A La Turka Restaurant Review

This evening, it was out to A La Turka Restaurant, which claims to be Thailand's only Turkish restaurant. (I'll take their word for it.)

One award that the restaurant does win, however, is being the most difficult restaurant in all of Pattaya to find, so listen closely: Drive along second road. Just before you get to the Alcazar Show on your right (between Soi 6 and Soi 5), you will see on your left, across the street, the sign for Pattaya Dragon Restaurant. If you turn down into that plaza-type place right under the sign, and follow it back, back, back, you'll come to a large plaza with a nightclub on your right, and a Korean restaurant on your left. Now look back over your left shoulder, and you'll see the restaurant back in the corner. (For a time-sensitive instruction, it is back behind that big shell of a building under construction with the grand stairway in front.)

However, the owner of A La Turka is no dummy: It is also the easiest restaurant in Pattaya to find. Just call Door-2-Door in Pattaya and they will send you a menu, or you can see it here online, and have the food delivered right to your house.

The restaurant is a nice enough place, but nothing too spectacular. The manager is from a young fellow from Yugoslavia, and Stan and I both agree that he is as good a manager as a restaurant could hope to have, giving helpful suggestions, and making sure your meal is enjoyable.

We had red lentil soup with pita bread (120 and 45 baht, respectively) which was a very mild soup and quite nice. The stuffed vine leaves (175 baht) were very tasty, if a tad bit oily... which I didn't mind. The cabbage rolls (155 baht) were perfect though. There was also a beef soup which Stan liked a lot, but I thought was too bland... but nothing a touch of salt wouldn't cure. We also had "Sultan's Cigar Boreks" (160 baht), which is ground beef wrapped in deep-fried dough.

We also had "Harem's Secret Mix Mezze Plate", which was 5 different appetizers on a single plate, for 285 baht. I can't remember the names of the appetizers, but there were panfried vegetables covered in a piquante yougurt sauce, a couple of meat dishes, and some additional cabbage rolls, and an eggplant puree (which I really liked) and marinated onions.

For the main course, there was chicken kebab (265 baht). I'm not a fan of grilled meat without sauce or other accoutrements, so that didn't go over well with me, but it certainly was done properly, and everyone else enjoyed it. There was also Turkish meatballs (255 baht) which were nice, but as a dish, not very exciting, although the marinated onions were nice. (Again: No sauces or things to go with it, so a personal preference.) We also had yougurt kebab (325 baht), which was beef on pita bread covered with yougurt sauce. That was very nice indeed. We had glazed pumpkin for dessert which unfortnately wasn't very good.

Overall, it was a good meal. With wine, drinks, tip, and dessert, the bill was 3,000 baht for 4 people. That was a little bit expensive in my opinion for the amount of food that we got, but the food was in total very good (just skip dessert) and the staff and management are very capable.