Mısır Çarşısı – Spice Market

We stepped off the tram in Eminönü one afternoon when Berkay’s eyes lit up at the sight of Mısır Çarşısı.  This historical and famous spice market is right next to Galata Bridge and the impressive ‘Yeni Cami’ / New Mosque (which is actually over 350 years old). It is the second largest undercover market in Istanbul, with the Grand Bazaar obviously being number one. 

Built in 1664, this market is a real joy for the senses! Piles of colourful spices stacked high, beautiful chunks of lokum / Turkish delight in every flavour, chocolates, dried fruits, nuts, herbs, teas… the list is endless! 

Mısır means Egypt in Turkish, and the market got this name from the trade routes the spices took to reach Istanbul before being exported to Europe. It has an oriental feel to it and reminded me a bit of Aladdin, which was coincidentally the name of one of the vendors stalls.
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Foodstuff isn’t the only thing for sale here, with vendors catering more and more for tourists you can find souvenirs, ceramics, jewellery, lamps, soaps, oils and all sorts! One shop we went into had real sea sponges for sale, which doubled up as lovely ceiling decorations! You can also find holistic remedies for almost everything, including natural ‘Turkish Viagra’, proudly advertised and sold.

We bought some Turkish delight which I took back home to share with my colleagues, and some chocolate covered fruit and nuts, which were all neatly vacuum packed, making them last longer and handy to put in my luggage!

I believe the market has been renovated in the last few years, with the archways reinforced and painted – it does look shiny and fresh, but I don’t think that this has taken away anything from the atmosphere.

The place just feels magical, beautiful arched ceilings with the newly painted patterns, the sound of the call to prayer echoing around from nearby mosques, bustling with locals and tourists shopping, and the smells, oh the smells! Cinnamon, mint, thyme.. every herb and spice you can think of just fills the air. Wonderful! 



30 DAYS, 30 DISHES – DAY 17: Gözleme


Gözleme is a popular street food in Turkey, marketed in holiday resorts as ‘pancakes’ even though they aren’t really pancakes at all, they’re more of a flat bread. It’s made with flour, water and salt, which forms a basic pastry dough. The dough is rolled very thinly on a special low round table, then filled, folded and cooked on a metal plate. Traditional fillings are savoury – mincemeat, parsley and onion, cheese and spinach or potato and onion etc, but in some areas you will find sweet flavours too – lemon and sugar, nutella and banana, etc, flavours which have been highly influenced by tourist crowds!

My favourite is mincemeat and potato, and our favourite place go for one is the Korkmaz family’s stall in the Fethiye area weekly markets!

 

The best pancakes in Fethiye!

One of my favourite things about living here in Fethiye is market day!

The markets are held on Tuesday in Fethiye town centre and Sunday in Calis, and one of the best things about them is the food on offer at the little trailer cafe’s that are located inside the market areas.

There are all sorts of food on offer, but by far the most popular with tourists are the pancakes or ‘gözleme’.  Our favourite place to get these pancakes is at the cafe in the photo below – it used to be distinguishable from the others as it had a stuffed toy black and white lamb outside, but this has since gone missing. As far as I’m aware the vans don’t have specific names – not that I’ve ever noticed anyway, but if anyone is visiting the area and wants to check out this particular one look out for this sign, and this man, as he is always working there!  (I should add here, he is not paying me to advertise this, he’s an old school friend of Berkay’s but I genuinely think this is THE best place for pancakes in Fethiye!)
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They’re not pancakes as we know them – more of a really thin pastry filled with whatever you decide. There are savory ones, like mincemeat & onion, potato & cheese, etc, or sweet ones with fruit fillings like apple, banana & nutella or the good old favourite lemon & sugar. The prices are really cheap and you get a generous size portion, it’s guaranteed to leave you feeling full & very satisfied.
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Mincemeat, onion & potato gözleme
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Banana & ice-cream gözleme
There’s always a big jar of pickled red cabbage and pickled chili peppers on the table to accompany the pancake should you chose to have a savory one. I’d never had a savory pancake until I came here, it might sound strange but it really is a perfect combination.
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Just walking past the little trailers inside the market you could be forgiven for thinking they’re not anything special, they are basic with plastic garden chairs and cushions for seating, but it all adds to the atmosphere. Everything is kept very clean, and there’s an open window on the trailer so you can see everything being prepared and cooked by the women – it’s actually really interesting to watch this process, especially how they cook it on the big metal plates.
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This place in particular is a family run business and they are really friendly people who won’t hassle you. They must be doing something right as they are always busy, when we walked past with the intention of having some lunch a few weeks ago there were no seats whatsoever so we had to go and do our weekly market shop and go back later on when it was slightly quieter. I posted a photo on my Facebook page last week and lots of people also said they always go to them for their pancakes too so they are very popular.

If a pancake isn’t your thing, they have other food on offer, another favourite of mine is ‘bazlama’ a thick spongy bread sliced in half and cooked with a filling inside, normally white cheese. It’s  almost like a toasty and is very filling, one between two people is more than enough. I love it with cheese, tomato and chili flakes, yum.
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They also have really delicious freshly squeezed fruit juice, orange and pomegranate being their specialities, yum! Of course if you want a more authentic experience there’s always the Turkish favourite ayran (a yogurt based drink) which is also made freshly here.

If you’re in the Fethiye/Calis area on market days definitely check out this place – the food is amazing, cheap and delicious. Tomorrow is Tuesday – Fethiye market day, so I know where we’ll be eating our lunch! ❤