Mr.Persnickety and I first heard of Kazan when watching Gordon Ramsay’s Cookalong Live show. Gordon went to Kazan and worked in the kitchen to see how he compared to master kebab makers. Hubby and I were impressed with what we glimpsed of the restaurant and decided that we wanted to try Kazan out. That was several months ago. We forgot all about it, until last week when I was browsing through Toptable and saw that they had a deal for 50% off on the a la carte menu (at the East-central London branch only).
We booked, and we had a marvelous time.
Decor: Kazan is a beautiful high-end Turkish restaurant. The restaurant is decorated in warm but neutral tones with accents of gold. There is a big amber colored chandelier in the main dining room. There was low lighting (so not great in terms of me taking pictures for you guys) and candle light. Its a great place for a romantic dinner.
Service: The service here is incredibly attentive and friendly.
Food: When you get in, they give you a delicious and hot foccacia type of bread with lemon/olive oil dip. I loved it.
For the starters we had Harem salad, a delicious salad which included hot haloumi cheese, figs, and pomegranate seeds on a bed of mixed greens. We had hummus which was especially nutty and delicious. We also ordered boreks, which are fried pastry in a triangular shape with a feta and spinach filling. The starters come with the Kazan bread, which is the traditional Turkish bread known as Pide. This was different from the bread we were first given.
For our mains Mr Persnickety had the fillet of lamb rubbed with rosemary and a side of rice. He absolutely loved it. Ah yes, I remember when that warm glow of love used to be for me, now its for meat. As for me, I ordered something called a ‘Fistik‘ kebab. It was very delicious and unusual. It was a kebab of charcoal grilled ground lamb on a skewer, but inside the lamb mixture there were chopped pistachio nuts. I really enjoyed it. I had it with chunky fries (yes, I could have been a good housewife and gone with the rice, but hey, if you are going to eat out and mess up your diet anyway, do it right).
To me, the main event is always the deserts. I ordered baklava with cinnamon ice cream. It was tasty, but my only complaint is the portion size was absolutely minuscule, and I am not into chi chi food. You get two tiny pieces of baklava, and a very tiny scoop of ice cream. The baklava was good, but personally, I don’t like Turkish baklava as much as Arabic baklava (I know too much about baklava and not enough about getting my whites really white).
I also ate Hubby’s desert *wink*. Now that was pretty fab. It was something I am going to try to re-create at home. It was dried apricots stuffed with clotted cream (you know how I looooove clotted cream), pistachios, and walnuts. Absolutely delicious!
Mr Persnickety and I had such a good time. With the 50% off it was incredible value for money, and we definitely want to go again.
