Saray Muhallebicisi

My SO and I stopped here after getting off one of those silly sightseeing tour buses in the spice market area. It was late in the afternoon and figured we would see the next one come along because the restaurant sits right on the side of the main road. Never saw the bus, but we found a place we would come back to multiple times on our two weeks in Istanbul. Our first visit it was nice out so we at outside. We had a fantastic server who spoke minimal English but was great to deal with — he saw us taking photos of each other and asked for the camera so he could take some of us together… and then said «5 Lira!» and chuckled.
So our first stop we had tea, a café latte, and baklava. The café latte was one of the few good ones I had on this trip. Pro-​tip: Istanbul is plagued with crappy instant coffee so when you find a place that serves good stuff, make a mental note. The baklava was 4 pieces (2 each of 2 different varieties) for around 7TL I think. Since it was the first baklava of the trip AND it was good, all the rest got compared to it. So we were wrapping up, getting ready to forfeit returning to Taksim on our bus (which never came so we hopped on the metro which stops right across the street), and we got our bill.
Unlike everywhere else we went in Istanbul, this place adds a service gratuity. I’m not sure how they determine it, but they did add one to every bill we had there. Maybe they figured we were stupid and wouldn’t argue it… Who knows. It didn’t keep us from coming back though.
We had dinner one night and I had the generic shepherd’s salad and kofte/​meatballs. Both were pleasant and simple. Another time I had lentil soup and a chef salad. Soup was good, salad was fine. Sweet stuff we had — baklava (2x), some strange fruit jelly/​pudding (SO ordered it and I didn’t have any desire to try it… it jiggled), and kunefe. The kunefe was really sweet. Like diabetic coma sweet. If you’ve never had it before, it’s served hot from the oven. The bottom of it is some kind of white cheese, and on top of it is shredded phyllo dough that’s packed in kind of tight, and it’s all soaked in a simple syrup. It has an inoffensive flavor; you don’t feel like you’re eating cheese so don’t let that scare you. The phyllo dough being packed so tightly reminds me of breaking the burnt sugar layer of crème brûlée which has an odd satisfaction. I wouldn’t order it without sharing it though because it was simply too much sugar for one person.
Overall, I would go back here if I was in the city again. It was a nice midscale kind of restaurant/​dessert shop with a great patio.