Istanbul is the rebirth of the previously successful Meze Meze on the High Road in North Finchley. I have no idea what happened to the previous (acceptable) incarnation, but I have now eaten here twice, and have a very positive view. Slightly cosmetic Turkish food, but stylishly presented, and popular with the locals.
For your edification, there is an informative web site on http://www.istanbulfinchley.co.uk/ but on the 'about us' tab, the information is superficial information about the city and not the restaurant. I guess the thing that the two have in common is the splitting and very sensibly the ockabasi part of the restaurant where you can see the grill type cooking and the ingredients has been physically partitioned from the eating seated part of the restaurant. This is quite a positive move as many of the other local Turkish establishments, some very good, keep the front of house like a kebab takeaway which can be a bit off-putting especially on a Saturday night near pub closing times. The fare is pretty standard stuff for this style of restaurant and priced just slightly above middle of the road, but not excessively so. The interior of the restaurant is clean and modern and clearly reflects the European side of Istanbul.
For starter, we shared lambs liver, and haloumi+spicy sausage.
This seemed to have been freshly prepared and was tasty and hot scoring an 8.9 on the CHOF scale. The starter came with a basket of fresh flatbread, and there was also olives and tsatsiki on the table. Very good.
For main course I had Sarma Beyti which was grilled spicy minced lamb, red pepper, parsley and garlic wrapped in a homemade bread with special tomato sauce served with yoghourt, couscous and salad.
You might be able to tell that mine came with bulgar wheat rather than couscous, but no matter.
This looks great and tasted good, but displays a great truth about the hotness of food: if you have food served with chilled yoghourt, it is never going to be hot, and thus this scored only a 7.2 on the CHOF scale: pity because otherwise it was great, and was rather like eating a sliced up wrap. I will stick with the more predictable next time or tell them I want it really hot. You can also see my wife's stuffed aubergine, which was deemed to be good.
For desert, we shared a semolina cake and I had some Turkish Coffee which came in a very attractive cup holder with a glass of cold water and some Turkish Delights.
I am not a big fan of Turkish deserts and this semolina cake was a bit heavy for me. The coffee was good.
So, altogether, this is a good place, but with the caveat of the yoghourt. A meal for two, sharing a desert, with drinks and service came to £55.
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