He Goes She Goes | Michael & Lindsay

restaurant

“Another amazing place for mezes is this adorable little cafe called Ikinci. We went there a couple of times and absolutely loved it both times. Similar to Leylak, they have a varying number of dishes, something different every day. At Ikinci, one of the cool things they do is they have either a bowl or a plate of four or five options. And then you can top it off with some really delicious hot snacks.”

restaurant

“When we first arrived in Istanbul, the very first place we went made is this place called A.C.T. Not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. So they serve dürüm. It's just a one-man operation. We really love the Adana and that first bite was probably one of the best bites I had in Istanbul of the entire time we were here. And so it kept us going back. I think we went back five or six times. They also serve meze but we didn't have any. We just really stuck to the dürüm, the Adana and the Urfa.”

restaurant

“One of our absolute favorites so far has been our visit to Müzeyyen Balkonu, which we stumbled into after a lovely day of sightseeing over on the European side of the city. We really enjoyed the raki that we had when we were there and delicious mezes and then a really fresh green salad. The whole thing was spectacular. The sort of like little display that the waiter put on when he was serving our drinks to us was just absolutely perfect.”

bar

“What we found was that many of the cocktail places were a little bit expensive, but if you're looking for a budget option, try Mio Perla. We found the cocktails there were really great, very creative and impressively very inexpensive, relatively.”

restaurant

“Okay, we're going to start with Leylak. It's one of our favorite places. Oh my gosh, they know my name there, which is awesome. And that's actually part of it. It feels like a bit of a community. They specialize in mezes and home-cooked kind of meals and just a diverse selection. So every time we go, there's always something a little bit different and it's very budget-friendly. It's such a great place. I love the people there and I love the food. We both do. So we highly, highly recommend it.”

bar

“Now, if you're looking for a great view with your cocktail, I recommend you head up to the Hood at the top of the DoubleTree Hilton here in Kadiköy. The panoramic view up there is fantastic and stunning. Definitely worth paying that extra for the cocktails.”

shopping

“My favorite place to pop into and purchase Turkish Delight is Ali Muhiddin. There's a location here in Kadiköy. There's several other in the city as well and it's absolutely amazing. The store itself in Kadiköy is beautiful. It's historic. It's lovely. They have a wide variety of Turkish Delight. You can get it packaged up individually for yourself or buy stuff that's already wrapped to go and they have a coffee shop and a place to eat dessert right in there. It's an absolute treasure to stop into. Highly recommend it.”

restaurant

“One of our favorite places that we visited, it's quite well known and very, very popular, is called Borsam Taşfirın. They specialize in lahmacun and pide, but the lahmacun especially. And that was what we had the first time we visited and that was what we had almost every other time we went there and that was many. We walked past it so many times and couldn't not stop to go in and have a delicious lahmacun with a cold coke. It was so amazing. It's like a thin, thin pizza with minced meat. You top it with lemon, you top it with parsley, a little bit of spice, roll it up, chow down. It's absolutely fantastic. Perfect comfort food.”

cafe

“And then the other is called Roots and they serve that standard style of espresso drink menu. Both of those places are awesome, but there are many others. There are lots of places like that here in town. All these cafes also have great wi-fi, so they're a great place to do a couple of hours work while you enjoy your cappuccino.”

bar

“If you're looking for a quiet meal with a glass of wine, Mila is a great choice. The back garden patio is particularly sweet and when we visited, it was like everyone around us was celebrating something special. Good vibes all around.”

cafe

“Here in Istanbul, many of the meals that you're going to have are going to have bread. Bread is everywhere and we found a wonderful bakery near our apartment. It's called Çağri Firin. They serve all kinds of great things. Obviously, it's all baked right there in-house. There's many different types of breads. There's so many different types of baked goods. You can also get baklava there which is very popular around here. So every time we went in, we usually got a mix of a loaf of bread and some sort of baked good like a banana bread.”