Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Tryout Tuesday: Anatolia Cafe, South Euclid

Every time we go to ZaZa, we walk by Anatolia Cafe, Cleveland's first Turkish restaurant, and are nearly lured in by the delicious and mysterious smells of ... something tasty. Why resist? We entered the bright and cheerful restaurant and had our first go at Turkish food.


A ha! Caught on film! That's Foodgoat eating liver. And liking it. Which goes to show you how good the Sautéed Liver Cubes (Arnavut Ci?eri) were, because Foodgoat, unlike me, hates liver. Veal liver was breaded, fried, served with lemon and red onions, and lacked the grainy texture that Foodgoat so dreads. He actually finished off his share.

My dish: Adana, which is chopped lamb flavored with peppers, and slightly seasoned with paprika and grilled on skewers. I've never had lamb before, but based on this, I like it. It was incredibly juicy, tender, and quite flavorful. Foodgoat had his share of lamb in the famous (at least that's how our waiter described it) iskender, which was slices of marinated lamb with a yogurt sauce. Quite good too. He didn't finish it, but I imagine it would make an excellent sandwich tomorrow.

Everything at Anatolia was good and fun, except for the yogurt drink which was just straight-up liquid yogurt with ice. Not my cup of tea. Now if there was mango in it, that's another story. But anyway, fun place, good food, which is all the more surprising considering that it's in a beat-up, run-down strip mall.

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