Ottoman Taverna, Chef Ilhan Erkek's Turkish in a Charming Dining Room at 4th and I Street NW - Mount Vernon Triangle

[Rieux]

Um, I think I just started a thread!

Inspired by Sietsema's first bite article last week, friends called us and asked us to join them for an early dinner on Saturday at the new Ottoman Taverna.  We had all traveled to Turkey on various trips (separately) so we were psyched to get some good Turkish food.

TL:DR - Really good food, really average service, decent price (for DC), Michelle Obama sighting. Details follow:

We were only able to get a 5:30 reservation so we decided to get there, have drinks, then order mezze, then wait, then eat mains, and proceed on.  That was a good strategy.  The room is gorgeous - really really nice with interesting decor.  The hostesses were a little flaky (trying to give us someone else's table even though the last name on the reservation was a simple as could be) but nice, and we were seated.  As soon as we sat we realized that something was going on -- Secret Service were swarming the place and started wanding all the people coming in just after us.  The waiter told us Michelle Obama was there, in the private room (which we had guessed) hosting a party.  (Coincidentally this is the second time in a year that I have been at dinner when Michelle shows up -- last time was Rose's Luxury).  The Michelle situation may have been the reason for all the weird service. For more on Michelle, see this: 

"Michelle Obama Dines at Ottoman Taverna" by Anna Spiegel on washingtonian.com

I'll get the service out of the way. Our waiter (not Turkish, Latino, which only matters because he didn't know much about the food and was hard to understand) was a bit amateurish.  Knocking into glasses, not really knowing the cuisine, not able to answer many questions, and just a bit bumbling.  I think the service (at the prices they charge) needs to be much more polished.  That's all I'll say.  

The food, however, was great.  We started with 4 mezze - a cold chicken salad, Imam bayidli (cold eggplant with tomatoes), kofte kabob, and something else I can't remember (but was the best of the bunch.)  The chicken and kofte were well spiced and moist.  My Imam bayildi was just OK.  It was the weak link.  I love this dish at Zaytina and think theirs is better.

For mains I had the Iskender Kabob, which was shaved lamb and beef over cubed fluffy pita with spicy sauce.  It was the best dish on the table and I LOVED it.  Two others had the Manti (small pasta filled with meat in a cream sauce) and it was good (if a small portion) and authentic.  My other friend had some sort of kebab I can't recall.

Desserts were Turkish coffee and some really nice baklava with walnut ice cream.  

Drinks-wise I had a gin and ginger cocktail that was out of this world refreshing and good (with beach plum gin) and we split a bottle of Turkish red wine (I didn't choose it, so don't remember what it was).  For 4 of us with 4 cocktails, a bottle of wine and a glass, 4 mezze, 4 mains, 4 desserts, and 3 coffees the bill was about $350, which was not cheap, but seems to be the norm in this town these days.

I'll be back.

Funny moment (I was talking about artificial insemination during dinner and turned my head and happened to say "sperm" really loudly just as an older couple walked by.  The husband was in a non-ironic Donald Trump hat.  They kind of looked at me and continued on.  They sat a bit far down from us.  Later in the meal, when their server told them that Michelle was in the house the woman loudly exclaimed "Oh GOD!" and they left shortly thereafter.  I guess you really can't escape politics in this town.  And, Trump lady, I am sorry I seemingly shouted "sperm!" at you.)

[washingtony]

I wish I had as good of an experience as Rieux--I love Turkish food and was really hoping for this restaurant to be better than nearby Alba and L'Hommage.  It's not.    

First, the service.  We were seated in the main part of the dining room but we rarely saw our waiter, making it nearly impossible to get his attention.  Turns out that he may also have been the bartender and was trying to cover the bar and our table (which again, wasn't in the bar area).  Times like this highlights the GAR team approach to service.  

My wife had the chicken kebabs (tavuk sis).  She cut in and the middle was uncooked.  (I don't mean pink hued, I mean jiggly raw.)  We sat there for five minutes, never seeing our waiter, so we finally flagged down another employee, who looked at it and said, "Oh, this is fine, but you must want it well done."  Ah, yes, how silly of her to not indicate her preferred wellness for chicken! (Preference: no salmonella)  He took the plate to the bar and discussed it with our waiter and came back in about ten minutes with the plate reheated in the oven.  The chicken was cooked, but the rice was like substandard rice-a-roni.  Not a great dish nor great response from the staff.

I got the artichoke hearts with peas and carrots meze (zeytinyagli enginar).  It was so wan and depressing.  But that wasn't surprising after one bite strongly suggested that the dish used canned peas.  I'll take mushy sad green peas in an English pub, but here it was just disappointing. 

Bright point of the night was the the labneh with walnuts and dill (haydari).  (The thing is, I love all labneh, so I'm easy to please.)  It was placed on the table, though, with just a spoon and no accompanying bread.  It took more than five minutes for us to get bread to go with it, all the while wondering whether they just wanted us to glob spoonfuls of it on to the plate and eat it with a fork.

We cut our losses short by skipping coffee and dessert, paid, and Midnight Expressed ourselves out of there.  It's going to take some mighty big changes for us to return when we could just go to Zaytinya or even Lebanese Taverna instead.

 

 

[Rieux]

Maybe they had a rare "on" night when I was there because Michelle O was in the house. 

[MattCraft]

On 6/12/2016 at 10:30 AM, washingtony said:

First, the service.  We were seated in the main part of the dining room but we rarely saw our waiter, making it nearly impossible to get his attention.  Turns out that he may also have been the bartender and was trying to cover the bar and our table (which again, wasn't in the bar area).  Times like this highlights the GAR team approach to service.  

This also happened to us on our visit a couple of weeks ago. I thought they were just short staffed that night, but seems this may be the case regularly. We didn't have nearly as many issues as you did, but it was annoying to flag him down for drink refills, etc.

We'll be back because we live across the street from it, but I was underwhelmed by my doner kebab. I've had better at Doner Bistro for half the price. The cold mezze was outstanding, though, so I could see myself posting up at the bar for a platter and some beers regularly.

[DaveO]

Something weird and repeated.  Of the 3 fairly recently opened restaurants by the owner,   Hakan Ilhan, they have all received some horrific initial reviews for service.  

[MichaelBDC]

Also weird and repeated: the food is good enough to get some positive publicity, mostly via the "First Bite" blurb from Tom Sietsema in the Washington Post. Once the ink dries, the quality of the food and service start going downhill. The owner isn't the first person in the restaurant industry to play this game. 

[KeithA]

Anyone been to this place more recently? I'm thinking of taking a large group from work there for dinner - thoughts?

[mr food]

Dined there recently, excellent food and terrific service (the kind you don't get in DC that often). I think this would be a great choice for a group.

[Rieux]

A friend had a rehearsal dinner there in Sept, they handled our group well. 

[smithhemb]

Anybody been recently?