Architectural and historical monuments of the Ottoman Era, the hans and caravansaray that freckle the old city, have mostly been left to their own devices. Originally built as imposing weigh stations for incoming traders, today they are crumbling in places and patched up with duct tape in others. These buildings are still living spaces of commerce and craftsmanship, or simply storage, a tradition which reaches back centuries. Wandering around one han which hosts a bustling trade in yarn, or visiting an Armenian silversmith in his tiny vaulted cell tapping detail into an elaborate dinner plate is a magical experience.

We could devote a weekly column to the culinary treasures of Istanbul’s polyglot Aksaray district and probably never have to worry about running out of things to say. The area is jam-packed with places to eat, and while we've written about many of them, Aksaray just keeps on delivering. Having previously covered the Syrian, Georgian, Azerbaijani and Uighur restaurants that make Aksaray a true patchwork of culinary destinations, our most vulnerable soft spot still lies in the strip of kebab restaurants inspired by the cuisine of southern Turkey’s Hatay and Urfa and located adjacent to the metro station.

After midnight deep in the heart of Beşiktas, these two gentlemen can be found slinging grilled sandwiches of thin, sliced sucuk, peppers and tomatoes. It's one of our favorite street snacks, and one of the perfect follow ups to a cold one or four.

In the Laz language, “si sore” means, “where are you?” At least twice a week for past few years, our answer to that question at lunchtime would be, “We are at Pera Sisore.” This little restaurant in the Asmalımescit area became one of our go-to lunch spots by serving some of the best Black Sea food around town. But after a disagreement, the two partners of the restaurant went their separate ways and the quality at Pera Sisore, sadly, took a turn for the worse. We were feeling a bit lost for a period, not knowing where to go for a quick, honest lunch of hearty Laz fare. The Black Sea area is Turkey’s culinary misfit – it's not really about kebabs or mezes. If anything, the food there seems to have been mysteriously transplanted from the American Deep South.

In the Istanbul neighborhood of Kurtuluş, home to a large Armenian population, a number of shops are decorated on account of Easter, and the smell of traditional sakızlı Paskalya çöreği--puffy loaves of ever-so-slightly sweet bread baked with mastic gum--is thick in the air.

Fresh pomegranates await to be squeezed into juice near Istanbul's iconic Grand Bazaar .

Tucked away in an alley in Istanbul’s Aksaray neighborhood, Şirket Alahdab is a small grocery store overflowing with Syrian staples: pickled baby eggplants, dried leafy greens, cans of clotted cream for desserts. When we enter the store, Istanbul temporarily fades away and Damascus or Aleppo take its place. “All real,” the clerk declares proudly, as he shows off his goods. “Smuggled from Syria.”

As part of CB's "Usta All-Stars" card project, our intrepid researcher Ali Akas went around town interviewing street food vendors about their work, the food they serve and some of their trade secrets. Besides the cards, another result of Ali's work was this map, which plots the relative locations of some of Istanbul's finest vendors.

A proper way to start one's day is with a fresh cup of black tea from the wonderful tea master Bayram in Karaköy's 16th-century Kurşunlu Han building. It's the first stop on our Two Markets, Two Continents walk.

Wave after wave of migration from Anatolia has bestowed upon Istanbul a population of 15 million at bare minimum, with countless pockets of the city representing villages and districts from every last corner of the country. In the neighborhood of Feriköy, those originally hailing from the eastern province of Erzincan have managed to consolidate their presence on an entire street. Lined with a number of restaurants and shops selling fresh goods typical of the province, and a row of village associations established for the purpose of maintaining cultural ties between those living in Istanbul and their relatives back home, Feriköy's Gediz Sokak is all about Erzincan, a land of sheep and mountains famed for its dairy products.

“No hamsi, no money.” Mert Kanal hoses down empty Styrofoam containers and surveys the leftover catch in his market in Sinop, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. The gulls squawk, fighting over scraps on the dock while fishermen tidy their nets for another night of fishing. The hamsi, or anchovies, are gone for the season, moving up the coast in dwindling numbers as hulking factory ships chase them. While mackerel, turbot and whiting are all fair game for fishmongers, hamsi holds a special place in Turkish cuisine. Unlike the slimy, salty canned form of the fish reserved for eccentric pizza toppings in North America, anchovies are eaten fresh in Turkey. Lightly battered, quickly fried and served with a slice of lemon, hamsi are gobbled down by the kilo, bones and all.

We’re not quite sure what we like about boza, a drink made from slightly fermented millet that is popular in Istanbul during the wintertime. The thick beverage tastes like a combination of applesauce and beer-flavored baby food, though we warmly recall the strength it gave us one blustery December day. On that relentlessly rainy morning as we crossed the Bosphorus aboard the ferry from Kadıköy to Eminönü, just one small bottle of boza gave us a sharp kick in the britches, making us feel the way we imagine Popeye does after wolfing down a can of spinach.

A fresh walnut is completely different from the type found in a package on a supermarket shelf. The nut is pale and soft, the flavor light and creamy, with not a trace of bitterness. It almost melts in your mouth. Rarely is it possible to eat just one. I can vouch for this because, last autumn, I ate more walnuts per day than I would usually consume in a year, thanks to a six-week stint on an Anatolian walnut farm. Having decided to move from London to Istanbul for work, my husband and I wanted to begin by improving our Turkish. We stumbled upon Tatuta, a matchmaking site for organic farms in Turkey and volunteers willing to lend a hand. It was something of a challenge for us – a pair of city dwellers with little agricultural experience – to come up with a compelling account of why we would be useful. In the end, we just decided to sound enthusiastic and willing to learn.

Istanbul’s Kadıköy district on the city’s Asian side has long been billed as a calmer, more laid-back alternative to some of its swarming, chaotic European counterparts, and it seems everyone’s figured that out by now. Though the rocks that straddle a long stretch of winding, serene shoreline still make for one of the most relaxing hangout places in the city, the pedestrian Mühürdar Caddesi running through the heart of Kadıköy is choked with foot traffic on the weekends, while a staggering number of bars and coffee shops have appeared on the scene within the past two to three years.

Metin Akdemir is a filmmaker based in Istanbul. In 2011 he made a short film about street vendors in the city. The film, “Ben Geldim Gidiyorum” (“I’ve Come and I’m Gone”), won several awards in Turkish and international film festivals, and we think it’s a very valuable piece of work that captures a side of Istanbul’s culture that is slowly disappearing.