Dan's Papers -March 27, 2009

Over the past few years, Riverhead has become a town where you can find a wide variety of ethnic and specialty restaurants. Fish, Italian, Polish, French, American, Greek restaurants are all available in the short distance from Tanger Mall to the Aquarium and now comes Hizir Baba to bring the authentic taste of Turkish cooking.

The restaurant is best found by using the alley just west of the Aquarium that leads into the public car park south of Main Street.

The restaurant is only a few months old and the decor is still basic with paper plates and plastic cutlery. The food though, is anything but basic, showcasing the best of Turkish cuisine.

Being situated between Europe and Asia and being on the trade and silk routes for so many centuries, Turkish food has taken something from many countries. The result is a cuisine that emphasizes simple fresh food cooked with olive oil and herbs and spices that bring out the intrinsic tastes of the ingredients and never swamps them. There are no dominant flavors but taste is of the essence and simple foods are often prepared in many different ways, for example there are said to be well over forty ways to prepare eggplant.

Scott and Umit are co-owners and their chef Metin has cooked in Germany and Israel before coming here. Apart from his cooking skills he hails from the Turkish town of Adana on the Mediterranean coast where the Adana kebab was born.

We started with a plate of assorted mezes, (appetizers), which included bulgur wheat salad, eggplant with fresh tomato sauce, pureed roasted eggplant, stuffed grape leaves, and hummus. They also bake all their own bread and pitas and the bread, dips and spreads were a perfect way to start our meal. We then enjoyed both the visual presentation and the tastes of the shepherd's salad, full of bright colors and rich tastes from the crisp lettuce, the full tasting tomatoes and onions and cucumbers all tossed in a light vinaigrette dressing.

After this we tasted the red lentil soup, one of our all time favorites, and this was a very good soup that had excellent balance in the seasoning. If it had been slightly thicker from the lentils it would have been even better.

As I mentioned earlier, Adana is regarded as the home of the kebab and Metin carefully marinades all the meats and also makes his own gyros.

The latter were a true revelation with meat unlike any we had tasted before in gyros. It was very fresh pieces of perfectly seasoned and cooked meat. The kebab meat, both lamb and chicken were also incredibly juicy and tender.

For dessert we had to find some room to taste the baklava, a classic that many authorities claim was first developed in its present form in the kitchens of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. This was one of the best.

The restaurant does not yet have a liquor license so it is BYO. They are open seven days a week from 7 a.m. till 10 p.m. and plan to stay open later in the summer season. Outside tables will also be available then.

Prices are extremely reasonable with appetizers ranging from $3.95 to $9.95 for the mezes assortment. Small salads are $5.95 and large $8.95. Soup is $3.50. Main course are from $9.95 to $12.95 and include bulgur or rice and the homemade bread.

Many of you reading this will know how important 'honest' food is to us. If you had to define 'honest' in the culinary sense you could probably do no better than to look here at this very new, still evolving restaurant without any pretensions, but where you can sense that all involved, especially the chef, are working hard to produce authentic Turkish food using good fresh ingredients. I hope that they never compromise on the food they have started out with. The prices are great, but more importantly we hope that you will come away as we did with lovely soft, spicy, herby tastes lingering on your palates.