Best Mangal

Best Mangal and Best Mangal II are sister restaurants on the same strip of road. Both have busy takeaways at the front and easygoing restaurants at the back. Best Mangal is a bit smaller and perhaps even friendlier than Mangal II. On a warm spring evening, it can have the scent and sense of a Mediterranean holiday. There's a broad-ranging menu of hot and cold meze and various skewered and barbecued meats, plus a few yoghurt-sauced dishes, and salads. Our mixed hot meze was indeed mixed, in terms of quality. Fried lamb's liver and the garlicky stuffed mushrooms both received the thumbs up, but too many items - kalamar, börek, hellim - were fried and greasy. Mains, from the ocakbası, were better. Patlıcan kebab (thick slices of aubergine interspersed with spicy minced lamb patties) had a bewitchingly smoky aroma and flavour. Yoghurtlu sis, the grilled meat taken off the skewer and served in a dish topped with lashings of tomato sauce and a hearty dollop of yoghurt, tasted authentically Turkish. With side dishes of tomato-flavoured rice, excellent saç and pide bread and good olives, you're unlikely to leave hungry. A deservedly popular duo.