Pera Turkish Cuisine — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I learned a few things here. Customer service exists in PA. Again this is at a Turkish place. MaşaAllah! They do not have Greek items on their menu…and someone should not ask  The waiter here follows the Turkish National Football team so don’t ask them for game results because its possible that your favorite team, for example, the Netherlands National Team Oranje CRUSHED their hopes for the 2024 Euros. Amot-e, how did I forget? But the waiter was a champ, took it in good spirits, and I tried to pay the check to leave a great tip. But Im jumping ahead. All those “evil eyes” on the wall that look like Greek isles did their job. All of us had a great experience with our dine. We ordered quite a variety, from the appetizer sampler (recommend), manti (“dumplings” like min raviolis with a splat of yogurt…recommend), tp the fish which I think was Branzino (served traditionally, head and bones and skin attached…looked great), to the mix plate (which has real doner, chicken, and LAMB…cant go wrong). The seasoning for me was a little light but the quality of the meats made up for it. Also, I think people in PA frown on seasoning and flavor and foreign concepts like that. Good for this place for using dark meat for their chicken kebabs! We ordered desserts also, and generally you cant go wrong with anything on their menu. As someone with gavur roots, I was pleased to have something to complain about and I came to be as some clown came here and ordered a fkn hamburger. In fairness, it also looked good, as did the Iskender plate that this dopes companion ordered. So food: 10/10 service 10/10. Atmosphere 10/10 (no GAVUR-dagi salad on the menu, thank very much). I think this place is still rather new and I hope they keep the bar high. Philadelphia needs places like this. Parking around here is typical city, so for town, village, township, and other yokel...

After all the great reviews, the hubs and I were excited to try out the "new" spot in the former Dmitry's (which was excellent). But this was a disappointing dinner. After waiting 15 minutes for a table at 6:30 on a Saturday (not bad!), we were seated at this weird table under the bar where if we moved too far in the wrong direction, we'd hit our heads against the bar edge.

We ordered tabouli, mucver (fried zucchini patties), garlic chicken and grilled chicken. The grilled chicken was tasty and the pita was nice, but everything else was bland. The zucchini fritters were particularly disappointing - tasted like nothing and were super greasy. The tabouli was dry - needed more oil or lemon or both. The garlic chicken sounds good on paper but somehow the garlic and lemon were both lost, and the chicken was boiled vs. sauteed, which left the whole thing feeling kind of gross.

The service also left something to be desired. It felt like our waitress was rushing us along, including bringing our entrees while we were still eating appetizers (maybe not her fault, but then it's a kitchen pacing issue). When they brought too many plates to fit on the table, she literally picked up my silverware, put them on my napkin, and took away my plate. All without asking me. I was trying to figure out why this felt so wrong to me and landed on I have never had a server touch my silverware while it was still intended for my use. They always say things like "do you want to keep your fork?" and have you move it yourself.

She also brought us the wrong check, which I wouldn't bother to think anything about except for all the other service things.

On the whole, I'm surprised by all the positive reviews, especially considering all the other excellent options in the area. In particular, Apricot Stone has a similar menu, is also BYO, but is doing food and service...

I'm a frequent visitor to this place and LOVE the food. However, the one star is for our experience today. I understand that it was a Friday and it's busy. We went as a party of 3 and They told us it's a 20 minute wait (and there was a party of 6 ahead of us). We put our names down, went for a walk and came back. The party of 6 was seated and there were three sets of table for 2. For a good 20 minutes there were 3 open tables with just no one. They were waiting for another party of 6 to finish up. I checked back in with the hostess / waitress and she said another 25 minutes or even sooner.

One thing here is that because it's BYOD, people bring bottles of wine and take their own time. We continue waiting for a table (and we were next in line), and a couple left. They combined their table with another table and set up a table for 4 people. It had been a good 35-40 minutes of waiting by now. I asked if our table was ready since I see a table set up. The hostess said that she didn't make the waitlist and it was another guy and that we still had to wait for the party of 6 to clear up (to get a table for 3) and that this table was for 4 people. TLDR they gave this table to someone else who was behind us because they didn't have their queue communicated amongst themselves.

We just left after 40 minutes of waiting. The service is just so unorganized, I don't get how you can have so many open tables when you have people waiting in line. And if you're going to have BYOD, maybe set a time limit on the table so you have more turnaround especially on a...