We are sure that many parallel universes exist within the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, one of the world’s biggest and oldest covered markets. The easiest one to access is a world of Prada knock-offs, Minion keychains and leather-bound menus presented with “Please, monsieur, fresh fish, Turkish kebab, hola!” This is the world constructed for foreign tourists, but step off the main streets and into the bazaar’s tiny arteries, and, as if stepping through a magic wardrobe, you’ll be transported into the local life of the bazaar. Here, currency is traded in a scrum that resembles the pit of the Chicago Board of Trade, gold coins are purchased from miniscule jewelry shops for an upcoming circumcision fête, and lunch is prepared according to the Anatolian convention that calls for a wood-burning oven and a squadron of traditional bakers.

As we’ve written here before, if you do a little rooting around, the Grand Bazaar can be as much about the food as it is about the shopping. Case in point: Aynen Dürüm, a microscopic kebab shack at the edge of the sprawling bazaar that serves exceptionally good wraps (or, as they’re called in Turkish, dürüm).

We’ve committed a lot of space on this blog to identifying the taste, smell and sight of a seriously good kebab, but it was not until we sat in Şeyhmus Kebap Evi (on a tip from chef Gencay over at Meze) that we came to know what delicious kebab actually sounds like.

When we pick up a hefty, shiny copper pan in his workshop, Emir Ali Enç unhesitatingly claims, “You are now holding the best saucepan in the world.”

We generally regard the Grand Bazaar as a place of punishment, a den of aggressive, wolf-like hustlers and innocent, lamb-like tourists wearing novelty fez hats. When we have to go, we like to think of ourselves as members of a prison SWAT team, sent in to search a cell for some specific item – Turkmen jewelry, hamam towels and, once, wedding rings.