Mengen Sofrasi Turkish Kitchen, Glebe

A friend's suggestion of eating something a little 'exotic' and subsequently a short coupon search after, we end up at Mengen Sofrasi Turkish Kitchen at Glebe on a nice Saturday afternoon. I know Turkish is probably not one's definition of exotic but seeing as neither or us had been to a Turkish restaurant before, it seemed exotic enough to us!

A cute little restaurant, fitted with unique, colourful decor, it certainly fits our description of different and exotic and the nice squishy sofas, soft cushions, street view and attentive service makes it a very comfortable and enjoyable experience.

Turkish Bread and Dips

Our voucher offer entitles us to a 'Turkish Feast' which we assume is just a bit of marketing as the food described, whilst seemingly enough, did not really seem plentiful enough to describe as a 'feast'. Boy were we wrong!

We started with a seemingly harmless entree of Turkish bread with an assortment of dips.We liked the beetroot dip for its colour (the last time I had anything so colourful was probably in primary school when we decorated cookies with coloured icing!), the babaganoush for its mysteriousness (we could taste the yoghurt but not the eggplant!), the hummus because we could easily tell what it was, but our favourite was definitely the carrot dip (which didn't actually taste like carrot!). The bread was great- the perfect amount of thickness, softness and chewiness, quite unlike the Turkish breads we've had from the supermarket. The basket of bread plentiful (and looks deceivingly smaller than it actually was!), and had we ended our meal there, we would have left quite happy, full and satisfied.

Mucver (fried zucchini fritters)

But of course, there was more!

The zucchini fritters were an interesting mix of thinly shredded zucchini, carrot, dill, shallots and parsley deep fried in a light crispy batter. We like the mix of vegetables, and although the herbs make it taste a bit strange at first, the taste grows on us quite quickly.

The meal also come with a small side of vegetable salad of mostly lettuce and cabbage with a slight tang given by the light dressing.

Iskender kebab

It might not look it in the picture, but the iskender kebab was massive, with a generous serving of lamb served with plenty of Turkish bread (as if we hadn't had enough already!) and a drizzle of yoghurt on top (we noticed that the Turkish must love their yoghurt- it's in just about everything!). The meat is sliced wide, and just the right thickness to get a perfect texture, without being to dry or chewy- it tastes great on its own, and even better with the tomato-y iskender sauce. The bread is buttered and toasted, but we're too full to stomach more bread (unfortunately!).

We take our dessert home with us  (I chose a rice pudding, which was amazing!) as we're much too full, but the lengthy walk from the restaurant to the station helps us digest a bit of the huge feast we had! :)