Thursday, June 9, 2011

Erciyes Turkish Restaurant

I had this Middle Eastern food craze a few months ago. All I wanted to eat was the colourful dips. So much that they boy took me to Erciyes Turkish Restaurant in Surry Hills for the Valentine's day dinner. I was expecting somewhere more romantic but at least that means he listened to me! From the outside, this place looks like a dodgey takeaway joint, but they actually have a nice and spacious dine-in area next to that. 

We wanted to order the banquet but it's for at least a group of four, fine.... so we made our own 'banquet'.

Small mixed dips ($14)

Hot, toasted turkish bread

Small Greek salad ($10) 

Mixed grill ($29)

Sucuklu - Turkish sausage with garlic, egg and spices (spicy) ($13)
As you can see, we kinda went overboard with the ordering! The owner was really nice and he actually told us to stop ordering when we initially wanted more since he thought that it would be wasted. 

We started the feast with the small mixed dips, that came with a pretty big pile of freshly toasted Turkish bread. The 'small' mixed dips was actually a lot! It could've easily fed at least 4-5 people. Nothing beats freshly toasted bread with the dips. We also ordered a small (ie pretty big) Greek salad to create the illusion that we're eating healthily. The mixed grill was a mixture of lamb cutlets, kofte, lamb and chicken shish. Each one of them was really tender and well seasoned, one of the best mixed grill plates I've had. By this time, we were clutching our stomach only to realise that we still had another plate coming... no wonder the owner had to stop us from ordering more! The sucuklu (pide) was very flavoursome too, but unfortunately we couldn't even finish half of this. 

Overall, a very nice dining experience with reasonable price. We ordered so much and paid around $30 each. I am keen to try the banquet menu with a bigger group next time. I heard that there are some belly dancers performing on Friday and Saturday nights.


409 Cleveland St
Surry Hills

6 comments:

  1. oh yum. i've been wanting to try this place for ages but just haven't made the time to do so. i used to always buy my turkish bread and dips for parties at this place :-)

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  2. @chocolatesuze: yeah and it was a pretty good value too!

    @simon: hmm you just gave me an idea for my upcoming party :P

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  3. Great colours in the dip and I love the look of that mixed grill! You've ignited my urge for a BBQ this long weekend :)

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  4. @chopinandmysaucepan:n should do BBQ when the weather isnt bad :)

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  5. I love the dips here and the food is great, and they definitely do have belly dancing on Friday and Saturdays. Be warned they like to pick people in the crowd to join in :)

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