Turkish cuisine @ Istanbul Café at Pavilion, KL

We seldom have chance to try the turkey cuisine, so it’s a unique dining experience for us in this KL trip. We found exotic offerings of the well-renowned Turkish cuisine at this Istanbul café, Pavilion Kuala Lumpur.

The cafe is in open space and rather empty, with only a few tables, seats and sofa, the ambience is relax and comfortable; but as soon as we walked into the cafe we felt lost. We don’t know what to order as the menu didn’t show the picture. Luckily, the waitress was great – very helpful and willing to describe the products and pricing in detail. She showed us the sample of some popular dishes, and we pinpointed to ordering, isn’t it interesting?

The Imam’s Favourite – Imam Bayildi (literally, "the imam fainted"), RM19.90

One of the most notable Turkish olive oil dishes, braised eggplant stuffed with onion, garlic and tomatoes. The name is supposedly derives from a tale, a Turkish - Imam, who fainted at the cost of the ingredients or the amount of oil used to cook it.  As we were not Imam, we didn’t fainted when the dishes presented, hahahah, but anyway, it tastes good.

Shepherd Salad – Coban Salata, RM19.90

Salad with chopped tomatoes, spring onions, cucumber, parsley, oregano, black olive, lemon juice & virgin olive oil, hmm… what a refreshing dishes!

Acili Antep Ezme – Hot Antep Dip, RM12.90

Antep style spicy tomatoes dip with pomegranates

Chick Pea Dip – Humus, RM19.90

Mashed chick pea toasted with tahina, garlic and served with Turkish mixed herbs oil together with chopped parsley.

Lavas Bread, RM9.90

All the dips taste good with lavas bread.

Turkish Traditional Dessert with walnut – Baklava RM19.90

Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of phyllo pastry filled with chopped walnut and pistachio sweetened with sugar syrup. Oh, it is sooo sweet, and goes well with the bitter coffee.

Kunefe, RM24.90

Kunefe is a Arabic sweet made of very fine vermicelli -like pastry, came with cream cheese with pistachio and milk cream. This is a chef recommendation dessert, worth to try :)

Turkish coffee, RM9.90

Since we are having Turkish cuisine, how can we miss out the Turkish coffee? It goes well with the Turkish desserts (as the dessert is too sweet). Turkish coffee is coffee prepared by boiling finely powdered roast coffee beans in a pot, possibly with sugar, and serving it into a cup. As all of the coffee in the pot is poured into cups, but not all of it is drunk, a thick layer of sludgy grounds will be left behind at the bottom of the cup.  Share with you the tale behind the Turkish coffee, the grounds left after drinking Turkish coffee can also be used for fortune-telling, is a mystical experience.

In conclusion, Turkish Cuisine is always a pleasant surprise for the visitor, and I am enjoying this exotic dining experience, but it costs us RM197.78 in total for 6 persons, quite expensive experience.

Istanbul Café
Lot No: 6.35.00, Level 6
Pavilion Shopping Centre
Jalan Bukit Bintang, KL
Tel: 03-2142 4000