New Zealand Herald

Reviews for Turkish Cuisine

by Satish P.
21st January 2013

Disguted! Was there on a Sunday evening, and one of the guys was sweeping up and one guy was behind the counter. The guy behind the counter took my order and started preparing the lamb on the grill.

Few moments later more customers had arrived and the guy preparing my kebab started taking their order. So the guy who was still sweeping put the broom to one side and started putting the salad in the kebab, he was using tongs which was ok I guess but when he came to wrap the kebab in foil he used his bare hands and no gloves, I was shocked! When I confronted him about it he was adament that he had washed his hands before touching the kebab.

I left it at that as I didn’t want to create a big scene. I took the kebab and left and dropped the kebab at the doorstep.

by EvanaDiva
7th January 2013

We had a deal voucher. Wished I had not bothered to even step foot in the place. But had told my boys and husband we were going to have an adventure.
Service was extremely poor. Waited 15 minutes before we had a stained menu to look at. Took 30 more minutes to receive our starters. Wasted 2 hours of my afternoon there. Dessert was sad to look at and we never got our Turkish Apple tea.
To say it was worth $170 is delusional.

by Glenn P.
7th January 2013

Terrible.

We tried to make a booking for a Wednesday night and were told it was fully booked. We got one for another night and I find it extremely unlikely that the place would ever be fully booked given it’s style. And, after all that, they didn’t have our booking when we arrived !!! We were grumpily offered a table and given stained menus on a glossy A4 piece of paper.

The place is basically a take-away with the food pre-cooked and prepared, and doubles as a mini-mart with jams and pickles for sale. It has NO licence and calling itself a restaurant is being liberal with the truth !!! Powerade is one of the menu’s drink offerings !!! There did not appear to be any fresh juice available.

The menu’s food choice was minimal and given the unappealing decor, ambiance, the rude ‘welcome’, and sad looking salad in the display cabinet, we left before risking the food itself.

We had a voucher and we will be contacting the voucher company regarding our experience and we have learned a valuable lesson from this. Buyer beware when purchasing vouchers !!!

by Ella Z.
4th January 2013

Absolutely appalling service! I will never go back to this place. The food was very average, the kebabs were dry and it took over an hour to make. I was so sick of waiting so asked for a takeaway but no, this didn’t speed up the service.
Terrible service, tasteless food. Don’t waste your time going there, there are plenty of nice places to go to.

by Rob M.
1st January 2013

Worst service I have ever experienced in a restaurant… The woman was discourteous to not only myself but everyone else in the place, 2 kebabs took over half an hour to make (how can this be? Surely they have all the ingredients readily available?) and the quality was average to say the least.

This place needs to rethink how important a customer is to their business … Bad, bad, bad.

by Misbah
8th December 2012

Terrible isn’t enough to describe our experience.
Was definitely not worth the money and reading the other reviews there seems to be a trend in the common failures.
When we arrived the guy was practically yelling at us for not having a booking when the voucher said to walk-in and no reservations required. So whilst there were 3 empty tables inside we were made to sit outside in the chilly evening. Service was horrible the whole time!
As for the food- each course took at least half an hour to arrive and no it was not a 5 course meal unless you can’t do basic math! the quality advertised was no where near what we were served, the meal was dry and bland and simply not worth the wait or money
Baklava was the worst I’ve had in any kebab store, with some very bad quality ice-cream.
Waste of time and money- not recommend at all!

by Matt T.
7th December 2012

We used a voucher..
Food and the guy serving us was amazing!
The food portion was perfect and delicious..
The first time I tasted baklava with ice cream..
yummmy…The mains were exotic and fresh..
I like the dressing..we were seated on the corner with cushions..
We were four friends and each time we took a bite,
We just couldnt stop but be feeling contented and happy
And highly satisfied… I shall recommend this to all my friends…
Will come back again..

by Margaret
19th November 2012

We used the deal voucher and the food was so yummy, value for money. We could not finish one of the mains and we were allowed to dogey bag. The baklava was so delicious. We definitely will go back again.

by Georgia A.
15th November 2012

We used the deal voucher. I think the food for this voucher is not the same when you order from menu. It was misleading as the voucher had a photo of the kebab. But it was not available. However I saw other customers order the kebabs which looked great. We had to wait almost an hour for our mains, we should have ordered as soon as we were seated. The entree was average with bread but the hummus was good. The portions were big but lacked flavour. The icecream and baklava was basic. It was good value for money and the service was good even though they were busy. I think the purpose of a voucher is to get you to come back. So they should have made portions smaller but not compromised on quality. Not sure if we will revisit.

by Lyaysan S.
12th November 2012

We came here to try food and ordered mixed wrap kebab and shish kebab. As I am not a fan of rice I asked to have fries instead. But my order came with rice. When I pointed that out the guy apologised and brought me a huge bowl of fries and didn’t charge for that. The portion of mixed kebab itself was huge and yum. The only reason for rating 4 * out of 5* is waiting time. It took 20 min to get the food. Will come here again.

by vega83
12th November 2012

I love kebabs but not at Turkish Cuisine, the meat was burnt and dry. As the Donner machine was turned off they heated old meat on the grill but burned it terribly. I barely ate half of the portion to not to starve. My kids also love kebabs but after just a small piece they refused to eat any.
I was expected great food but left disappointed. My friend ordered some kofta and it was tasteless and burned as well. We also tried some baklava and it wasn’t too good as well and didn’t look like the one on photos- no lovely pistachio on the top at all (and walnuts inside).
Sorry guys but I am going back to my old kebab shop.

by Branka B.
12th November 2012

We purchased a deal voucher and went there yesterday. Voucher is misleading and it is actually 4 course meal (not 5 as was advertised). Entree was average – few pieces of bread with dips. Main was ok but I found everything under seasoned. Even was advertised lamb wasn’t available. Vouches states 3 mains to be shared between 2 people – it wasn’t any sharing. Each of us get 1 main.The worst was baklava – I couldn’t even call it baklava. It was just extremely dry filo pastry (looks like from the supermarket) with very basic ice-cream which must be also from the supermarket. Baklava had a strange taste and it seems prepared few days ago as was no sugary syrup. All the time music was so loud that we couldn’t have any conversation. The only really good thing was a Turkish coffee served in a beautiful cups but all in all not worth money we paid for.

by Rachel S.
8th June 2012

We went here with a voucher deal and really enjoyed our night. The place is low key – more like takeaway style – but decent and clean and tidy. The food was amazing!! So good and huge portions for meals dine-in. Everything was fantastic including the baklava which I’m not normally a fan of. We even got to try a Shisha for the first time which was super fun! Fantastic Turkish experience.

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