Full Day of Eating in Gaziantep - Turkey's Food Capital! 🇹🇷

Gaziantep was the place I looked forward to visiting the most on this trip to Turkey. It's often referred to as the "Culinary Capital of Turkey" or the "Land of Gastronomy" and is where a lot of tasty Turkish food originates from.

I planned to do a full day of eating, and started off at 9:00 AM with some Beyran. It's a spicy breakfast soup that originates from Gaziantep and is very popular with the locals.

There's many restaurants in Gaziantep serving Beyran from early in the morning, and I chose to eat it at one of the most famous places, Metanet Lokantası.

"Lokantası" in Turkish means a casual style of restaurant that sells home-style cooked meals at affordable prices.

I asked for the menu, but was told that Beyran is all they sell. Every person in the busy restaurant was enjoying a hot bowl of this tasty Turkish soup to start their day.

They Beyran soup contains slow cooked lamb meat, lamb fat and rice, in a spicy lamb broth. And it's served with freshly baked bread.

The soup is very oily, I guess due to the lamb fat that's smeared on the bottom of the bowl before they serve it, but the bread and rice really balance it out, so there's a good ration of carbs, fat and protein in the dish.

With a belly full of the local soup, I went exploring in Elmacı Pazarı, the historic local bazaar which is home to Güllüoğlu, the oldest baklava restaurant in the world. But I wasn't there for that. Instead I found an antiques shop where I bought a couple of old Turkish banknotes and coins, paying 1,000 lira ($30 USD) for them.

I made some local friends as I left the market and they told me that I got well and truly ripped off. Ah, well. It's tough to bargain when you don't know the real value of the item you're buying, plus the seller didn't speak a word of English, not even the numbers.

My new friends took me to enjoy tea, baklava and katmer.

At the baklava restaurant, Çelebioğulları, I tried 'Cold Baklava' for the first time and was blown away by how delicious it is. It's like an ice cream version of Baklava.

As for Katmer, I've tried it once before in Antalya, where it was served in the shape of a simit. Here, in Gaziantep, I tried the traditional flat, square Katmer. It was very crispy, cheesy and, of course, packed with pistachios.

You can't get away from pistachios in Gaziantep. This is the home of the pistachio in Turkey and, in fact, in Turkish language 'pistachio' is called 'Antep Fıstığı' - nuts from Gaziantep.

After leaving my local friends and going back to my hotel for a nap, I was back out on the streets, hunting for lunch. And despite all the food that I had for breakfast, I had a double lunch.

At the 'Dürümcü Recep Usta' restaurant, I ordered a Nohutlu Dürüm (a chickpea wrap) and some lahmacun (Turkish pizza).

Surprisingly, the durum wasn't made with the thin tortilla style bread, but the thick type of bread that I had with my breakfast soup. It made the meal quite filling, and I quickly regretted ordering two items.

Thankfully, the lahmacun was very thin and light, so I was able to scoff it down without a problem.

After that huge late lunch, I went on roaming adventure around Gaziantep until evening time. I didn't find much that was interesting until I found trays of freshly baked pistachio cookies cooling on the street, outside a baker.

I asked to buy some but was told that I needed to wait for to cool down a bit first. So they invited me inside for 5 - 10 minutes, until the cookies had set well enough that I could try one, and of course, they were delicious. What a privilege to have such a tasty treat while it's still warm and freshly backed.

I bought a big box, with around 30 cookies, and took them back to my hotel for munching another day. And to end this day, this full day of eating delicious Turkish food in Gaziantep, I visited a famous old restaurant called Yesemek, where I ordered Alinazik Kebab.

Alinazik kebab is an Anada-style kebab in a bowl with pureed eggplant and yoghurt. Yum, yum!

What a delicious way to end a day of foodie adventuring that I'll never forget.

0:00 Good Morning Gaziantep
1:00 Spicy Breakfast Soup
8:10 Exploring Old Bazaar
9:50 Turkish Antiques Shop
18:01 Local Friends
31:22 Best Baklava Shop
35:07 Pistachio Candy
40:14 Pomegranate Candy
43:46 Menengiç Coffee
49:03 Katmer Turkish Dessert
56:34 Lahmacun Bakery
1:00:24 Chickpea Wrap
1:06:14 Tasty Turkish Lahmacun Pizza
1:16:47 Evening Exploring
1:20:42 Turkish Kids Love Scotland
1:24:48 Pistachio Cookies
1:29:41 Alinazik Kebab


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