Call it the Sultanahmet Squeeze: How to stay close to the monuments of the Old City yet avoid eating in tourist traps? We get asked this question a lot. Since the Sultanahmet area is primarily a tourism zone, locals-only haunts are few and far between. At most restaurants, prices tend to be higher than usual, while quality and service are unreliable at best. That said, there are some fine places to eat in the area. We’ve compiled a short list of restaurants to help you avoid the traps.

Late one night, zipping down a busy Istanbul thoroughfare in a taxi on our way home from the airport, we passed an intriguing scene. Huddled around a brightly lit food cart was a large group of men stuffing their faces in a kind of zombie-like frenzy. It almost looked like a scene out of Night of the Living Dead. What were they eating?

In New York, consider the pizza. You’ve got Famous Ray’s Pizza, Ray’s Original Pizza, World-Famous Original Ray’s Pizza, and so on. Ray and his imitators just wouldn’t bother if New Yorkers believed pizza was “just a slice.” It’s the same story in Istanbul with köfte, a dish that to non-locals may seem like nothing more than grilled meatballs, but which Turks take very seriously.

Recently, while continuing our research into how kokoreç (grilled lamb intestines) became a fast-food staple in Istanbul, we were told by our favorite kelleci (vendor of cooked sheep’s head), Muammer usta, about one of the oldest kokoreç masters around. Ali usta’s shop is in Dolapdere, down the hill from the Tarlabaşı Sunday market and just past a large plane tree that is a neighborhood landmark, standing among tiny workshops, furniture depots and decrepit old residential buildings.

Like Atatürk statues and crescent-and-star flags etched into the sides of mountains, the öğretmenevi (“teacher’s house”) is an integral part of the Turkish landscape. Found in almost every city in Turkey, these government-run institutions serve as affordable guesthouses for educators on the road and – since anyone is welcome if space is available – for those traveling on a teacher’s budget.

We’re especially fond of Istanbul’s vibrant – and sometimes plain wacky – street food scene. Here we present three of our favorite street foods and the best places in the city to get them.

At Istanbul Eats HQ, the conversation comes up every once in a while about how çiğ köfte has emerged as a sort of fast-food franchising opportunity: young entrepreneurial types are opening up çiğ köfte joints in all sorts of neighborhoods in Istanbul these days. Which, we all agree, is pretty cool. Rather than opening up a KFC or an Orange Julius in the food court, the ambitious souls of Turkey more commonly open up a raw-meatball stand instead.

In the evolutionary process of the Istanbul fish restaurant, there was a moment in the late 1990s when the amphibious, shore-hugging boat restaurants crawled out of the Bosphorus and became land dwellers. Overnight, yellow Wellington boots became black loafers as seafaring grill men became restaurateurs and waiters.

The no-frills Lades 2 presents diners with that age-old question: what to eat first, the chicken or the eggs? A Turkish version of the American-style greasy-spoon diner, this restaurant specializes in all things fowl, from chicken soup to a variety of egg dishes and even a dessert that – we kid you not – weds a thick, milky pudding with chicken. Even the name (“lades” means wishbone) follows the chicken theme.

Beyond the kebab – and what you will find listed in most guidebooks for Istanbul – lies a wide range of unique Turkish regional cuisines and restaurants with hints of Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern cooking. The city has been a crossroads of numerous civilizations for centuries and, more recently, a magnet for migrants from across Turkey, with every group that has either come through or stayed put adding their ingredients to Istanbul’s culinary stew. Thanks to this, one of the joys of visiting Istanbul is that, in terms of eating, it’s possible to visit every one of Turkey’s varied regions – and even a few neighboring countries – without ever leaving the city limits. With restaurants serving everything from the Middle Eastern-influenced kebabs of Southeast Turkey to the homey, rib-sticking soul food of the Black Sea area in the North, Istanbul has truly become the culinary Babel of the country.

For Turks, mealtime is often a complicated emotional drama, one that revolves around a lifelong effort to return to the culinary womb – in other words, Mother’s kitchen. In Turkey, Mom’s cooking sets the standard by which all others are judged and, truth be told, some of the finest meals we’ve had here have been home-cooked ones.

Boat-spotting on the Bosphorus is a favorite pastime for those lucky enough to have windows with the right view. On any given weekend afternoon on the busy straits that divide this city, the ship and boat traffic unfolds like a caravan of the flags of the lesser-known countries of the world.