Most people build a trip around monuments. I build mine around the table.
Before I go anywhere, I don't start with the sights. I start with the food — the dishes a place is known for, the restaurants worth the detour, the market stall the locals actually queue for. I mark all of it on the map first. Then, and only then, the rest of the day arranges itself around those meals.
It sounds backwards. It isn't. A monument you see and move past. A meal you live inside for an hour. One is a photograph; the other is a memory with a taste attached.
And there's a practical grace to it: you're never that person, hungry and cornered, eating something forgettable and overpriced beside a famous fountain because there was nothing else. You eat well, where you chose to, and then you go stand in front of the beautiful thing on a full and happy stomach.
From the white tablecloth to the plastic stool
Eating well has nothing to do with eating expensive. It runs from the tasting menu to the street cart, and I want both. In Istanbul I watched men on a boat moored against the bridge, grilling fish and vegetables and folding them into bread. I was curious. I bought one, sat down on the kerb, and ate it there. It was one of the best things I had that whole trip.
My only rule is simple: if the locals are eating it, it's clean and it smells right, I'm eating it. No fuss. The best table isn't the fanciest one. It's the honest one.