Yildiz Saray, Dubai - Turkish cuisine with a twist

A friend recently read a review highly recommending Yildiz Saray, a Turkish restaurant that is tucked away in the Concord Hotel in Deira. No more encouragement required - we got the gang together and made the trek to Deira.

There is nothing awe inspring about the Concord Hotel. It is one of a thousand very similar, very average looking  hotels that can be found on most streets in Deira. I can't comment on the quality of the rooms, but walking through the hotel lobby I was not filled with great confidence that an amazing meal awaited me just around the corner. Thankfully, I was wrong.

We were greeted with enthusiasm at the entrance to the restaurant and led into a large, beautifully decorated dining room that had tables in the centre of the room with cosy booths off to the side. This was a gastronomical oasis in an otherwise very desolate setting. We quickly took up residence in one of the booths and started salivating over the picture-packed menu. Ordinarily this is a major turn off for me. Menus that are covered in pictures I associate with fast food that is too mediocre to justify a written description of its content. However, hats off to Yildiz Saray and their photographer because the pictures not only fuelled our apetite but they were quite helpful in avoiding the otherwise 100 questions we would have asked the waiter "what is Manti" and "what is Hunkar Begendi?"

No sooner had we sat down than the sweet scent of warm Turkish bread wafted across our table. It was diffcult to resist the soft, sesame topped, complimentary bread baskets that came accompanied with feta cheese and the delectable spicy Ezme paste; a tomato and red pepper chopped vegetable dip that danced across your tongue and left your mouth softly tingling from the spice.

Being in a group, it was the perfect opportunity to order one of the large mezzeh options to share for entree. We knew the mains were going to be meaterific so we opted for the assorted cold mezzeh that came with hommus (solid, nothing incredible), Baba Ghanouj (the smokiest, possibly the best we have had in Dubai), creamy and zesty Labna drizzled with oil and herbs, vine leaves that would leave most others for dead, an oily bean dish that was probably the weakest of the lot and....drumroll....the stuffed baby egg plants (amazing, herbaceous parcels, stuffed with tomato and strangely, but perfectly, topped with cheese).

I could have stopped right there and it would have been a great meal. But alas, when I travel 50 minutes for dinner, I do feel a need to go beyond the entree page and tackle some of the mains that have already earnt this newcomer restaurant such a great reputation.We ordered big in an effort to cover as many of the main dishes on the menu that we couldn't pronounce. It is always a surefire way to an interesting, if not fantastic meal. We started with the Sebze Guvec, a mixed vegie dish that was reasonable, but a little too oily to be the healthy option that we had hoped for. The Hunkar Begendi consisted of chunks of seasoned beef served on egg plant puree that resembled mashy peas and was topped with fried onion. It had a great balance of spices but was slightly let down by the beef being overcooked.

We also ordered the Manti, meat filled ravioli parcels served in a fantastically spicy tomato sauce that was then topped with yoghurt. It was spicy, it was creamy and excellent in small doses; but more than a couple of mouthfulls would have been an overload. The Beyti Kebap, the turkish answer to a sausage roll, was chewy, overcooked kebab meat wrapped in very greasy pastry, and left me feeling robbed of precious stomache space.

The big ticket item, the Iskender Kebap, was the show stopper in most of our opinions. The tender kebab meat that was laced with a rich tomato gravy, and simply melted in your mouth. The meat sat on top of crispy pide bread cubes that were so heavily infused with butter that I was transported from Turkey to Paris in a culinary confusion. Topped with a thick, refined yoghurt this dish somehow worked. But buyer beware - this dish is not for the faint hearted. Although delicious, it is heavy and reminded me far more of french cooking than what I had expected from Turkish cuisine.

RECOMMENDED

I would recommend Yildiz Saray to those looking for something a little left of centre. The entrees were simply fantastic - standard fare done really really well. Some of the mains are really unusual and on that basis alone they are definitely worth a try. My one word of caution would be to go in a group so that you can order a variety of dishes to share. If I had been challenged to eat any one of the mains in its entirety I think I would have died trying. Each dish was so intense and rich that a few bites was enough and a few more would have been almost sickly. It was an unexpected dining experience that goes to show what this blog is trying to tell you - get out of your comfort zone and try something different.


The bill (for 5):
2 x bread baskets - complimentary
1 x mixed cold mezzeh - 90 Dhs
1 x Fattouch salad - 25 Dhs
1 x Hummus - 20 Dhs
1 x Sebze Guvec - 70 Dhs
1 x Beyti Kebab - 70 Dhs
1 x Manti - 60 Dhs
1 x Hunkar Begendi - 60 Dhs
1 x Iskender Kebap - 55 Dhs
3 x Big Water Bottles  - 24 Dhs
3 x Diet Cokes - 24 Dhs

TOTAL: 498 Dhs (Approx. US$135)

Restaurant address: Emirates Concord Hotel, Al Maktoom Street, Deira, Dubai.


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