Ali Baba Turkish Restaurant — Restaurant in San Juan

All things considered, I consider it the best restaurant in San Juan. They grind their own ground lamb, they make their own cheese, they import organic ingredients from their home country. It is authentic home-made food , and they know what they are doing. If you go to any other expensive restaurant (or any cheaper restaurant) and if you ask them about their ingredients you will almost always find that they use GARBAGE quality oils. Don't pay big bucks to assault your liver with GMO oils, or with over-heated refined oils. Not only is it normal for most restaurants to fry a lot of their food in Puerto Rico, but most food on the Island is fried or sauteed in very poor quality oil. Even at the most expensive restaurants on Condado Ave., I dare you to ask them what type of oils they are using.. On most of the Island it's all people can afford so you can't fault anyone for being in that situation, but if you choose to spend the money to eat out, don't support restaurants that are going to poison you with Canola oil, or Mazola corn oil, or any other refined oils. I still need to read 1 of the bottles they use at this place to find out if their extra virgin olive oil is 100% unrefined, or if it's refined, or a blend of both)[and when i do, i will update this review], but either way, one benefit of this place is that in some items they don't need to use any oil as they just cook it in the lamb fat, which is a big improvement over any bottled refined oils. I have to wonder why there are any other review that are less than 5 stars, since even if you are not conscious of the ingredients they use, the taste of the food is also a very solid 5 stars. (Now if i could just find a restaurant that used a...

I ordered the mixed grill, and while the food overall had good flavor, one piece of chicken was clearly undercooked—so much so that I couldn’t even break through it. When I brought this to the staff’s attention, instead of simply acknowledging the issue or offering to re-grill it, multiple staff members huddled around the table, repeatedly inspecting the piece of chicken as if it was impossible for such a thing to happen. Their dismissive and almost mocking attitude made the situation unnecessarily uncomfortable.

What made it worse was the gaslighting behavior—they flat-out denied the chicken was undercooked, despite it being visibly raw and inedible. At checkout, one staff member even insinuated we were trying to “rob” them by pointing out the issue—as if we were looking for a free meal. That accusation was both insulting and unacceptable.

No apology, no offer to fix the issue, no replacement—nothing. Just rudeness and denial. It was honestly one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve ever had, and I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to anyone based on how poorly they treat paying customers. A good meal can’t make up for being...

As a Turkish person who has been writing Google reviews for 8+ years, I have never felt so ashamed to see a place like this represent my culture. This was truly a horrible experience. I am questioning the validity of the other reviews here.

The food was bland, portions were greedy, and the service was dismissive. The Lamb Döner I ordered came as 95% plain white rice and barely 5% meat, and it was still OVERPRICED. To make matters worse, when I placed my order over the phone, they messed it up. I asked for a wrap but they prepared a plate instead.

When I pointed out the mistake in a kind manner (hoping that they can understand), rather than showing empathy, they argued back. I even requested a small piece of bread to make up for the inconvenience, and unbelievably, they brought me a separate bill for it ($2.50 for a small piece of bread).

As a Turk, this was an embarrassing and unfortunate experience. If you want to waste your money on bland food, stingy portions, and rude service, this is the place to go. After all, you are not the ones to be...