Fish and Chips?

An interesting thing here in Istanbul are the street food vendors, notably the fried fish vendors that are prevelant on both sides of the Bosporus. These hearty souls set up their stands along the docks in hopes of enticing tourists and commuters alike into buying a fresh fried fish sandwich (or is it a fried fresh fish sandwich?). They start frying their fish (which looks to be something like a mackeral or something of a similar size) about 10 am and the aroma of frying fish wafts across the docks eventually blending with the smell of the sea and salt air. The fish (the whole fish) is served on a largish bun or bread, with lettuce and mayonaise. It seems to be a very popular local fare.

Another interesting food that Turks are very found of is corn. Whilst strolling about the sites the other day, we noticed quite a few street vendors roastng and selling roasted corn on the cob to passerbys. The Turkish foundness for corn does not stop there. Salads are adorned with corn kernals (something that we normally would not associate as a topping with a Caesar salad), and yesterday, we ordered some pizza, and you guessed it, it came with corn kernals sprinkled on it.

Changing paradigms, our hotel rooms come with some interesting amenities, Each bathroom has as shaving kit: a razor and tube of shaving cream....yes I said TUBE.  Now we are all familar with our Gillette or Barbasol shaving cream in a can, but in a tube I wondered? How will it foam up? Well here's the seccret, it doesn't. You squeeze it out and lather (if I can use that term) on your face. It sort of looks like you covered your face in a thin coat of bluish soap-no foam. It works reasonable well but I got a little careless and nearly gave myself a "Van Gogh".

Tomorrow, the adventure continues!

posted: 7/23/11 Ken Tolksdorf