Last night, Bill and I met a couple of friends at Mediterranean Turkish Grill.  We happened to spot the restaurant’s location on Sunday, when we went to The Cheesecake Factory.  The Mediterranean Turkish Grill is in a strip mall right next to North Star Mall in San Antonio.  Our friends had eaten there before and had a Groupon, so we met them there.  We each brought bottles of wine, since the restaurant has no liquor license.  In Texas, you can bring your own wine to places that don’t serve alcohol.

I was kind of excited about the prospect of Turkish food, since I spent two years living in Armenia and while I was there, had the chance to go to Turkey for a couple of weeks.  Turkey is one of the neatest places to visit, even though I went with a female friend and we both got harassed a lot.  What can I say?  We were young, female, and from the West, and some of the men thought we were whores.  Aside from that, we had a great time.  It was a trip in which we really roughed it.

So we went into the restaurant and it looked like a quaint, unassuming place with plain tables and modest Turkish decor and Turkish pop played from the kitchen.  A very handsome young man, obviously a member of the family who owned the place, handed us menus.  There was lots of lamb, beef, and chicken on the menu.  No pork, obviously!  They brought out wonderful, fresh, hot bread, which we garnished with flavored oil… it tasted like garlic.

We ordered hummus and eggplant salad.  The waiter also brought out babaganoush, which is an eggplant dip.

I went vegetarian with falafel…  The falafel was very good and I had plenty leftover for today.

Bill had lamb kebab…

Our friends both had the same dish… which I can’t remember the name of just now.  They’d had it before and said it was outstanding.

I think we’ll be back. This place had a lot of character and charm and the food was very good.  I like to support restaurants that aren’t a part of chains.

The restaurant was pretty quiet last night.  There were only a couple of other parties in the place when we were in there.  One party appeared to be from Turkey.  I heard them speaking Turkish.

It was fun seeing our friends again.  I need more nights like last night to help me get into the Texas lifestyle.  Our friends had also seen the Book of Mormon Musical at the Majestic Theatre before we went and they loved it as much as we did.