Taste of Istanbul Grill

Ordered from just eat took an hour despite being in walking distance.
Fail.
Beef shawarma was not bad solid ³⁄₅.
Won’t return as there are better local options.

Just ate here. My wife is half Cypriot. She felt the food was really authentic. The portions were huge and the prices were low.
The mezzes and kebabs were so good that it really did bring back memories of my stop in Istanbul. And my wife approved of the Dolma, bean salad and bulgur pilaf, food she grew up with. We had the cold appetiser platter and Adana kebab entrée.
The décor could be a little better. But I’m not going to complain about it, with food this good. Unilocal has got this wrong. And it seems like most of the complainers were past Groupons.

This is by far the worst so called turkish food I have had.
The cooks are not even from Turkey, they are from somewhere in the balkans region.
We waited for over 45 minutes for our food to arrive; the food was disgusting, was very old and had been frozen and thawed over and over. I ordered the eggplant kebab and could not even force myself to take the second bite.
I will not go back to this place again.
Cheers

I am unsure of all the negative comments but ate their on Monday. Ordered the lunch chicken schawarma special for under 10 bucks. The food came out fast in a big aluminum take out container. Opened it up at home and enough for 1 ½ or 2 people. Chicken was amazing and roast potatoes. Greek salad, bread were good. The only recommendation they need a dressing on salad and garlic sauce option on chicken. Very good food and portion.

Absolutely fantastic, wonderful service, excellent food cooked and grilled to perfection. I will continue to come in the future

I had written a positive review of this establishment before a name change. Now it is officially going to join my lists of places to avoid.
The owner is both unpleasant and dirty. He attempts cooking, as his chefs do not last. He is imperious, smarmy and arrogant. And I really attempted to develop a rapport with him.
He is trying to fail out his restaurant with Groupons, which he does not like getting. On my last visit I had an expired Groupon which he managed to mark as redeemed, and refused to honor for its face value. He said my problem was with Groupon. He knows better!
He is obviously running on fumes. On our last visit (2 couples), we placed our meal began with 2 chicken soups. They were bad, not just bad tasting but simply and literally rotten. When queried he said he had had it just that afternoon.
The dips that follow the soup contain salt with a small eggplant component and a huge puddle of oil. It is obvious these are not nearly as fresh as they could be, and have been held over many times.
My wife ordered a whole fish (Levrec or Sea bass). What was produced was probably a small whiting, which would have been underwhelming as an appetizer. For my main course I had Keftedes (Ground meats). This had been certainly frozen and the warmed up.
Having tasted the other diners offering there was nothing that would not be bested by a low quality frozen entrée of a generic brand.
I believe other reviewers who have experienced abuse at the hands of this owner, as he is does not present well. His shirt is dirty, and he rambles on and on about his business acumen, contacts, and god knows what. And we waited and waited, to the point that my arm was starting to look good. We could have had some dips as an early appetizer, but the bread that was ultimately presented was stale.
I complained again about his failure to redeem the value of the Groupon, at which point he gave me a «passport» for a 50% discount on my next visit. There will not be a next visit.
This is a restaurant that is sinking and sinking fast. If you have a Groupon try to get it refunded. If you are considering it at full price, there are much better alternatives in the general area.
It was embarrassing, unpleasant and a complete waste of time and money.

