Anatolia
16/5 Mackinder St
Clemton Park, Sydney
Anatolia serves authentic Turkish cuisine in a traditional manner. Think also - those incredibly exquisite elegant coffee cups that are used to serve this beverage in. We were fortunate to experience all this.
What struck us initially as we walked in the door of Anatolia was the beautiful hand painted picture on their wall. It is like a romantic fairy tale depicting the meeting of the East and the West. There is also a spectacular decorative chandelier adorning the area.
From the modern Turkish cuisine we had the following:-
Spinach and cheese Gozleme. Seriously this was incredible. It really was so good - fluffy, fresh and tasty. One of the best ever! Truly divine.
We tried a Pide - which is a popular meal. This again was really so good. The pastry was light and fluffy, so you did not get full on the pastry. The filling was flavoursome. Yummy veg with a tasty sausage. We thoroughly enjoyed this. It was a lovely tasting combination - nice.
We asked to have the Gozleme and Pide as "take-away".This is the second time ever we have asked for takeaway - but it was just so good.
Presentation of the Plate really was impressive and mouth watering. Where to start? Both plates were served with salad, dips, and vegetables. There was so much delicious food which also came with a side of in-house baked bread that we used to scoop up the dips - nice!
Mlady had diced marinated chicken on her plate and Sir had lamb. The chicken had really lovely flavours, was moist, not at all dry and there was plenty of it. Sir loved his perfectly cooked lamb.Such a great taste sensation getting as much of all this yumminess (is that a word?) on your fork as possible. The plates were a wonderful sea of taste and colour.
We managed to fit in dessert and what we had we were truly amazed with! It was "ice cream" but it is actually Dondurma which is Turkish for "freezing" which is the name given to ice cream there. Two qualities distinguish Turkish ice cream:- texture and resistance to melting. It is believed to originate from the region of Maras and consequently is also known as Maras ice cream. It was like the best ever vanilla ice cream you could possibly eat but did not melt in 5 minutes! Ours was teamed with baklava - Mlady had chocolate and it was so good! Seriously - one of the best desserts ever. It really was incredible noting the fact that it indeed did not "melt" like normal ice cream. We both loved our desserts.
To complete our wonderful meal we indulged in Turkish coffee. Now Mlady loves her (Soy) cappuccinos - but found that there is a knack to drinking Turkish coffee. One does not gulp it down, one sips and savours. She did this and actually enjoyed it. She is a convert now. Sir too enjoyed his experience.
The food at Anatolia is fresh, very delicious and substantial. It was wonderful experiencing this authenticity.
Sir and Mlady dined as guests of Anatolia. A big thank you to Adam, Vulcan and Serkan for taking care of us and sharing with us their vision. Thank you also to Vanessa and Canan for looking after us. Special thanks to Brooke from Colliers for arranging our visit.