try the haci abdullah restaurant at
aga camii sokak at istiklal caddesi taksim
istanbul very authentic food the restauant datesfrom 1877.
no ALCOHOL served.
regards
nejat incedogan
guide

Bookmarking.

There's a great article in today's NY Times travel section on cooking classes in a number of international locations including Istanbul. Here's the link: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/04/15...tml?ref=travel

I had looked for something like this earlier in my trip planning, so I'm hoping that I can get into one of their classes while we're there.

Pittsburger, we took the cooking class at the Sarnic when we were in Istanbul in September 2005. We both really enjoyed it! We spent a few days in Istanbul at the start of our trip, and we booked the class for the end of the trip, when we came back to Istanbul. I figured we'd have seen enough 'sights' by that time and would want to do something different. Food was great and it was fun learning how to prepare it.

Whoops, realize I spelled Pittsburgher wrong - sorry about that!

Glad to hear happy comments about this experience. I've done cooking classes in Chicago, and figure I can always learn something new! Thanks for sharing -- any other fun things to do in Istanbul you'd care to share? We leave tomorrow -- hope we get through JFK!!!