Ankara

Celebrating Turkish dining in Colombo!   

Anakara is an upscale (prices) – casual dining venture that opened up last December. We’ve heard that the interior and the food is one of a kind and were quite eager to try it out. Anakara boasts about being true to authentic Turkish flavour and exhibiting a true work of art on a plate. To be completely honest, we loved the interior and the wall murals, but we didn’t share the same thoughts when it came to their food.

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Drinks

Lime and Soda – Rs. 350

The Lime and Soda was a great refresher after a tiring Monday. We particularly enjoyed the fact that the lime was not too overpowering.

Appetizers

Hummus – Rs. 595

For those of you who haven’t tried Hummus, it’s a chick pea paste mixed with sesame oil and served with Turkish bread. We really liked the Hummus, they got the taste and the consistency of a classic humus right.

Baba Ghanoush | Patilican Salatasi – Rs. 595

It was the first time I’ve tried Baba Ghanoush, and I found the ingredients very interesting. It’s a paste made of Char Grilled eggplant, parsley and coloured capsicum and garnished with pomegranate. It was a little bitter in terms of taste, because of the taste of the eggplant.

Both pastes were served in one plate with a side of two types of bread.

Mains

Chicken Kebab | Tavuk Sis Kebab– Rs. 1250

This is a char grilled chicken marinated with Turkish spices and served with rice or a salad. So I’ve heard that their portions are massive and usually sharing portions, but this dish nor the Grilled Prawn Kebab was sharing size. Hence the conclusion that Ankara is a little pricier than other casual dining venues. The Chicken Kebab dish was our favourite, the spices had been absorbed by the chicken and it tasted close to something like Tandoori Chicken. It came with two types of onion salad too, and was accompanied with pita bread.

Char Grilled Prawn Kebab | Izgara Karides – Rs. 1650

Is it really worth paying Rs. 1650 for 8 prawns? The good thing about this dish was the side of rice that accompanied it. It tasted very close to an Indian Biriyani, just a little bit more flavourful. Both kebabs were accompanied with a raita that indifferently left a hint of spiciness in your palette towards the end. They also served us a vegetable curry/broth that doubled up for both kebab dishes.

Turkish Lamb Pilau | Kuzulu Pilau – Rs. 995 

This was also the first time that I had tried Pilau rice. I had high hopes for it but wasn’t too satisfied with the end result. It was flavourful, but I felt like it the spices were overpowering the dish. The little quantity of boneless lamb was carelessly tossed around. In terms of plating, this dish gave me an eye sore. For LKR 995, I’d expect much better!

We really do have a bigger complaint to make in terms of their service and efficiency. They took so long to bring us the two kebabs, and although we had ordered 3 mains, they brought in the Pilau rice a while after we were done with the kebabs. The team at the restaurant was apologising profusely, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that they took over an hour to serve us the rice!

The place wasn’t very hygienic either, they really need to do a better job cleaning up.

Have you been to Ankara yet? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below! Is there anything we’ve missed?

Tip: They’ve got this Mixed Kebab Platter for Rs. 6950 that they claim is enough for 4 people. The table next to ours ordered this, and we can vouch for the quantity and the fact that this was actually the most profitable on the menu!