We purchased a Groupon deal for this restaurant.
Overall Experience (0 – 10):
Service: 1 (waited for an hour before our order is finally in, waited on many things all throughout the dinner, 1 was given for packing up our food nicely)
Soup: 5 (nothing spectacular)
Cold Appetizers: 7 (quite nice)
Hot Appetizers: 9 (really fresh and crispy)
Entrees: 7 (quite nice)
Here is the title of the Groupon deal: $ 55 for a six-​course dinner or Saturday or Sunday brunch for two
Here is the description: Guests choose a meat, seafood, or vegetarian tasting menu, then sit back as the chef prepares an artisan slow-​cooked six-​course Turkish meal.
24 hours in advance reservation was required so we made one the day before @ 2pm. I left my name and the Groupon number to hold my spot.
We arrived at 6:20 on Friday for our 6:30pm reservation. There were only two other tables occupied and two lady staff serving tables.
I gave them the groupon deal I printed out, and she gave me the regular menu.
So I asked, «how do we order?» She said «You just order». At this point we have no idea what to do.
1^st time she went to the back, asked around, came back and said «So sorry, you can order any 6 items from the hot appetizers or entrees» — seriously? 6 entrees?
2^nd time she left and talked to some other staff, came back again and said «So sorry, you can order 2 items from 1 hot appetizers, 4 from cold appetizers, and 2 from entrée» — um… what? that’s 7 items.
At this time, some guy who appeared to be the owner came in, after 15 more mins of discussion, the lady came back and said «So sorry, you order two soups, two hot appetizers, two cold appetizers, two entrees, two drinks and two desserts» — Oh, now we get it.
The owner then came over said, «yes the groupon says 6 course meal yeah? so you choose one of each, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6» as if we were supposed to know what to do, why were we wasting his time and his staff’s time. I’m not sure why he doesn’t take the time to let the staff know about the new deal and instead, assume the customers should know.
By the time we finally put the «final» order in, it was already 7:30.
Food wasn’t bad, but the staff really need to be trained. Soup came without spoon, when asked for one, took them going back and forth twice to get it. Same thing for plates to share our appetizers on.
Overall, we won’t be back, everything that can go wrong pretty much went wrong. We also don’t enjoy being treated as if we were idiots by the owner. The lady staff was really nice, although she get everything wrong and delayed, she kept apologizing because of all the hassle we have to go through.

Had the chicken kebab on rice. Fresh and tasty. Staff was friendly. Thus place is a no fuss large portion, home style.

Food was good as this was the first time we had tried Turkish food. Portions were good too. BUT BUT so NOT get baklava or any desert from here. They SUCK!!! Really really bad! I have had better baklava bought from grocery stores…

I booked a table to redeem my $ 30 Groupon purchase of Taste of Istanbul Grill. The attitude of the business owner was so insulting and rude that I had to leave with my guests and was very embarrassing and awkward situation in front of my guests.
Finding the whole restaurant empty, I just asked the owner that they had entertained my request to come at 6:30 rather than an early dinner time of 5:30pm since the restaurant is empty and i was given the false impression of no table available. The owner raised his voice on me and said that he knows how to run his business and if you do not want to eat then you must leave. He went on and on and then went inside without giving me a chance to speak. He kept on speaking something loud in his own language and I heard loud stomping noise. It was the first time I went their taking my guests with me and I have felt so much insult in front of my guest. Very un professional and i wish I had read these reviews before making that Groupon purchase. Initially, i wanted to book the table on Sat which they refused giving me the impression as if they are fully booked but i found it the opposite. From the dirty clothes of the owner/​chef gave me the impression of very unhygienic cooking environment.
I strongly recommend you to rather starve then to go eat there.
Unilocal you should give reviewer an option to select negative star rating.

This place promises a lot but fails to deliver. It makes me sad and angry that the food has so much potential and flavor to stand out, but the service and overcooking takes all of that away.
My advise to the owner/​chef are as follows:
1. Get your kitchen stuff trained.
2. Get your timing right to cook the meats no matter what as there is nothing worse than overcooked kebobs/​lamb chops.
3. Rediscover the side dishes, so that they do not make the whole dish taste dry.(for example if you are out of Bulgur, try to make your rice like pilaf with more oil). Eating kebabs with plain white dry rice is painful.
4. Come up with some good tasting turkish sauces to go with the meat dishes, serve on the side if you think it is not traditional turkish way.
5. Hire some more people as you are in no shape to handle busy hour pressure. Someone should always be present at the front.
Now for the fellow consumers, if you have already bought the groupons I am already feeling sorry for you. Try to get a refund or if you really want to give them a try, go there at a time when they may not be busy. If they are busy they will either make you wait or screw up your dishes.
Try to order their kofte/​adana dishes and tell them specifically to not to make them dry. If they do not have bulgur, tell them to put more oil with the rice. With out experience all of our kebobs were overcooked and were dry. They will tell you that their shwarma is different and it is the real deal and juicy. But when we got them they were less than ordinary and dry.
This place will soon disappear if the owner/​chef do not take care of the issues immediately. In case you address your issues, please try to reach out to the unsatisfied customers and tell them you have changed, otherwise none of them will ever return.

