When my buddy recommended heading to a place called Mantee in Studio City, I was really excited to eat a sea cow and hoped the manatees were farm-raised (because we all know they are endangered in the wild). But he quickly corrected me, saying that the restaurant was lacking that all-important second “a” and was actually Mediterranean. And one look at the menu showed this was not your typical Mediterranean. There were no schwarma wraps to be seen here and instead items like that were replaced by unique Lebanese, Turkish and Armenian delights.

We decided to go big and started off with a nice round of appetizers. A couple had vegetables and I did not partake in such things, but the others were nothing short of delicious. The first was the Hummos Cocktail, which came topped with filet mignon and pine nuts. This was a great way to start things up and was quite tasty. It wasn’t too oily like some hummos can get, but was not at all dry and had great flavor. Plus, it never hurts to have meat on top. Next was the labne, which is a thick yogurt dip flavored with a little mint and olive oil. It is awesome with pita and while not as popular as hummos in general, it is definitely awesome.

The third appetizer I got into was simply called Mantee’s “Traditional.” Here’s where things got pretty interesting. This dish fell under the category of Hot Appetizers and consisted of oven-baked boat-shaped “ravioli” (really more like dumplings), filled with ground beef and topped with a garlic yogurt sauce and some sumac. I’ve got to say that this is a must-eat at Mantee. The dumplings were decadent and the garlic yogurt sauce struck a perfect balance of garlic and tart. This appetizer really had it all. I really could have made a meal out of this and the other appetizers and I would have left Mantee a happy man. Yet, I did not stop there, and I still left Mantee a happy man, just a more stuffed one.

I followed up the trio of appetizers with their Yogurt Kebab. I hadn’t seen a yogurt kebab anywhere since visiting Turkey nearly three years ago, so I was really happy to see it again. Until seeing it on the menu, I didn’t even realized I missed the thing, but I knew it had to be mine. And it was a wise choice. This kebab consisted of seasoned beef that had been removed from the stick and doused in that same delicious yogurt sauce as Mantee’s “Traditional.” In this case, though, the yogurt sauce not only held its own, but served to temper the strong seasoning of the meat. It was bliss on a plate and I was one happy unvegan.

So would I recommend Mantee? Oh hell yes. Just be sure you’re ready to spend a bit of money. It’s not overpriced and not really expensive for LA, but things can add up and you don’t want to miss out on their delicious offerings. I’m looking forward to returning one day for lunch and bringing any adventurous eater who wants something more than your typical Mediterranean fare.

About a year ago, a new Turkish restaurant opened down the street from me in Palms. I was overjoyed at this and especially happy when I saw that they were open late on weekends. Unfortunately, I went pretty soon after they opened and was kind of disappointed with the results. Lucky for them, this was before I started a meat blog, so when I finally got around to paying them another visit recently, it was my first chance to give them an unvegan review. The restaurant is called Sofra Kabab Express and although “express” is typically applied to fast food restaurants in airports, this is nothing like one of those, even encouraging people to hang around and smoke hookah (nargile in Turkish).

They run a great lunch special, which I was able to take advantage of. This was a sandwich, fries and a drink for $6.99. Not too shabby. For the sandwich, I went with the Chicken Doner (Shawarma) Sandwich. I think they threw shawarma in there so they wouldn’t scare off people looking for a regular Middle-Eastern meal. I made sure to order it without vegetables, since for some reason, people still seem to think vegetables are a good idea for a sandwich. Anyway, my sandwich was ready pretty expressly and since I’m no hookah smoker, I took it to go.

Just looking at the thing, I could tell they had made great improvements since my initial visit. The chicken was covered in a garlicky sauce and looked pretty juicy as well. Also, it was good to see that the sandwich was pretty stuffed, since there is nothing worse that a sandwich with too much bread, no matter how good the bread may be. I bit in and was quite happy. The chicken was as juicy as it looked and the sauce on it tasted great. In the Middle-Eastern style, I loaded some of my fries into the sandwich, which only enhanced the thing. The fries were nicely seasoned and good on their own as well.

