Architectural and historical monuments of the Ottoman Era, the hans and caravansaray that freckle the old city, have mostly been left to their own devices. Originally built as imposing weigh stations for incoming traders, today they are crumbling in places and patched up with duct tape in others. These buildings are still living spaces of commerce and craftsmanship, or simply storage, a tradition which reaches back centuries. Wandering around one han which hosts a bustling trade in yarn, or visiting an Armenian silversmith in his tiny vaulted cell tapping detail into an elaborate dinner plate is a magical experience.

We could devote a weekly column to the culinary treasures of Istanbul’s polyglot Aksaray district and probably never have to worry about running out of things to say. The area is jam-packed with places to eat, and while we've written about many of them, Aksaray just keeps on delivering. Having previously covered the Syrian, Georgian, Azerbaijani and Uighur restaurants that make Aksaray a true patchwork of culinary destinations, our most vulnerable soft spot still lies in the strip of kebab restaurants inspired by the cuisine of southern Turkey’s Hatay and Urfa and located adjacent to the metro station.

After midnight deep in the heart of Beşiktas, these two gentlemen can be found slinging grilled sandwiches of thin, sliced sucuk, peppers and tomatoes. It's one of our favorite street snacks, and one of the perfect follow ups to a cold one or four.

In the Laz language, “si sore” means, “where are you?” At least twice a week for past few years, our answer to that question at lunchtime would be, “We are at Pera Sisore.” This little restaurant in the Asmalımescit area became one of our go-to lunch spots by serving some of the best Black Sea food around town. But after a disagreement, the two partners of the restaurant went their separate ways and the quality at Pera Sisore, sadly, took a turn for the worse. We were feeling a bit lost for a period, not knowing where to go for a quick, honest lunch of hearty Laz fare. The Black Sea area is Turkey’s culinary misfit – it's not really about kebabs or mezes. If anything, the food there seems to have been mysteriously transplanted from the American Deep South.

In the Istanbul neighborhood of Kurtuluş, home to a large Armenian population, a number of shops are decorated on account of Easter, and the smell of traditional sakızlı Paskalya çöreği--puffy loaves of ever-so-slightly sweet bread baked with mastic gum--is thick in the air.

Fresh pomegranates await to be squeezed into juice near Istanbul's iconic Grand Bazaar .

Tucked away in an alley in Istanbul’s Aksaray neighborhood, Şirket Alahdab is a small grocery store overflowing with Syrian staples: pickled baby eggplants, dried leafy greens, cans of clotted cream for desserts. When we enter the store, Istanbul temporarily fades away and Damascus or Aleppo take its place. “All real,” the clerk declares proudly, as he shows off his goods. “Smuggled from Syria.”

As part of CB's "Usta All-Stars" card project, our intrepid researcher Ali Akas went around town interviewing street food vendors about their work, the food they serve and some of their trade secrets. Besides the cards, another result of Ali's work was this map, which plots the relative locations of some of Istanbul's finest vendors.

A proper way to start one's day is with a fresh cup of black tea from the wonderful tea master Bayram in Karaköy's 16th-century Kurşunlu Han building. It's the first stop on our Two Markets, Two Continents walk.

Wave after wave of migration from Anatolia has bestowed upon Istanbul a population of 15 million at bare minimum, with countless pockets of the city representing villages and districts from every last corner of the country. In the neighborhood of Feriköy, those originally hailing from the eastern province of Erzincan have managed to consolidate their presence on an entire street. Lined with a number of restaurants and shops selling fresh goods typical of the province, and a row of village associations established for the purpose of maintaining cultural ties between those living in Istanbul and their relatives back home, Feriköy's Gediz Sokak is all about Erzincan, a land of sheep and mountains famed for its dairy products.

Istanbul’s Aksaray neighborhood harbors an unfortunate reputation derived from its seedy nightclubs and the heavy presence of illegal brothels, which turn profits from sex trafficking. But as the city continues to transform at dizzying speeds, Aksaray’s status as an underbelly has begun to be overshadowed by that of a diverse, exciting culinary destination. Streetside Syrian cafés churning out cheap and reliable falafel and shawarma; a handful of Uighur restaurants serving dishes of spicy peppers and succulent morsels of beef bathing in handmade noodles prepared to order; and Georgian drinking dens, where chacha, a grape-based moonshine, is brought out in plastic water bottles alongside juicy, lovingly made dumplings, are just a few of the international cuisines that can be sampled in Aksaray.

We like to think of İnciraltı, a laid-back meyhane in the sleepy Bosphorus-side Beylerbeyi neighborhood, as a destination restaurant – not so much because of the food, but because of the destination itself. Not that there’s anything wrong with the food here, which is reliably well made. The meze tray at İnciraltı (which means “under the fig tree” in Turkish) is brought to your table carrying all the classics, plus a few welcome and tasty surprises, such as the zingy brined twigs of the caper plant and a sea bass fillet that has been cured in a piquant sauce redolent of curry.

To the uninitiated, the restaurant owners of a small corner of Istanbul’s Yenibosna neighborhood might come off as having an unhealthy obsession with particularly garish versions of the colors yellow and green. As we recently explored the lower end of the Yenibosna neighborhood, one of Istanbul’s large periphery boroughs, we stumbled upon a small cluster of kebap shops spread out amid a run-down yet bustling strip of auto repair shops and congested rows of apartments, with each eatery’s sign decked out in identical yellow and green trim.

Reviewers are often tempted into using metaphors that portray the restaurant as a sacred place -- the sushi temple, a t-bone pilgrimage, chili-cheese fry heaven. But in Istanbul’s Moda district on the Asian shore, we’ve found a praiseworthy fish restaurant that could justifiably be described as a shrine – literally. For more than 50 years, a local Greek family has been serving saints and sinners alike at Koco, a rambling seaside fish house situated atop an ayazma, or sacred spring. There’s meze and fresh grilled fish with raki upstairs, candles and a shot of holy water downstairs. Judging by the size of the dining room, Koco is preferred by very large groups. One recent weeknight, though, there were just enough customers to fill in the tables lined along the windows. The view of the old Moda ferry dock and the Marmara Sea from the window side of the room is excellent but leaves you leagues from the coat check where the staff hangs on a slow night.

It has been years now since we were first tipped to Sıdıka. The W Hotel had just opened in the splashy Akaretler rowhouse development. Vogue, the rooftop sushi lounge, was still in style. The Shangri-La hotel was under construction down on the waterfront, and it was rumored that some rooms would have Bosphorus views below sea level. Beşiktaş, long the bastion of cheap draft beer joints and university student flatshares, was having some growing pains.