Turkish Travels, Paşazade

Last week, I was on holiday in Istanbul. I'm going to spend the next few blog posts highlighting the foods I got to enjoy while on break. :)

For our first meal in Istanbul, we headed to Paşazade, which was a short walk from our hotel.

We were given bread and three different spreads - one was couscous-based, another was cheese-based, and the third was olive-based. My travel cohort and I wanted something kind of fresh so we shared a veggie salad, which was just cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives tossed in olive oil and balsamic. And for our main courses, D got grilled seasonal fish (they didn't specify what kind) with zahter (like pilaf) and I had papaz yahni, which was a sea bass stew.

For dessert we had the baklava with vanilla ice cream. The baklava was really delicious. The phyllo dough was crispy and light and it wasn't overly sweet. The ice cream had a strange texture - kind of like playdoh - but the vanilla flavor was a lovely accompaniment to the baklava.

To finish, we were given some Turkish delights, which I would compare to Jujube gumdrop candies, if you've never had them.

The waiters were dressed up in velvet vests with stars on them, which we thought was kind of kitschy and tacky. And they were a bit too attentive - which most people would think is good service, but we thought it was overbearing and kind of annoying.

Overall though, it was the perfect start to our holiday in Turkey.