This was a great stop for a reasonably priced lunch. I’m glad I decided to pay them another visit and now I’m looking forward to taking advantage of their late hours.

Cigarette bread is a mysterious food that was first served to me at the Ban Ban Cave Restaurant in Cappadocia. Considering how many cigarettes Turkish people smoke everyday, I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone told me cigarette bread was just a new way they found to ingest tobacco. For all I knew, it could have been bread wrapped around an actual cigarette. I bit in with immense curiosity and found it to just a thin shell of bread, wrapped around ricotta cheese and fried. This is probably only slightly healthier than actual cigarettes. It quickly became one of my favorite dishes in Turkey.

Turkey also offered up some pretty good meatballs, but the chefs always found the need to garnish the plates with some sort of vegetable or salad. I could ignore this and assume something was lost in translation on the menu, but always felt bad about the poor, defenseless vegetables that had to die for my sake. The best meatballs I had were from Pasha Restaurant in Sulanahmet, Istanbul. I also had meatballs at the “Rug Collective” in Selcuk, which my wonderful guide took me to. This was quite an interesting situation. Not only was I served food, but was also given some great information on rugs and the chance to buy them at a pretty good price (scam?). There was no pressure to buy, however, and I found myself very contented with the meal I was digesting while viewing rugs. In general, though, I found a lot of dishes better than the Turkish meatballs.

Although Turkey has it’s own pizza-like dish in pide, they also make pizza the old-fashioned way. While waiting for a bus in Urgup, Cappadocia, someone recommended that we go to the Sukurogullari Pastanesi and told me the pizza was pretty good. Indeed, as I checked out the menu, it did look quite tasty. The menu said it came with pepperoni, onions, corn, two kinds of salami (TWO!) and red peppers. I was amazed that in a country thain which no one eats pork, they were able to not only make one kind of salami, but two, and then make pepperoni! I ordered mine without onions or red peppers. When it came, my jaw dropped in disgust. My pizza was speckled with olives, of the black and green variety. Why had someone let such awful earthly products destroy the joyful salami occasion? At least have the decency to warn me! My anger was of no avail, as my waiter spoke no English, and I was left to remove my olives on my own. The meats were pretty good, but did little to quell my olive-induced fury. That was the first and last pizza I would order in Turkey.

In the frozen wasteland of Cappadocia, the man running my cave hotel recommended a restaurant close by, called Orient. It was a short trek, but froth with difficulties like ice and snow. After a few slips and close brushes with icy death, I made it inside.

I checked out the menu, remembering that the guy at my cave had recommended the steak. After a short glance, I found the “Minute Steak.” The name wasn’t terribly specific and I wondered what it could possibly mean. Did it take a minute to cook? A minute to eat? Maybe it was minute in the sense of being small? Perhaps it was Turkey’s version of Minute Maid? My curiosity got the best of me and I ordered.

A minute went by. Then another minute. I guess my first question was a resounding NO. In fact it took almost 30 minutes to arrive and I quickly saw that it was neither minute in size, nor would it take a minute to eat. I cut in and started eating, it tasted meh. I finished half, then discovered that the second half was virtually unslice-able and almost twice as thick as the first half. Perhaps they had taken a minute to thaw the steak before beginning to cook it, resulting in the name. Either way, I was disappointed, but not nearly as disappointed as I was in the salad on my plate. For even though it was difficult to eat the steak, at least it was meat and not green.

For unexplained reasons, the restaurant ended up giving our table a free platter of fruit and free postcards showing what Cappadocia looks like in brighter, less wintery times.  These made me very happy, but not happy enough to forget the steak. Next time I’ll get some chicken.

Before I left for Turkey, a friend of mine told me I had to go to a restaurant called Doy Doy in Istanbul. Since he hadn’t been to Turkey in a couple years, I took him seriously. It’s not often that someone remembers the name of a restaurant they went to in a foreign country while traveling the world, even one with a name so memorable as Doy Doy.

