Our Lovely Turkish Lunch in Little Arabia

By Faye Levy
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Last weekend Yakir and I had a late lunch with a few friends at Koftegi restaurant in Anaheim’s Little Arabia District.

Owner Mehmet Kaplan opened Koftegi about four years ago, at a location that we used to dine at when it was a Lebanese flatbread bakery called Al Sanabel. Today both names– Koftegi Turkish Mediterranean and Al Sanabel Bakery--are displayed above the door, and Mehmet, a chef from Istanbul, has incorporated Al Sanabel’s flatbreads into his menu.

We were happy to taste traditional dishes that we enjoyed in Turkey, but our favorite was a new creation of Mehmet’s called Juju’s Boat, a Turkish style “pizza” with muhammara (spicy walnut sauce), doner (vertical-grilled beef) and Kashkaval cheese.

Kaplan, who used to give culinary tours of Turkey, told us that his food is Istanbul style. In Turkey, köfteci means maker of köfte--grilled meat patties. Mehmet used the spelling koftegi to make the restaurant’s name easy for Americans to pronounce. The full name on the restaurant’s logo is Mehmet’s Koftegi Turkish Grill & Bakery.

The grilled meat patties, said Mehmet, are prepared butcher style, which means that the beef is not ground, but chopped by hand for better texture. It’s flavored with red bell pepper, onion, salt, pepper and cumin. Köfte are also available stuffed with Kashkaval cheese or as a casserole with tomato and garlic sauce.

Our lunch menu:

* Köfte, butcher style - served with babaganoush (grilled eggplant with tahini), rice pilaf, house salad and thin pita bread

* Simit - Turkish sesame-coated bread ring

* Tabbouleh - Salad of bulgur wheat, finely chopped parsley, tomato and onion with olive oil-lemon dressing, served on romaine lettuce leaves

* Ali Nazik - grilled marinated beef tri-tip on a bed of roasted eggplant puree with garlic and yogurt, drizzled with butter sauce and served with thin pita bread

* Lahmbaajin (also spelled lahmajun and lahmacun) - a flatbread with a topping of finely ground beef, onion, tomato, parsley, salt and pepper

* Manakish - zaatar flatbread

* Juju’s Boat, a Turkish style boat-shaped “pizza” spread with muhammara (a spicy walnut sauce), topped with slices of beef doner (meat grilled on a vertical spit, also known as shwarma), Kashkaval cheese, tomato and Turkish green pepper

* Sac Tava (sac is pronounced saj) - beef tri-tip slices sauteed in a special two-handled pan with slices of green and red pepper and tomato, topped with wedges of a special flatbread that were dipped in the meat’s gravy. A similar dish on the menu called beef choban kavurma is served with rice.

For Yakir and me it’s always interesting to go to Little Arabia. On our way to the restaurant, we came across a group of people holding Turkish flags demonstrating about the situation at the Turkish border with Syria. Later many of them came to the restaurant.

Our friend Gerry Furth-sides mentioned that the previous night a restaurant she visited that normally is packed on Saturday night was practically empty. She was struck by how busy Koftegi was; the customers just kept on coming.