Turkuaz Grill in Riverhead
Turkuaz Grill, located in Riverhead, serves Turkish and Mediterranean cuisine. Turkuaz is next door to the aquarium and and has tables that face the Peconic Riverfront. (June 15, 2011) Credit: Randee Daddona
As late summer mellows into early fall, the outdoor tables on the porch of Turkuaz Grill seem all the more ideal for lingering over dips and kebabs within view of the Peconic River. And even if you're forced indoors, there's much to recommend this airily pretty little place owned by sisters Deniz Gulsen and Demet Bozatli.
TURKISH HITS
Vibrancy underscores the shepherd's salad, a toss of bright tomatoes, cucumbers and aromatics in a sunny lemon-olive oil dressing. Here meze (small plates) rule. A superstar is acli ezme, minced vegetables and walnuts and fiery hot spices. Patlican salatasi (smoked eggplant salad) is complex and smoky. There's sparkle in the cackik, house-made yogurt with chopped cucumber, garlic and mint. Other winners: a seductive white bean salad and mellow, olive oil-drizzled hummus. Also worth a try: vegetable-studded green lentil salad. Fluffy house-made bread accompanies all.
Pide, pillowy and savory, gives pizza a run for its money -- especially when topped with the Turkish version of pepperoni. And lachmacun, a matzo-crisp baked disc, is topped with a thin layer of ground beef, tomatoes, multicolor peppers and onions. Really good stuff.
Here, the gyro is made in house. Marinated lamb is stacked on a skewer, spit-roasted and sliced off. Fine on a sandwich or, alternatively, as Iskender kebab -- over bread and topped with tomato sauce, yogurt and hot butter sauce.
From the roster of kebabs, a surprise hit is boneless white-meat chicken, which comes up juicy and full of flavor. Adana and beyti kebab -- different takes on ground spiced skewered lamb -- work well, too.
Happiest of endings: creamy sutlac (rice pudding), baklava or kadayif.
TURKISH MISSES
Chicken chops -- a favorite -- are on the menu but not to be had. An order for lamb chops, requested medium-rare, produces, instead, lamb shish kebab, cooked to a near-cinder. When I finally get the lamb chops, they're nicely seasoned but paper-thin.
Service is solicitous one time, erratic another.
BOTTOM LINE
The restaurant, hidden from street view, may not be easy to find but is surely worth seeking out.
