Sweet Willie

Was in the mood for doner kebab. Stopped by Turkish Cuisine.

Unfortunately for me, doner kebab is not available until after 4pm.

So I choose an appetizer and entrée.

Turkish Cuisine is nicely decorated, rich fabrics cover a long bench seat along one wall and the front of the restaurant are two table where one has their legs crossed to sit at them. On each table up in the front is a hookah. I asked about the hookahs, the restaurant provides the smoking material and each person will get their own mouth piece for the water pipe. Sounds like fun and I’d like to try it if any FT’ers are up for it.

Appetizer was Patlican Kizartma – fried eggplant w/a yoghurt hot pepper sauce. This was incredible. The eggplant had this deep earthy, delicious flavor, the yoghurt sauce was not hot whatsoever, but cool, creamy and garlicky. The coolness of the sauce w/the warmth of the fried eggplant was just stellar.

For the entrée, I had Tavuk Adana – char grilled hand-chopped chicken marinated in the chef’s special seasoning. The strips of chicken were served over rice. This dish was good, the chicken was not too heavily spiced, I would have preferred more spice though. What really would have made this dish would be a sauce w/it. It was good, but I asked the waitress to pick out others that might be better on my return visit.

I almost choose a Turkish stuffed pie for my entrée. My waitress recommended the Sucuklu Pide and Kapall Karadeniz Pide which are a Mediterranean sausage/mozzerlla pie and three cheese/egg pie respectively. I will be back to try these.

As a nice bonus, the kitchen area was cooking some of the items for the bakery next door. They were out on trays and had cooled. I asked what they were and the waitress said, “help yourself”. I probably helped myself more than she would have liked but she didn’t say anything (plus I tip well so she was probably happy.) Most of the items were phyllo dough like w/honey and various chopped nuts. Quite a nice treat.

Turkish Cuisine
5605 N. Clark St.
Chicago
Phone: 773.878.8930

edited to add: you can bring your own alcohol to Turkish Cuisine.

[This message has been edited by Sweet Willie (edited 06-18-2003).]

Sweet Willie

Trying to plan a FT'er dinner here, see this thread if interested: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/003854.html

Sweet Willie

.

[This message has been edited by Sweet Willie (edited 10-31-2003).]

Sweet Willie

I was not adventurous and had the same appetizer of Patlican Kizartma – fried eggplant w/a yoghurt hot pepper sauce. Again it was incredible.


For the entrée, I had Manti (sp?) a dish of lamb dumplings in a lemony yogurt. The warm chewy lamb dumplings combined with the cool lemony yogurt was very good.

A few people ordered the Turkish stuffed pies for their entrée. A previous waitress recommended the Sucuklu Pide and Kapall Karadeniz Pide which are a Mediterranean sausage/mozzerlla pie and three cheese/egg pie respectively. I really liked the three cheese and egg, but the Mediterranean sausage/mozzerella was tasty as well.

After dinner we hookahed. The tobacco the restaurant provides was melon/date. An unusual combo to me, but all agreed it was quite tasty.

Sweet Willie

Went last night w/another couple. Place is still BYOB ^

Hummous was very good, big garlic kick.

Again, had the eggplant appitizer mentioned above, still great.

Also tried the zuchinni pancakes. really good, not greasy, w/a hint of dill.

We all had entrees listed above.

No Hookah though as we were on the non-smoking side of the restaurant.

We did have a belly dancer after 9pm which is a regular feature on FRI and SAT nights.

Sweet Willie

This restaurant now participates in IDine/dining rewards

Also, it was just mentioned in the Trib as a comfort food place for their grilled skewers of ground lamb and beef that come with homemade pita. Also the lamb dumplings.

--

toomanybooks

In the fall, there's a Turkish Festival held downtown by "the Picasso," I think.

My son still asks about it, wanting to go again. GOOD coffee, spinach/cheese pies, desserts, music, etc.

So if you are interested, keep an eye out.