Vegetable dishes prepared with wild plants such as chicory, radish leaves, bull mallow, Bodrum’s special pastry baked with cheese (su boregi), stuffed zucchini flower (kabak cicegi dolmasi), smoked eggplant mixed with yogurt (kopoglu mezesi), gypsy salad (cingene salatasi), Purslane salad with yogurt, bitter orange marmalade, pickled cucumbers, etc… Dishes cooked or prepared with olive oil are served cold and they are only appetizers. Turkish-style fast food is also popular in small restaurants of Bodrum. You can try Turkish pancake (gozleme), grilled lamb, chicken, or beef sliced and sandwiched in 1/4 or 1/2 loaf of bread (doner ekmek), Turkish pizza (pide), lahmacun, etc. If you like to do the same as locals do, don’t miss to drink Ayran. Turks love to mix yogurt with cold water and salt to prepare their refreshing drink and they call it “ayran” something like buttermilk. Ayran will be the perfect drink to match these snacks. It is very easy to find buffets and little restaurants offering Turkish version fast food at about every corner of streets in Bodrum.

Eating out in Bodrum offers countless possibilities. In addition to small restaurants, you will also find many chic and fancy restaurants serving much different staff from different countries’ cuisine. Also, it is not possible to think of a vacation in Bodrum without tasting fresh wishes accompanied by a glass of Raki. It will be a great experience to taste some dishes and drinks you’ve never tasted before. Besides fish, Bodrum’s special main dish is a steak or chicken with potato, garlic, and special yogurt sauce.

There are different types of desserts but two of them are so special in Bodrum. The first one is “sarayli” something like a rolled light pastry, and the second one is “katmer” which is a folded pie pastry. Both are stuffed with almonds and sesame seeds. Locals in Bodrum also like semolina with ice cream.