Two weeks in Istanbul and some veggie food options

I recently went on a two-week trip to Istanbul, I’ve never been there before, and decided to share with you my first impressions, as well as some of the food places I liked.

I stayed in Pera district in a very lovely flat in Deniz Apartments, somewhere near the place pictured above.


I was working a big chunk of my time there, but still had a chance to visit and walk a lot. At some point a street dog bit me on my leg, the bite was quite bad, the dog didn’t have a mark on his ear so I had to get a rabies shot. Since I had this experience, may as well share how it went: it was incredibly difficult to find a place that would vaccinate non-Turkish citizens and also extremely challenging to find someone who would speak English. I did use google translate a lot, but it took me almost two full days until I found the hospital (on the Asian side) to vaccinate me. Vaccination was free and I got a detailed document that was useful to continue the course when I returned back to Georgia.

On my journey of looking for the hospital, the most fun thing was taking a ferry to the Asian side - Harem-Sirkeci [https://goo.gl/maps/c9vbfQhHKoq4885r8 ]which was extremely cheap, something around a dollar and really not used by the tourists which was surprising as the experience was amazing.

Now let’s talk food: at first, I thought it would be difficult to find vegetarian food in Turkish cuisine, but it turned out I was not aware of quite a range of dishes, very tasty ones, that you can try.

Let’s start with Kuru fasulye, it’s a bean dish served with rice.

It can be spicy as well if you want to. The place I tried and liked it the best was called Erzincanlı Ali Baba right next to the amazing Suleymaniye Mosque.

Then, basically, any Turkish restaurant has veggie soups, heartwarming warm ones or cold ones with very yummy breads.

Cig kofte is this AMAZING vegan wrap made of fine bulgur wheat (btw there is a meat version too, but in most cases, in Istanbul you’ll find the vegan one). The best ones, I find, are at the places that only makes cig kofte. The one pictured below I found in my district, was served with lemon, it’s extremely cheap as well. Don’t miss this one, make sure to try it.

Let’s talk about sweets now. I don’t need to recommend lokum and baklava, etc, I am sure you will do it anyways, and also they are too sweet for me, so I didn’t try much, but there are a number of sweets and desserts I really liked.

First was Künefe, it’s made of cheese and a crispy, buttery pastry, as well as pistachios.

This one on the photo is a little bit burned but didn’t take photo other times. It’s not super sweet, it has this slightly salty taste from cheese too and an amazing aroma from pistachios, really nice and quite filling too.

Sutlac - a kind of a rice pudding sometimes topped with roasted hazelnuts, great snack and best ones I had was at the small diner places where traditional Turkish food is served.

Below are a few other sweets that I tried and liked and perfect with tea or Turkish coffee.

What is nice about Istanbul is that apart from Turkish cuisine you can find quite a range of other cuisines, and also restaurants that are very good at what they are making. For example there is this Iranian place called Reyhun Iranian Restaurant - target=_blank target=_blank target=_blank target=_blankhttps://goo.gl/maps/uWpCqWEAk4rYLdvX8

Unfortunately, they don’t have that many veggie options, but whatever I tried was really amazing.

You can also find great Lebanese restaurants for hummus and falafel.

Needless to say, you have to try some of the street snacks: roasted chestnuts, boiled or roasted corn, and SIMIT, simit I think is my favourite Turkish snack ever, I am sad there are no good simits made in Tbilisi. But I kept eating it every day during my two weeks of stay in Istanbul.

I am sure you won’t need my recommendation to explore Istanbul’s amazing mosques, beautiful streets, colorful markets, but here are a few more photos to motivate you.

P.S all photos are mine, taken mostly by Leica typ 109 or my phone.

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Hello @mariam_nikuradze after long time , thanks for sharing these beautiful pictures specially the sunset , balcony view and my favourite the food one .

There are many people who are interested to know about the vegetarian food available in Istanbul .

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Hi @mariam_nikuradze ,

It’s great to read more about your adventures and food exploration! I’m sorry to hear about the incident at the beginning of your trip, but glad you got the vaccination.

I’m a huge fan of Turkish cuisine, especially sweets, and I love künefe. Your recommendation of cig kofte made me add it to my foodie list! I’ve actually wanted to try it ever since I read @Gezendunyali 's post about it, too.

By the way, @mariam_nikuradze , can you please check the Google Maps links in your post as some don’t seem to be added correctly? That would make it easier for other Local Guides to find the places on Maps.

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Thank you @mariam_nikuradze for this exciting report and the great photos. Although there are many Turkish restaurants in our city, I am not so familiar with the food. Interesting what delicious vegetarian dishes there are.

I hope you recovered properly from the bite. That was a violent experience!

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@DeniGu Thank you so much!

(fixed the links)

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Hi @mariam_nikuradze hello great pictures and photography. First of all, I would like to point out that before you come on your next trip to Turkey, please contact me. You should have no doubts about my advice and help. Actually, meat always comes to mind when it comes to Turkish dishes, but we have much more vegetable dishes. Thanks for the reminder, @DeniGu . Seeing you here and even a gourmet I can’t wait to take the trip.:smiling_face::smiling_face: :pray:t2:

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Amazing Blog. i am so glad to read your article about Turkey and also the information shared is very helpful. Its so good to know about the vegetarian food options available in turkey. Thank you

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i really enjoyed with ur photo and i wish to visit Istanbul soon

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I enjoyed your post and great photos of Turkey @mariam_nikuradze , a country that has so much to offer and see. I’m sorry to hear about the dog bite! Was Harem the highlight of your trip there?

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Thank you @AdamGT !

Yes, definitely it was the highlight of the trip together with the amazing food of course!

Thank you @mari_nikuradze for such an amazing report! I really liked photos with a roasted chesnuts, so authentic and local.

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@mariam_nikuradze great post, love the photos.

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Hello @mariam_nikuradze

Love your photo compositions here. I have visited Turkey 3 times and have stayed one week at a time, which for me seemed quite long. I couldn’t stay there for 2 weeks straight because the food seems to taste the same. After the 2nd day, my travel companions were making rice balls in their hotel rooms to avoid eating out. Turkish food takes a bit of an adjustment getting used to after several days. I never tired of the coffee, though. Other than that, the land itself was immensely beautiful.

@mariam_nikuradze the city and the veg options both r great :+1:t2:

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