Our quest for well priced lunch deals continues. We’re pleasantly working our way through a list of localish places that have special lunch menus that are short and cheap. And at £14.50 for two courses, Istanbul Grill was well worth a try.
So, to start, there were baked meatballs in a tomato sauce, topped with melted cheese. It comes with excellent bread – texture a bit similar to a foccacia – and a little mixed salad for crunch. The other starter was three dips – classic houmous, cacik with tangy yoghurt spiked with mint, and an aubergine/tomato mix (patlican salatsi in Turkish). There’s more bread and salad on that plate.
Their take on Imam Bayildi was OK. A bit mono-dimensional – much too much onion – the imam wouldn’t be fainting over this version. Comes with rice. There’s more of that bread in the other main course. It’s cut into large croutons and cooked till crisp. Then it’s topped with tomato sauce and yoghurt and, finally, sliced chicken breast (they also do a version using a lamb kofta). It works.
So, a nice enough lunch. And definitely a bargain. There’s another Turkish restaurant in the village. We’ll see how that compares. One will get culled from the list.