I was told that I could find Doy Doy behind the Blue Mosque, which isn’t exactly a small building. In fact, it’s hard just to tell what the front of the mosque is, let alone the back. I encircled the building before I found a cobblestone street that I hoped would lead me to Doy Doy. I rounded a corner, and there in bright yellow stood a building with a sign reading Doy Doy. I finally made it, but would it live up to the expectations?

As I gazed at the menu, everything looked glorious. I had a hard time deciding what I wanted until I found the Doy Doy Mixed Plate, a smattering of just about everything meaty the chef could cook. I asked whether there were any vegetables and the waiter replied, “salad.” I asked for it without that nasty pile of greens, and soon enough the stack of meaty happiness arrived.

I set to work in unveiling the edible Jenga puzzle set in front of me. On top, I found two rolls of fresh-baked pita. As I lifted them up, I discovered two pieces of pide, one covered in a tasty minced meat and the other with cheese. Removing these revealed the beautiful underworld of the Doy Doy Mixed Plate. I saw lamb and beef meatballs, a chicken wing, seasoned rice, a single lamb chop, chicken and beef kebaps and a grand dollop of yogurt. The beauty was only slightly tarnished when I glanced at a couple of grilled tomatoes and rapidly removed them from the plate.

I quickly went to work on food, mixing and matching different meats with pita, pide, yogurt and rice. The end result was a stomach filled to the brim and a great smile on my face that made me forget completely about the dastardly tomatoes that had once squatted on my plate. If you ever find yourself in Istanbul, Doy Doy is a must. The price is great (about $10) and the food will not let you down.

Spelling, though, is not the only difference in perception of kebabs that I have with Turkey. I have also always been under the impression that kebaps are pretty much just foods grilled on sticks. Again, Turkey proved me wrong…twice!

The first strange kebap I had was the “Pottery Kebap.” This was in the Uranus Cave Restaurant in Cappadocia, which was a stop on my guided tour. Before delving into this mysterious kebap, I’d like to go off on an unvegan tangent. Anyone who says it’s difficult to travel as a vegetarian is a bold-faced liar. In all my traveling, on all the tours I’ve been on, the guide always makes sure to ask if anyone is a vegetarian. This was no different in Turkey. Before arriving at the cave, my guide asked about vegetarians, but made no effort to accommodate unvegans. As such, I was stuck praying that the meal I was about to get would be fit for an unvegan such as myself.

When we got in the cave, the guide began to explain the Pottery Kebap. It is essentially a large pot that is sealed and put into an oven for an extended period of time. Essentially, it’s a Turkish crock pot. When they popped open the pot, I was delighted to find that there was meat involved. Unfortunately, there were also scores of unidentified green objects (UGOs). The meat itself was beef and quite good, if not a little bland. Unfortunately, the meat was outnumbered by the UGOs, leaving me with little to eat beyond a few pieces of meat, rice and bread.

The next interesting kebap I experienced was in Sultanahmet in Istanbul. A place named Backpackers was recommended to me, so I figured I would check it out. What I found was a cozy little restaurant with Ottoman-style floor seating, which catered to tourists. No problem for me, as long as it was good. I found it funny that on the main menu they were called Backpackers, but on the drink menu, it said “Backbeackers.” What an interesting little typo…They didn’t just simply mistake P for B, but they also stuck an E in there, although I suppose it’s better than the other options, “Backpeckers” and “Backbackers.”

