Side

Can I Have Fries With That?

Forget the bazaars, the mosques, the language, and the heat. What's gonna shock-the-hell-outa-ya is the myriad of choices of what to eat.

Not only that, but as well as a huge range of options, you're gonna be amazed by how many of them you've never seen nor heard of before.

What follows is a tiny one minute clip of a typical street in İstanbul, which just happens to be near my sister-in-laws house.

Underneath the vid are details of what's on offer. Enjoy.

Çiğköfte

I'm still to sample the 'real McCoy' as the raw meat variety has been 'outlawed'.

Börek

And so many kinds - all superb.

Kedi

Compulsory near any foodshop.

Kokoreç

Think haggis. However, for my feeble stomach, much less palatable.

Scooter

Not normally edible, but hey, they're everywhere for that super quick delivery.

Turşu

You can choose from a ridiculously large variety of pickles and such-like.

Kebap

If you don't know about these, you've probably been living under a rock.

Lahmacun

Think mini-pizza, but better.

Ekmek

This quite simply translates to 'bread'. But this is no ordinary bread. This is something you will become addicted to in just the same manner as Coke. Directly from the oven, hot and delicious!

Baklava

Sugar heaven.

And there's so much more than this tiny snippet...

Welcome to 2016

It's been some time since I've "seen in" the new year.

After having a full Turkish spread, which curiously included turkey, we played a few card games and watched Avatar.

A great night was had by all.