Cappadocia Café Restaurant

The Real Cappadocia.

Hmmm, my first Turkish entry.. Let's see, I have just about a mug's full of knowledge in Turkish Food and as I'm typing this review, I have four other IE windows on the side, providing some sort of crash course to TurkishCuisine101.

Of course after Greece, I know Turkish doner kebab is spankinliciously can't-get-you-out-of-my-head good but it's like fast food.. junk food. Furthermore, Turkish is established as one of the top three cuisines of our time, alongside Chinese and French. So suppose doner kebab was all I knew about Turkish food, it would be such injustice to myself and their heritage.

The menu at Cappadocia is extensive and loaded with droolsworthy pictures and helpful lengthy descriptions. Yes, a snapshot paints a thousand words but it didn’t help that most were attention-grabbing and affixed with tantalizing speech bubbles that whispered, “Mossuaka tonight, baby? You know you want me..” or in the words of famous Makansutra guru, “die die must try...” -gulp- With no friendly neighbourhood waiter around, we took quite a while to decide.

For starters, we were introduced to Karisik Meze, which was an ensemble of Turkish appetizers. Don't you just LOVE sampler platters? I know I dooo.. Sampler platters are perfect for people like me who take forever to decide and over the course of two minutes, can and will drive the waiter nuts with my indecisiveness.

Anyway... Regarded as "Middle East's answer to Spanish tapas" (and in my opinion, "Chinese dim sum"), the meze platter definitely lived up to our expectations anticipation.


Meze

I got to say with nowhere esle to compare, I am not in a position to 'review' or evaluate the taste. The hummus and tzatziki dip look familar but geee what's the leafy-looking mummified tube?

YAPRAK SARMA

????? Yaprak what--??? Haha, it is actually vine leaves with pilaf rice stuffing which strangely reminds me of our Chinese glutinous rice dumpling. The cigar shaped Sigara Boregi is stuffed with spinach and feta cheese, wrapped in phyllo dough and deep fried. The bead-faced falafel, made out of grounded chickpeas and spices, was pretty good too. But give me some warm toasted piede and tzatziki dip and I promise to be quiet for the rest of the evening.


Armut Patate

The Armut Patate was something altogether. The centers were stuffed with spinach and the potatoes were soft baked and then shallowed fried. It was 'Yay on its own', 'Yay with a dab of tzatziki'... You wanna remember this name: Armut Patate- License To Thrill.


Izgara Kofte

For our entree, we had the Izgara Kotfe, which consisted of grilled minced beef patties, served with side salad and pilaf rice. While the pepper gravy was pedastrian, the kofte was unlike any beef patty I've ever had. The kotfe was grilled to medium perfection and you could tell there was something going on there with the juicy patty on the verge of being leathery. A home run for this squashed baseball lookalike.

We gave dessert a miss since I do distinctively remember a nasty encounter with the baklava in Copenhagen. But overall, our meal warranted return visits.. if only Robertson Quay weren't such a $#%$ to get to.