Anyway, after perusing the menu, I found the Iskender Kebap, which is lamb, yogurt, tomato sauce and pita, all in one. When it came, I found that all the goodness of the listed ingredients had been bookended by two green peppers. I quickly did away with these and started consuming the meat that was slowly drowning in a sea of yogurt. The mix of flavors was quite interesting and difficult to explain, except to say that it was pretty good. Backbeackers didn’t let me down, although I wonder how much better it would have been if I were off the tourist track…

Eating something called Turkish Pizza really seems like a misnomer to me. I’m not sure if it is Turkey’s take on pizza, or perhaps they found that calling it Turkish Pizza makes it more approachable for visitors who may not have ever heard of “pide”. Either way, my first pide looked nothing at all like pizza. I got it at the Karadeniz Aile Pide & Kebap Sofrasi in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul. It was called the pide with spicy meat pieces and the waiter told me the meat was beef. When it came, it looked more like a calzone than a pizza, and true to it’s word, it was full of meat pieces. The pieces, however, were not spicy, as I think they meant to write “spiced meat pieces.” Regardless, it was delicious and made me want more.

My next Pide came in the Taksim area of Istanbul. Looking to add more variety to my pide, I went with the mix pide. Sadly, the waiter couldn’t understand English too well, so I took a vegetable chance. My chance only partly paid off. I got the variety I wanted, but at a cost. One third of my pide was covered with tiny little tomatoes and red and green peppers. After ten minutes of furious veggie-picking, I managed to clear off as many of the little horrors as I could. Fortunately, the mix pide sanctioned off each section so that only part of it was tainted. The other two sections were mostly clean. One had some sort of a minced mystery meat while the other had cheese and Turkey’s version of pepperoni (which most certainly was not made of pork). In the end, the mix pide was good, but not worth the effort that went into devegetating it.

My last pide was also at a restaurant in Sultanahmet. I have to give this restaurant props because my friends were able to

convince the place to give me a free beer, but I am sad to say that I cannot recall the name of the restaurant. Suffice to say, if you go to a restaurant in Sultanahmet and tell them that another restaurant promised you a free beer, you have a good chance of getting it. I settled down and found a pide offering I had never seen before, with chicken and cheese! But also with mushrooms…ewww. Being back in tourist-land, I asked for it without mushrooms and hoped that the poor Turkish man understood me. As luck would have it, he had managed to filter through my poor English and ensured that my pide came mushroom-free. I delightfully ate my last pide and washed it down with my free beer.

I found the pide to be a great dish that one should not leave Turkey without trying at least once. It’s quite dissimilar to an actual pizza and can be easily adapted to the needs of an unvegan.

I was craving shwarma. It was late and it was freezing, so my options were limited to food within walking distance. Once again, I found myself in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and needed to find food fast. As luck would have it, I was directed to Cousin’s, a Turkish restaurant.

Cousin’s has the general ambiance of a typical Turkish or Middle-Eastern restaurant, with pictures of Turkey, arts, urns and hookahs on the wall. As a bonus, it also has some floor seating, which I can only assume is the traditional way to eat in Turkey.

I arrived too late for floor seating, but settled down at a nice enough table. To my dismay, the menu lacked shwarma, but it tried to make up for it by offering a variety of meaty delights. The Chicken Doner looked particularly good, so I ordered it, making sure to ask the waiter if there were any vegetables mixed in with the meat. Fortunately, he told me the only vegetables were on the side.

While waiting, I noticed that Cousin’s had won an award for “Best Non-Vegetarian Restaurant for Vegetarians.” This worried me greatly. If their non-meat food was so good, could they possibly have good meat food?

As I pondered the possible dangers of where I was eating, my chicken doner came. It looked pretty, but how would it taste? I took a forkful of meat and rice, chewed it up and swallowed. Yum. It was good. Really good. It was perfectly seasoned and charbroiled. The tasty chicken juiced even dripped down to the bed of rice pilaf and enhanced it. I even began to forget about the lack of shwarma and the strange award the restaurant had won. I felt bad for the vegetables that remained untouched on the plate in the wake of my meat-eating frenzy, but they had made a worthy sacrifice for a real meal.

If you’re ever hankering for a good veggie-free Middle-Eastern meal in Chicago, Cousin’s is a great bet. If you happen to have vegetarian friends (not sure why you would), they can enjoy it just as much as a good, wholesome meat-eater.