KOALI Lounge & Dine — Restaurant in Beyoğlu

Not bad, but a few issues made me not love this place.

They have 4 appetizers on the menu, and an appetizer platter, which (according to the menu), should have some of all 4 different appetizers (as you can see in another photo here). Mine however, only had 3, it was missing the tempeh. The other complaint I have about this dish is the sauce. I got a giant bowl of peanut sauce, but I guess I was hoping for a small portion of each of the different sauces, as different sauces were offered with the single appetizers, it makes more sense to me, as I'm trying different appetizers I should be able to try the different sauces too.

Next issue: They took my fork when clearing my appetizer plate. The bakmi goreng was dropped off, and it took me a couple of minutes to flag a server down.

Last issue: The server tried to push me to pay in cash for some reason (she apparently was new, as she needed assistance navigating the credit card machine). She literally asked me 3 times for cash, I don't know why.

Overall: The food itself is quite tasty, and seems to be authentic. I recommend trying this place once for the food. Just be aware of...

I have been craving to eat some Indonesian food for some time. Thankfully, during my trip to Istanbul, there were a few Indonesian restaurants to choose from. I learned about this restaurant through online recommendations for "Asian food" but more so specifically for "Indonesian food". The restaurant is within walking distance to the Galata Tower.

I ordered the nasi koali and extra tempe. For the nasi koali, I requested for the dish to be made vegan which included tempeh on the top. I found the food tasted good, but I wished there were more vegan sambal options (ones in paste-like form). Only the sambal matah is vegan, which is the one included in my nasi koali.

Most of the customers when I was there were foreigners, including some Indonesians. Restaurant seems to be indoors only. Menu is physical form.

Service was decent, but one of the servers who served me...

Our family was excited to eat here as we were needed a break from Turkish food.

Environment was nice, Indonesian decor, with slideshows on its history and all.

Service wise, they were friendly and spoke english however they were slightly slow on drinks.

Food , as we we were a larger group we were trying to order a whole bunch of things to try and share. However they were sold out of many of the staple dishes like Beef Rendang , Gado Gado and tempeh. They mostly only had the fried dishes, the rice and noodle dishes available. For the dishes we were able to have, they were tasty and authentic. The meat in the rice and noodle dishes were quite little so dont expect much protein from it.

A big plus was the the sambal selection. It was really good and delicious.

Would recommend coming, perhaps go during lunch or call in advance to check if certain dishes...