#FoodFriday A fishy meal at Savoy Balik in Istanbul

Welcome to YQtravelling’s FoodFriday. The day of the week when I show off some of the lovely eats I had while travelling.

Today we’re going to heading to Turkey for some seafood.

My mom and I had a good meal at a trendy fish restaurant on her first night in Istanbul.

The place was called Savoy Balik (I think “balik” means fish in Turkish and it also means “to return” in Malay.) Getting there was an adventure (see below!) but it was worth it.

I ordered grilled fish and it came with half a lemon in a plastic stocking, beets, half a raw onion and raw vegetables. (Eek! I dislike raw veggies.)

Mom’s fish stew was better and I ended up eating more of her share than mine. The stock that came with the fish tastes of tomatoes. Yummy.

Turkish desserts after meal

Although we were quite full after the bread and fish main dishes, I still wanted to try the desserts. I didn’t recognize almost everything on the menu so I picked two dishes which were on the cheaper side.

One of the dishes was a sweet pudding. I didn’t write down the name so I’m not sure what it is. It could possibly be semolina pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

It’s a bit too sweet since we had to mix it with the vanilla ice cream to get it to become not tooth achingly sweet.

Another dessert was apricot sprinkled with something unknown. At least I know that it’s apricot?

Walking for our food

The restaurant wasn’t initially on our To-Eat list. How did we end up there?

Well, Foursquare convinced me that it was a short walk away and then I convinced my mom to head there.

So we followed Foursquare’s directions. “Head north and turn to the left.” What Foursquare did not tell me was that there wereA HELL LOT OF STAIRS to climb before we got to the place.

Mom and I took about 5 sets of stairs this tall before we got to the right street.

Mom kept saying that we should take a cab but I didn’t think it was worth being fleeced if the restaurant was just around the corner.

However, we ended up walking for what seemed like forever until we hit the right corner. The seats outside were all taken so we had to sit inside where the waiters didn’t pay us much attention.

How far have you travelled for a good meal? Share your experience in the comments below.

#FoodFriday Peruvian seafood soup

Welcome to YQtravelling’s FoodFriday. The day of the week when I show off some of the lovely eats I had while travelling.

Today we’re slurping some soups made of fruits of the sea in Peru.

Some time ago, I talked about Latin America’s ceviche, a dish with raw fish cooked in lime or lemon juice. Today, we’re still eating food from under the sea but it’s cooked using fire.

I love soups and this extends to noodle dishes in soup. There is something very comforting about a food that doesn’t require you to chew too much.

I also like my soups tongue-burningly hot because that’s when I know that I am alive. I’m a bit of a masochist when it comes to soup.

Seafood soups in Peru

Seafood soups in Peru were unlike the Chinese soups that I’m used to. Instead of clear soup, we have a stock that is bright orange. The ingredients always seem to threaten to escape from the bowls which are huge.

#FoodFriday I love ceviche!

Where to find cheap food in Aguas Calientes [#FoodFriday]

#FoodFriday Lactose-less milk in Peru

#FoodFri See food, seafood in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Hi folks, I’m still in Hoi An, Vietnam, now until Sunday. Instead of showing you what I’ve eaten for the past two days, I plan to reveal it all in one go after the trip as part of my Glutton in Somewhere food series.

So today, I want to share the different seafood I had while I was back in KK at the end of last month. I didn’t do a Glutton series for Kota Kinabalu because the food was too familiar for me to cheer about.

KK is a seaside city and there’s plenty of seafood to go around. My favorite seafood is probably prawns but they’re a bit more expensive than crabs so I don’t eat prawns too often. I also suspect it’s because I don’t get to eat it so often that I like it more.

Mom usually brings me to this other seafood place when I’m back. But this time, they changed location to somewhere nearer my house. This new eatery opened while I was in Singapore so I never visited the place.

We had crabs (the seafood, not the STD).

As well as some challenging seashells.

kk-seafood-001 — She eats seashells by the seashore

On another day, my sister brought us to a roadside eatery for coconut and clams. (An odd combination, I must say.)

The clams were barbequed and quite yummy. But the chilli is what brings the yumminess to another level. Even I as a non-chilli eater liked it (but didn’t have too much of it).

So the next time you are in Kota Kinabalu, remember to stuff yourself with seafood!

Tag: seafood