soft cheese. We're learning still. They just brought this to us just to be nice. I love it. It's delicious. Alexa, what did you think about the breakfast? Good. Was that the best breakfast you've ever had? Yeah. Did you like your breakfast? Yeah. They love cats around here, and you'll see people like bringing food out to the stray cats, but this place went above and beyond and built these little houses for the cats. They have food at the bottom and little places for the cats to climb around. So we have about seven or eight other items on our food tour list today, but first, after a very large breakfast, we're going to burn off some energy by climbing up the Galata Tower. Do you girls want to climb up Rapunzel's castle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have enough energy. You have enough energy? This is absolutely gorgeous. What an amazing view. Maybe they have it this part because Rapunzel used to sit right here. So if I haven't explained, I may have convinced Chloe that this is Rapunzel's tower. She used to live here, but she's currently in Disneyland, and she's been excited to climb it as a result. We do usually do a pretty good job of, like, giving our girls a good, firm grasp on reality. This is an exception, I think, to that. This is beautiful, isn't it, girls? This is awesome. So, Alexa, you can see Europe and Asia right now. Asia, Europe. That's right. Did you know that? So smart. So what's crazy to me is the original tower was built around 500 A.D., making this over 1,500 years old, which is insane. It was demolished and then rebuilt, but it's definitely an iconic symbol of Istanbul. All right. I think it is time to continue on with the food tour. Step up. So close, Chloe. Oh! Yes! Oh! Yes! Okay. Oh! Yes! Oh! Okay. That's funny. Is it funny, Chloe? Oh! I thought you had it that time. Good job. Yay! Chloe, is that fun? Yeah. Okay, Alexa. Okay, nice job. Say thank you. This is very delicious. What do you think about that guy? Was that crazy? Do you think he's going to do that every time you buy ice cream? We have come to Nizam Pide Salat. We have first ordered this rice pudding. It has Turkish delight, bananas, figs, raisins, hazelnut, honey, on top of this banana, on top of this rice pudding, and it looks really, really good. And then we've also ordered a traditional pide, basically a Turkish pizza. And it's going to be yummy. Oh, the pudding. Is that good? It's delicious. Hand it over. So this here is a traditional Turkish pizza. It has minced meat and fried eggs and a little crust wrapped, so I think it's going to be really good. I'm excited about it. Fizzle, fizzle, and eat. Daddy, look at this. Fizzle, fizzle, fizzle, fizzle, fizzle, fizzle. That's delicious. It's so good. I don't even know how to describe it. A minced meat pizza. It's so good. So Chloe forgot to put her socks on when we left the house this afternoon, so her feet are now starting to hurt, of course. So luckily there's some socks right here, so I think we're going to pick some up. Oh, yeah. Perfect. Just perfect. Those cat socks? Cat socks. You girls are doing so good. We've been walking, like, miles and miles today. So that we can eat so much food. We've just been walking nonstop from location to location, which everything is quite spread out, and you girls are doing fantastic. Yeah. That's a cool cat house. If there's any cats in there, leave them alone, okay? Don't get too close because they might get upset. I saw three kitties, and they're just like the three meowsketeers. Good joke, buddy. This is a Durham Doner. I feel like the world owes Turkey a debt of gratitude for introducing this to the world. All of my favorite street food has kind of originated from this rotisserie meat thing. So do you girls remember in Mexico the El Pastor Tacos? They got that idea from Turkey. So Doner has been around since the Ottoman Empire. They invented this rotisserie thing, I forget how long ago. And then that's where we get the Doner Durham. Durham is the wrap. And honestly, it's just so good. In Greece, they have the gyro. In other Arab nations, they have the shawarma. There's a bunch of different versions of this, but it's honestly my favorite street food ever. Look at the ground. It's dripping all over the place. It's so juicy. So I believe we're going to be driving about 5,000 kilometers, circling around most of Turkey. And I'm on the mission to find the best Doner in Turkey. It's a good challenge. Do you want to try? Oh, that's pretty. It's a little big. That's really pretty. That looks perfect. Do you want to get this one? Okay. So this is a kumpir, which is just a massive stuffed baked potato. This is a pretty typical street food, apparently. I have not been able to find it on the street anywhere, so we came to this restaurant called Potato. And they just mash up the potato, put in just a ton of random goodness. I honestly have no idea what he put in. I just kept saying, sure, it sounds good. So he basically put in a little bit of everything. So we're going to give it a shot. Apparently you're supposed to eat it with a spoon, because that's all I could find. It's really good. It's got like pickled beets and Russian salad, and a lot of butter, a lot of cheese. I don't know. Is that your favorite? I like plain potatoes. Chloe, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Good news. Good news is there are really colorful stairs. The bad news, we have to climb them. That's good news to Chloe, bad news to the rest of us. The part of Istanbul that we are staying in, which is the Galata region, is great for exercise, not so great on the knees. Do you want to try a bite? It's really good. What do you have, Alexa? I don't know. You don't know, but is it good? Oh my goodness, we just walked in, and they've given us all sorts of samples of things. We've got these that are delicious. They gave these girls these pink little treats. This is amazing. Literally just stepped foot in. We haven't even had time to look at anything, and we've already had several different desserts covered in sugar. That was a little bit hectic, but that was awesome. We literally walked in, and they just started handing us treats to try, and we got a little platter of a bunch of different things. They just kept handing the girls different things. This is yummy. Do you know what that's called, Chloe? No. That's called Turkish Delight. I'm not sure exactly what we've got here, but there are different versions of baklava, I believe. I think all of them have pistachio. I think they all have pistachio, and they're just in different forms. I've also got a Turkish coffee. This is a very traditional baklava with pistachio cream and this thin flaky pastry. It's really good. This one's my favorite. It's really good. Merhaba. Merhaba, hoş geldiniz. İki simit, lütfen. Bu ne kadar? Beş lirası. All right, so we grabbed some simit bread. So these are very common here in Turkey. People will just kind of grab and go for breakfast and have it with their çay. You can put Nutella on them. We actually had something like this in our traditional Turkish breakfast one morning. Yeah. They call it simit bread. You can just call it a servo bread. Yeah, okay. Don't drop it. Is it yummy, Alexa? So it has been a long day of walking and lots of food, so I think we're going to call it a night. We are very full and we are very tired. As we continue on in our road trip around Turkey, we will be exploring some of the main sights in Istanbul and take a boat from Europe to Asia. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss it.