Istanbul nightlife

Last saturday night U. invited me to meet him in Taksim for some drinks. So I had my first night out in Istanbul. Taksim was filled with people, it seemed every place was packed with people, but U. knows his way around here and he was in a nice quiet place with a group of friends. It was a bar on the 4th or 5th floor of some building with a great view over the Bosphurus!
In these packed areas you can find all sort of places in the various floors of the buildings. They were initially habitational residences, but now they're bars, restaurants, cyber cafes, hairdresses, anything!
After a while we went to place where we could actually drink alcohol (not all places sell alcohol since they need to pay for an expensive license for that). The new place had a nice esplanade that wasn't too full. We were 6 people, so they asked for 2 nargile's. Nargile is a water pipe, they chose apple flavour (you actually choose the flavour you want to smoke) and started smoking from the tube :P. So, following the rule When in Turkey be turkish I tried it. I tried getting enough smoke coming out of my mouth so it would show in the picture, and with this I was quickly coughing the apple smoke :P Once more I confirm that my lungs like fresh air! This place also served food, I tried the Portuguese fried chicken, which was in the menu! And it was actually cooked in a common portuguese way called panado.
The night ended with a walk around this crowded neighbourhood where we ate mexilhoes:pt. Salesmen carry this stuff in buckets around the streets! You pick the mexilhao:pt, open it, put some lemon on top and eat it. It's gooooood!