Istanbul

Rejon Kilis Kebab: It Takes a Village

We are sure that many parallel universes exist within the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, one of the world’s biggest and oldest covered markets. The easiest one to access is a world of Prada knock-offs, Minion keychains and leather-bound menus presented with “Please, monsieur, fresh fish, Turkish kebab, hola!” This is the world constructed for foreign tourists, but step off the main streets and into the bazaar’s tiny arteries, and, as if stepping through a magic wardrobe, you’ll be transported into the local life of the bazaar. Here, currency is traded in a scrum that resembles the pit of the Chicago Board of Trade, gold coins are purchased from miniscule jewelry shops for an upcoming circumcision fête, and lunch is prepared according to the Anatolian convention that calls for a wood-burning oven and a squadron of traditional bakers.

Tokyo

Sightly Seafood at a Tokyo Fish Market

Wonderful spreads of the freshest catches are among the swirling array of visual delights witnessed on our Tokyo walk. Oh, did we mention there's lots of eating involved as well?

Lisbon

Os Goliardos: Lisbon’s Funkmasters of Wine

The up-and-coming, terroir-obsessed wine distributor Os Goliardos is reached through a tiny alley that opens into a courtyard behind an apartment block in Campolide, a residential Lisbon neighborhood just north of the Amoreiras shopping mall. The company keeps a low profile, hiding Lisbon’s greatest wine storeroom in a narrow garage that counts several auto body shops as its neighbors. Since they keep odd hours, we were told to find a mechanic named Senhor Rui who would let us in with his key to pick up our order. We looked for him in a dark garage, where a man sat, listening to fado on the radio, beside a distressed Fiat. Wrong mechanic. Suddenly a large, smiling man in work clothes appeared in the yard jangling a set of keys.

Istanbul

Cuma Usta: Anatolian Snow Cone

Standing behind the counter at his small bici bici shop in Gökalp Mahallesi, a neighborhood in the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul, Cuma Usta recalls the first time he headed up into the mountains with his uncles in search of wild ice, one of the key ingredients in this Turkish snow cone treat sold from street carts throughout southern Turkey. His uncles had gone up in the winter and cut large slabs of ice from the mountaintop, wrapped it in old blankets and hauled it off with a donkey to a nearby cave. In July, with young Cuma – just being introduced to the ways of bici bici – in tow, they headed back to the cave to collect the ice. It took a couple of hours by car, as he recalled, and the ride back to Adana, vehicle loaded with the frozen bounty, was nice and chilly. Then they’d use that ice to make the summertime street food favorite bici bici (pronounced like the disco-era band of brothers from Australia) and sell it from pushcarts. According to tradition, a bici bici master is, firstly, a harvester of ice.

Lisbon

Jesus é Goês: What's Goan On

Order a plate of vindaloo in one of the many Goan restaurants around Lisbon and your local friend at the table may point out that the origin of this dish is, in fact, Portuguese. Even the name can be decoded back to the Portuguese vinho d’alhos (wine and garlic), he’ll say. But let’s be honest here, amigo, vinho d’alhos has about as much to do with Goan vindaloo as the croissant does with the cronut. Vinho d’alhos may have sailed off to Goa along with Vasco da Gama in the 15th century, but when it returned to Lisbon with Goan migrants in the 1960s and 70s, something had changed. It had gone Goan.

Istanbul

Lakerda: Istanbul's Salty, Fishy Soul

The fatty torik – the Turkish name for a large, mature Atlantic bonito, similar to the little tunny – courses the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles for just a short period each year in November and December. Yet the people of Istanbul eat it year-round by preserving the fish in a light brine, something it seems they have been doing for millennia – the Byzantines even minted coins with an image of the fish. Making lakerda is more than a means to preserve bonito for the rest of the year, however; it’s part of the city’s culinary instinct. Around 5 a.m. one recent morning in Yenikapı, yellow rubber boots were piled high in front of the one serene spot on the sprawling grounds of the Municipal Fish Auction.

Istanbul

Doyuran Lokantası and Boris'in Yeri: Working-Class Heroes

We usually steer clear of the touristy Old City district of Kumkapı, where you are more likely to be accosted by an aggressive maitre d’ trying to corral you into his overpriced fish restaurant than to find something simple, tasty and reasonably priced to eat. Sadly, in order to beat the competition next door, most of Kumkapı’s famed fish restaurants seem to have invested more in aggressive customer corralling tactics than in kitchen talent. However, tucked into the neighborhood’s backstreets, we’ve found a few hidden dining gems that locals in the know frequent. When in the area, we skip Kumkapı’s fish restaurant strip and make a beeline for Doyuran Lokantası, a serious little eating sanctuary on a nearby side street.