Diner 3 - "The Beginning...well for me at least!"

The Istanbul Grill, 28/05/08 - so having missed the inaugural meeting of the "eatery club"....or is it "crew" for 'work reasons', my 1st attendance resulted in a full turn out of the WREC team and for me, my first ever visit to a Turkish restaurant which perhaps maybe a little surprising to some for a 35+ year old, although I expect a few more 'firsts' (for me) as we travel down Wilmslow Road over the next few months, or more realistically years before we reach the very end!

Anyway for a man of rare extravagance when it comes to food or drink, I decided to embrace the spirit of the 'meets' and immmediately opted for the Turkish beer ("Efes") rather than opt for the safer option of Stella or Bud on offer! A pretty good start I would say so I opted for another of the same later in the evening (albeit being a little later in the evening than I planned as it took 2 requests for my 2nd Efes beer to arrive - overall service was ok but nothing more for a not particularly busy Wednesday evening).

As for the food, the mixed hot and cold starter 'to share' (shared with Diner 6), also made a good impression although I am unable to remember what it was or what it tasted like / of...it was just, well, quite tasty! (yes, you can look forward to more insightful and well articulated culinary reviews from me in the coming months).

As for the main course, I opted for the Istanbul grilled chicken which was, as it sounds, grilled chicken - nothing more and rather bland...I should have accepted the offer of some of the sauce from Diner 1's (aka Kirsty) choice to spice it up a little. But for me, the safe bland option was probably a good choice before I choose to be a little more ambitious as we travel down the road on our eating venture!

Still, would I recommend said restaurant to others, on balance, yes, and it is definitely the best one for me as part of the WREC so far...bring on The Laughing Bhudda!

Diner 2 "The Return" Istanbul Grill

Here we are again then, back for more and Sven is still hanging on by his fingertips. Perhaps he fancies trying a few restaurants along Wilmslow Road before he's finally pushed out the door and he could do a lot worse than visit the Istanbul Grill. Now thinking of the sort of delights we might encounter i suppose i was going down the road of kebabs etc which does the "Grill" an injustice as the menu turned out to contain numerous very tasty sounding dishes and the choice was a difficult one.

I finally settled on a spicy Turkish sausage as a starter and a main dish, which turned out to be a very popular choice among our group, of slow cooked paprika lamb. First off the sausage was a great introduction, not too spicy but just enough and left me wanting more. Then came the main dish. Although it arrived luke warm i have to say the taste and texture of the lamb more than made up for that and combined with the rice made a dish i would highly recommend.

One word of warning though as we decided when in Rome and all that to venture into the unknown territory of authentic Turkish red wine with a cheeky little number called, I suppose this should have given us a little clue, Buzzbag (no i'm not joking). Safe to say we wouldn't recommend it and during the evening and ensuing talk of the night became the buzz (no pun intended) word for anything which didn't make the grade. So, in future posts if it's described as Buzzbag you know to steer clear.

Overall i liked the Grill, i'll def be back at some point soon to sample more of the menu, which i am very sad to say won't be the case for Sven as he's finally been given the boot, yes OK there was a slight delay (well a week) in me starting and finishing this but now its onwards with a new manager, even if he is an ex red, which i hope won't leave a sour taste for our next foray into Wilmslow Road.