Köşebaşı Basın Ekspres — Restaurant in Bağcılar

BEWARE OF THIS PLACE ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE FOREIGNERS.

Environment: The waiter clearly asked us do we smoke, if dont smoke then we can sit inside the restaurant which of course we expected that the indoor will be smoke free but it wasn’t. 3 male waiters are smoking during their working time which make the whole place smells so unpleasant.

Food: Portion were so little and we have been to plenty of Turkish restaurants in Turkey or outside Turkey, we know how the food tastes like or what comes with the dish, clearly this restaurant wants to maximize it’s profit by not giving any salad in the main dish hoping that you will order it as extras.

Price: We got charged 450 Turkish lira for couvert which is almost €10 just for bread and plain water. Not only that, an extra 400 Turkish lira was charged in the bill as “service fee” which no special or additional service provided. They merely take the order and serve the food which is any basic waiter job description, what special service that needed us to pay 400 lira for it? Furthermore all these are not stated in the menu and no price transparency in it. Obviously we didn’t ask for water or bread, you served it to us as though it was complimentary and then charged close to 10 euros for it. We are highly disappointed with how the restaurant treated foreign customers as though whoever are foreign could be cheated easily with all the hidden costs which make our stay here so unpleasant.

Long story short, avoid this place at all costs. Maybe they do treat the locals differently but for our experience it was...

It’s hard to give a perfect score. It’s not my first time in this restaurant as I often stay in a nearby hotel for work. I do understand business is business and it needs to earn profit.

To warn everyone. This is my first time to do take out since I know they mark up on unnecessary things and didn’t want to deal with those and just wanted some decent meal after a full day’s work.

Like in my latest take away order.. ordered my usual, Beyti (kebab wrap) good, tasty and recommendable. As what I expected. Then, a mistake I did. I added this ground meat (400g written in menu) with roasted eggplants. The container was suspiciously heavy already.. thought it was the meat. Then to my surprise… HUGE chunk of roasted eggplant and tiny ground kebab that didn’t even reach an estimated 50g in total. It’s bland and tasteless. You mean I paid 890Lira for eggplant and a tasteless ground meat? Come on…

Such shame when the products are really good but GREED ruins the rest of it. Just be honest and not play around. Please see photos to entertain yourself..

Staff was just okay. Not much of an interaction (just how I wanted) for a take away order.

Known for their meat dishes and paid a total of 2070Lira. Meat encircled in photo...

“Very Good but ILLOGICALLY expensive” I went to this restaurant twice, one before Ramadan (Ramazan) and the other one is last week during Ramadan (Ramazan). The decoration is very stylish and modern with a touch or a hint of oriental elements. The service in both visit was perfect, along with the classical Arabesk music. The kitchen is mainly middle eastern ( Syrian, Lebanese, and south of Turkey ). The only negative thing is the ILLOGICALLY prices in Ramadan (Ramazan). I think the prices out of Ramadan (Ramazan) time is reasonable, and to be honest I am not encourage to come back again at least not in Ramadan...