Food of Istanbul....yummmm

As I have for the other countries I visited it is time for me to write about the food in Istanbul. So I am going to write about my top favorite dishes while I was in Istanbul starting with the first day. We went to a restaurant which was a buffet style, which seemed to be very common in Istanbul by the way. A friend and I split the roasted chicken stuffed with rice. The chicken was cooked to perfection and not at all dried out; the rice had spices in it which gave every bite a burst of flavor. The only spice I could identify in the rice was cinnamon, which may sound so odd but it was some of the best rice I have ever had! It also had raisins in it but the odd bit which I picked out was little pieces of liver. All three countries seem to be big on liver, me not so much, do not get me wrong I tried it but it still was not for me.

My next favorite meal was a pizza. Now you may be thinking really you got pizza, but this was Turkish pizza. Let me explain. The pizza was on a huge pitta that was shaped like an eye so the corners had lots of crust, which is one of my favorite parts of a pizza! Next difference they do not put tomato sauce on their pizza, another happy moment for me since I do not really like tomato sauce on my pizza! Then there was just a mixture of vegetables on top, it was wonderful delicious! My favorite part of the pizza was the corners because it was a ton of wonderful crust with lots of cheese:)

Final favorite was a chicken kebabs. Kebabs are not served on a stick or at least not where I went to eat, maybe because it was sit down restaurant, but they are still delicious. The reasons why this was such a good meal was again because of the spices! The chicken was just grilled but it was orange from whatever spice was used, I honestly could not identify it but it was so good! The rice that was served with the chicken kebabs was very good too and tasted like the Spanish rise mix you would buy at the grocery store but better. I think it had been mixed with some tomatoes among other things no idea what but it was delicious! Really this rice appeared at almost every place we ate if you are ever in Istanbul and see rice that looks like it has been tossed with tomatoes and has an orange tint get it because that is the rice I am talking about. That is all for the favorite of Turkey!