8 - Street Food

There are many excellent restaurants to eat at in Istanbul, but if you want something cheap and delicious, you can't beat street food.

Street food is incredibly diverse in Istanbul. You can get many different types of snacks from mobile vendors wheeling around and bellowing out their sales pitches: "Taze Simit! Taze, Taze! Sicak Simit!". When it comes to snacks you've got roasted chestnuts, grilled and boiled corn on the cob, popped corn, cups of corn kernels, simits (sesame covered bread pretzel thingys), muscles with lemon (potentially dangerous), and various other goodies. Drink wise, you can always get çay and ayran, and depending on the season, salep, boza, and sweet sherbet.

Meal wise, you can't beat "Tost", which is any kind of sandwich tosted in a panini grill. My favorite is Ayvalik Tost, which is packed with hotdogs and ketchup and even mashed potatoes.

Of course, you have your doner, which is best found in Besiktas (get it in a pide, with fries), and you have to try wetburgers when you are drunk in Taksim.

Of course, for me, the king of all street foods is the humble Balik Ekmek: The grilled fish sandwich. For only 2.5-3 lira you get a fillet of fresh grilled fish, sprinkled with salt and lemon, and nested with slices of onion between two crispy halves of french bread. It's awesome. Buy it from one of the small boats docked in Eminonu. So good!!