Sofra Turkish Cafe & Restaurant – A Slice of Turkey? Coming Right Up!

Veron Ang — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:21:24 +0000

So I was in the mood for some exotic food just the other day. Something Middle Eastern. That’s pretty exotic, right? Sofra Turkish Café & Restaurant swiftly comes to mind. I have been seeing that place through its glass-clad exterior for years and figured, why not?

Here’s the thing: I wouldn’t know authentic Turkish cuisine if it bit me in the you-know-where. Here’s the other thing: You don’t have to know much to dig the food. That is the attitude I carry to every restaurant I visit.

I really like the ambience of this place. Roomy, ample seats, large, almost full-length windows that offer a view of the surrounding Beach Road area. It is elegant and chic enough for a romantic date, yet homely enough for casual dining.

If you like meat, you will feel quite at home over here. The mixed grill combo is great for those that love their meat but can’t quite decide what to get.

Jumbo Kebap Combo
S$34.50++
Rating:

The meat is served to you on skewers hot off the grill. When it arrives, our jaws drop. Sword, candle, flowers, all the works. It certainly has that wow factor doesn’t it?

This Jumbo combo comes with various kinds of kebab, or kebap in Turkish, including shish and döner. While the menu advertises this as being a platter for two, the generous portion makes it large enough to feed three adults.

Tasting a little smoky from the grill, the meats include lamb, chicken and beef that are minced, sliced or cut in chunks, all of them succulent and flavourful.

Turkey, which literally holds the bridge between East and West, offers one of the most colourful and exotic cuisines in the world. Digging in, I notice some Greek and Lebanese influences.

Döner kebab is meat that is slowly roasted, then sliced off from a vertical rotating spit.

Almost too much food!

The salad comes in little “bowls” that are beautifully crafted from onions. Notice that the food sits on top of a bed of warm, fluffy pide bread.

Sofra Kebap
S$15.50++
Rating:

Well, we have no inkling that the Jumbo combo would really be that, well, jumbo-sized, and have already ordered a side of the Sofra kebap. This is basically sesame-adorned bread filled with meat, walnut, eggplant, tomato and cheese. You have a choice between mixed beef and lamb or chicken.

The whole myriad of sweet, salty and peppery flavours tastes so good that I wolf it down in seconds!

Even while we are feeling as stuffed as a turkey at Thanksgiving, we can’t resist having a small dessert at the end. After all, it’s not everyday that you get to dine at a nice Mediterranean restaurant in Singapore that serves authentic Turkish food (not that I have been to Turkey myself).

Their dessert menu offers a few options. Frankly, we have no idea what Baklava is while the Turkish rice pudding makes me feel full just by thinking it. So we pick the chocolate pudding with marshmallows because that seems the most appealing on paper.

Turkish chocolate pudding
S$4.70++
Rating:

And it really is! The chocolate is rich enough to satisfy yet not so thick and sweet that it gets tiresome. Plus, the bits of marshmallow adds a bit of fun!

Oh, we would have gone for that Turkish coffee, too, but we’ve really had too much. Perhaps someone would let me know if it’s good?

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Sofra Turkish Café & Restaurant ( )
Shaw Tower
100 Beach Road #02-42/43/44
Shaw Leisure Gallery
Singapore 189702
Tel: +65 6291 1433 | Website | Menu
Service:

Bus services: 100, 107, 57, 961
Nearest MRT: Bugis

Opening hours: 12noon – 2:30pm, 6 – 9:30pm daily

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Kebab Station – Turkish Fast Food

Veron Ang — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:16:40 +0000

Over the past weekend we had a little picnic (with wine!) at East Coast Park. Following a hectic week, an idyllic day at the beach really helps one relax. Maybe you can try it this weekend!

Anyway since we were too lazy to bring any food, dinner was at one of the many eateries at the park. First we checked out Big Splash. No interesting restaurants there, although we did find out that Mingles (which I’ve reviewed previously) had closed down, while the café next door was enjoying a thriving business.

We scoured the pub area for more dining options before finally settling for Kebab Station. It stood out from the sea of restaurants with its unusual offering — exotic Turkish cuisine!

Chicken Shish
S$10
Rating:

You can choose between chicken, lamb and beef for the kebab dishes. These are served in a variety of tantalising ways such as rolls, shish, baked rice and even pizza.

Fresh off the grill is our chicken shish kebab, an extremely colourful dish. The meat is perfectly seasoned, with flavours that still remain even when you get to the centre of the chunky breast meat. It also carries that smoky taste from the grill.

The kebab portion is quite substantial, and is accompanied by rice and pieces of warm pita bread. The greens, peppers, tomatoes and sauces on the side also provide a welcome reprieve from the meat. And colours, too!

Gravy Kofte chicken
S$12
Rating:

For our second dish, we were deciding between the gravy musakka or gravy kofte. In the end we opted for the latter, which is a tomato-based gravy that sounds more appealing than the eggplant-based musakka.

Served piping hot from the oven, the gravy kofte chicken is baked in a thick tomato cream sauce, with cheese too. Unlike the shish kebab, this one comes with a very teeny portion of meat. Instead, it comes with a whole lot of this:

Lots and lots of vegetables and shrooms! $12 is a hefty sum to pay for a dish that is more vegetable than anything else, don’t you think?

Well, for a place that brands itself as a fast-food eatery, the prices certainly don’t fit into the fast-food range. I guess in this case you are really paying for the experience of enjoying an unusual cuisine. There aren’t exactly many Turkish restaurants in Singapore. Even Turkuaz at holland village has closed down.

At Kebab Station, the food is prepared by Turkish chefs in an open-concept kitchen. The outlet is pretty small and cramped, so it does feel quite stuffy, especially in the sweltering month of June. In other words, this isn’t the kind of place where you would enjoy a long conversation with friends over a cold ayran or hot Turkish coffee.

But hey, with the beach just a stone’s throw away, does it really matter?

Kebab Station
Tel: +65 6243 0171 | Website

Opening hours: 11am – 10:30pm daily

East Coast Park outlet

East Coast Park
1000 East Coast Parkway
Block B, Unit 3 Marine Cove
Singapore 449876

Parkway Parade outlet

Parkway Parade
80 Marine Parade Road #01-K11
Singapore 449269

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