Meze Mangal is one of those local restaurants that people have been recommending to me for years, but I just hadn’t got around to visiting. It’s also been picked up in the National food press and I think Time Out actually made it one of their recommended budget places to eat, so I’ve really had no excuse not to visit before. The only reason I can think of for not visiting previously is that it’s not on a particularly nice road nor at a particularly nice part of said road.

The inside of the restaurant feels a bit worn, but friendly, like you’ve walked into a nice Aunt’s house, but the last time they decorated was the eighties. The business end of the restaurant looks great though, with a big open grill and a massive wood burning oven at the centre of the room. Ms R and I got a table right next to the oven and I have to say that it was a lot of fun to watch the cook make dozens of Turkish pizzas, throughout the evening.

Having already watched the wood oven chef (I’m sure there must be a proper term for that job) at work, we decided to order the Lahmacun (pizza with minced lamb, onions and peppers) as a starter, along with Kisir (cracked wheat salad) and the Kalamar (squid with hazelnut sauce). Our waiter showed us the traditional way of eating the Lahmacun, which is to take a piece, then roll up some salad inside, making a kind of pizza & salad wrap, before scoffing. That was very good. The Kisir was also excellent, tasting fresh and having a good contrast of soft & crunchy ingredients. The hazelnut sauce with the squid wasn’t particularly great, although the squid itself wasn’t bad.

As we’d already tasted something from the wood oven, we decided to go for something from the grill for mains. I selected the Kaburga-Tarak (grilled lamb ribs with salad) with Ms R going for the Pilic Sis (Chicken Shish kebab). Both were fairly straightforward, no nonsense kind of dishes but were elegant in their simplicity.

Meze Mangal may not be on a posh street in a nice area, but it doesn’t have to be. Ms R & I got there very early evening and the restaurant was packed by 7pm, which shows that as long as you provide good service and great food, you’ll bring in the punters. That’s not to say that it couldn’t do with a bit of updating in the decor department, nor a few additions to the exclusively Turkish wine list (I’d normally laud a place for only serving wines from the same region as the food, but frankly, even their most expensive bottle of Turkish wine was a bit rank, although at £15 for the bottle, I can’t complain too much), but it does the job. With starters from £2.50 and mains from £6.50, you can eat as much as you can and still have change for a beer on the way home, from £20 a head.  I’m not sure it’s worth travelling across London for, but it’s definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Note from 6th Dec: Went again today and had excellent food again. The spicy kofte (Beyti) and the boat shaped turkish pizza (pide) were both excellent. I’d also recommend the starter of Pancanka Boregi, which is a filo pastry wrapped parcel of turkish salami, peppers, tomato and melted cheese. I forgot to mention above about the tasty fresh bread that’s brought round; just make sure you don’t eat so much you don’t have room to finish your mains!