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Archive for July, 2013

Jul 31
Wednesday

Our Culinary Walks in the New York Times!

Filed under News

photo by Ansel MullinsWe are very proud to have been included in a New York Times article about small group culinary tours that appears on the front page of today’s Dining section. Looking at food walks in Istanbul, Paris, Rome and a few other culinary capitals, the article hails the arrival of a new kind of guide – the “food Sherpa”:

Just as a traditional Sherpa guide helps a mountain climber navigate the stresses and mysteries of a Himalayan peak, a food sherpa is a local expert who brings a hungry traveler to pockets of the culinary landscape that may otherwise seem out of reach.

You’ll find them in Paris and Barcelona, in Malaysia and Mexico. But don’t go looking for a long, tortoise-paced phalanx of tourists in white sneakers trailing behind a guide who’s waving a flag and barking memorized data through a megaphone. Food sherpas pride themselves in offering something different: an experience that gives small groups of visitors (sometimes as few as 2, and rarely more than 12) an intimate encounter with what’s off the eaten path.

For those interested in finding out more about where our own “sherpas” might take them, more information about our Culinary Backstreets walks (currently offered in Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Shanghai and Mexico City) can be found here.

Culinary Backstreets
In case you didn’t know, Istanbul Eats now lives over at Culinary Backstreets. Same great culinary walks, same great culinary writing. You’ll be redirected there in a few seconds!

All entries filed under this archive


Bizim Ev: The Stash House
no responses - Posted 07.30.13
Editor’s note: This post was written by “Meliz,” an intrepid explorer of Istanbul’s culinary backstreets and frequent guest contributor who would like to keep her anonymity. It all started with Laz böreği. It was not just any Laz böreği that showed up at the dinner party that evening, but perfect Laz ...continue
Cibalikapı Balıkçısı: Have Your Meze and Eat It Too
1 response - Posted 07.22.13
On a night out in Istanbul, we often find ourselves forced to make sacrifices in one or more categories of the overall dining experience. Great food at reasonable prices will surely be laid out in a room decorated in Anatolian kitsch. Bosphorus views and contemporary furnishings are a license to ...continue
Kalpazankaya Restaurant: Paradise Found
2 responses - Posted 07.15.13
One of the great joys of spring and summertime in Istanbul is the chance to get away for a day to one of the Princes’ Islands, the car-free and forested archipelago that is a short ferry ride away from the city. The only downside to an island hop is actually ...continue
Özbek Sofrası: A Higher Plov
no responses - Posted 07.11.13
In the former Soviet Central Asian republics, the boilerplate restaurant menu consists of plov, lagman, shashlik and samsa. Tired-looking Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Tajik establishments all serve up the same limp noodles and oily rice with a shrug – it’s their job. In the markets of Samarkand, Osh and Almaty, ...continue
Hatay Has Kral Sofrası: Kebab’s Krib
no responses - Posted 07.02.13
In our imaginary primetime lineup, a reality show called “Pimp My Kebab Salon” transforms a drab kebab shop into a grill palace suited to the tastes of the latter-day sultans. Surfaces are suddenly gilded in gold, fountains appear and everything is reupholstered under the watchful eye of the boisterous host ...continue

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