SCAM! Zero stars if I could. This place should have worked out its business model before even starting a business.
Like others, I bought a Groupon. When I arrived, the restaurant was largely empty yet we were refused. The girl at the counter said because we have a Groupon, reservations are mandatory. The Groupon site said reservations are optional. This was already bad, but then the owner/​manager came out and gave a lame excuse for not serving us.
He claimed that he is short on ingredients. That’s clearly BS because the girl earlier implied that we’d be seated if we didn’t have a Groupon. He said he’d be happy to serve us if we had made a reservation 1 – 2 days in advance. Yeah right. If you like to operate without having food provisions in the kitchen, why the hell are you even in business? I’m sure he simply didn’t want to honor the vouchers so he can take the quick money from Groupon. This place will probably be out of business soon I think.
DON’T BUY THE GROUPON AND DON’T COME HERE. If they weren’t prepared to offer Groupons, they shouldn’t have offered them to begin with. Even if I take the owner’s words at face value that he’s short on ingredients, this is still another reason for you not to come. I’ve never heard of a restaurant refusing patrons due to lack of ingredients.

I have just experienced the worst service I’ve ever gotten.
We did not even get our food…
Folks, I’m left quite speechless. I never usually leave bad reviews.
We bought a groupon for 30 bucks and made reservations for 8PM.
We were sat down and told that the food was going to take longer than usual. Their excuse was «we have a small grill.»
Which is fine with me, I don’t mind waiting for good food.
1 hour had passed and we’re getting antsy, we weren’t even served our salads yet, pretty much just water.
1 hour and 30 minutes had passed, we were served our soup and was told that our items are now on the grill… it’s now 9:30 PM.
Finally at the 2 hour mark, the chef comes out and apologizes to us for the wait.
I’m thinking fine… but I want my food.
As the chef spoke, I then realized that he wasn’t apologizing for the wait, but he was actually apologizing that the food WAS NOT COMING OUT. They were closing at 10PM.
Their new excuse was that the Sou Chef had called in sick and the kitchen was understaffed.
I realize that they may be a bit understaffed, but it’s no excuse… as they could had told us earlier, instead of telling us that our items were on the GRILL.
If they had told us earlier, we could have had gotten something else to eat elsewhere and maybe come back the next day. Basically 2 hours wasted with empty stomachs. They tried offering us a 50% coupon for our next meal.
I politely declined and I asked for my money back. They gave me my refund, but the lady had a sour look on her face, like I was being a nuisance…
In any case folks, this place gets a 1 star due to the service. We didn’t even get the chance to try the food.

Nice décor and good service. However, portions are way too large. You will go out of business if you continue serving such large portions! Pay more attention to quality rather than quantity!

I had a Groupon (pay $ 30 for $ 60) so 5 of us decided to try this place. It’s near York University. although not close enough to walk over. It’s in a small plaza but the outside signage say «Sofia Istanbul Grill» so that might be misleading.
Anyway, we ordered a whole slew of menu items — Tatar Kebab, Mix Grill Platter for One (it was more than enough for 3 people!!), Beef Tenderloin and Adana Skewer.
They first served us complimentary appetizer platter (a variety of dips) and 5 grilled pita breads. hummus, red pepper (?) and wow, these were delicious. I had to stop myself from eating it all before our main course came. They also served salad which was included in all entrees.
Now, our entrees also came with a side — french fries, bulgar pilaf, rice, roasted potatoes. We went with bulgar pilaf and french fries. None of us had ever tried bulgar and it was great! The french fries were alright — run of the mill. The meat in all the entrees was delicious, tender and juicy. WOW. What a gem!
I would definitely return again. Service was great. The bill came up to $ 84 (not including the $ 60 groupon). We had more than enough to take home for lunch next day. Wow!
I also saw families here as well and they had turkish music playing in the background which was nice. The prices are pretty good for what you get. around $ 15 for each entrée including generous portion of salad and another side. Highly recommend :)