Istanbul Restaurant

Two stars for Istanbul restaurant and here's why: (I'll start first with what I liked because I'm a positive person)

1. The restaurant looked clean enough although I would have appreciated it much more if there were more tissues in the table instead of one. Also, I liked the fact that the staff were wearing a uniform that stood out which is something that I appreciate when going to a restaurant. It helps you identify the staff instead of embarrassing yourself and asking a fellow customer to bring you a glass of water and apologize repeatedly when they say they don't work there.

2. The lamb kofte tasted actually like meat. I usually find that Turkish restaurants overload kofte with red chilli and spices that you don't taste the meet. This was not the case here so I highly recommend this for you. Unfortunately, these were the only two positive things that I noticed there. I was really looking forward to visit this restaurant because it seemed always busy and some friends have recommended me to check it.

3. For an order of grills which are already prepared, it took them almost 30 minutes to put it on our table! It was not worth the wait. Very slow service and unfriendly staff who would not smile (perhaps too stressed because of being too busy but still). The rice was very cold and poor quality, I visit lots of Turkish and Indian restaurants and I can tell the quality of the rice by just looking at it.

4. It was a small portion of food if compared to the money I paid and if compared to other restaurants. I did not like the rice, the doner and the chicken wings. The chicken shish and ribs were fine.

5. Unfortunately, I did not like the environment as well. Too busy, too noisy and squeezed. Some piano music would have helped. Also, I did not appreciate the fact that the waitress asked us to eat and leave in one hour because "the table was booked" but later did not kick us out because the food was served late. I'd recommend a full re-training to their staff.