Hanedan, the Turkish restaurant on West Preston Street, is somewhere I’ve been meaning to visit for quite some time. It should come as no secret to regular readers that I’m a big fan of Turkish food, so the fact that I hadn’t made it along here before now was rather remiss of me.
Exterior
The place is very simply appointed, with plain white walls and understated Turkish stylings, adding little notes of authentic charm. The main dining room has lovely cornicing, although they don’t really highlight it to best advantage.
They do a two course set menu for £9.95, where you can choose from soup or hummus to start, then chicken skewers or pasta to follow. I was happy to opt for soup and chicken.
Soup
For bigger parties, I think the way to go would be to order a selection of their hot meze, as judging by the dishes that were brought out for other diners, these all looked really good.
My friendly and super-efficient waitress soon brought me some pitta and olives to contemplate while my soup was prepared. The pitta was warm and the olives excellent, so things were looking promising.
Chicken shish
The soup soon arrived and had a really welcoming aroma. I took a good long time to drink it in, as it was worth savouring. The soup proved to be every bit as good, with wonderful depth of flavour, and well rounded seasoning. It was properly good.
The main course maintained that standard. The chunks of chicken were extremely well-treated, with a flavour-rich sear to the outside and incredible amounts of moisture sealed within. The accompanying rice was simple but excellent, too.
A little greenery would have rounded out the dish perfectly, so that’s probably why the waitress suggested I should add a side salad. Sometimes I should just nod and agree to this kind of advice.
I rounded things out with some Turkish coffee, and relaxed in the glory of a rather curious lounge piano version of Purple Rain.
So overall, I was delighted with Hanedan. I’ll need to come back with a few chums to have a good go at their meze, but on the basis of today I have a strong feeling that this is the best place for Turkish food in the city. I’d heartily recommend you pay it a visit, at your earliest convenience.
Scores
Blythe scores Hanedan
4/5 for food
3.5/5 for presentation
3/5 for setting
4/5 for service
giving an overall 14.5/20
Today’s quester was: Blythe
I ate: bread and olives; red lentil soup; chicken shish
I drank: sparkly water, Turkish coffee
I wore: grey wool jumper
Total bill: £14.60
2 Comments
Today my sister and I visited Hanedan for our lunch. It is relatively easy for me to find the restaurant which is close to meadow walk. The location allows it to be like a typical hidden gem.
While entering the restaurant, the interior decoration attracts my attention immediately. It seems that the owner loves arts and antique, which is unusual in any turkish restaurant around Edinburgh. The wall is hung with plenty of artworks and lovely objects. The atmosphere is quite satisfactory and intimate. After sitting down, the only waitress, a young lovely girl, asked me what kind of drink I would like. I asked for a cup of hot water since the outside is really cold. I am quite happy with this waitress’s smile and service.
Ok, here comes the most important part ever in my everyday life, food. Since both my sister and I do not fancy Turkish main meat dishes and its vegetarian dishes include cheese which we two do not like very too. So we came to decide to order mixed meze starters for two, 6.75 pounds per person, plus red lentil soup and seared squid salad.
We did not wait too long for our meze to come. It has traditional hummus, roasted aubergine, spinach yoghurt, cannellini beans and oven baked meat balls, plus complimentary pitta bread (unlimited!). The only hot meze is oven baked meat balls. After tasting the first piece of pitta bread with hummus, we two nod our heads and smile to each other, indicating that we have made a good decision for our lunch spot again. The meze starters do not disappoint us and pitta bread is warm and softy. It is cut into small pieces, unlike other turkish restaurants. We particularly love hummus with rich flavour of sesame. Smells good, tastes fantastic! Roast aubergine and spinach yoghurt are better than any other turkish restaurants provide in Edinburgh. The yoghurt has mint fragrance and roast aubergines is also nice. However, we find that cannellini beans are relatively solid and we actually prefer creamy and soft beans. For the oven baked meat balls, they taste so so and the sauce is not mouth-watering. However, when the warm red lentil soup comes to serve, it enlightened us again. It was my first time to see a lemon is accompanied with lentil soup, which the waitress suggests to give it a try. She is absolutely correct, the soup tastes quite refresh but rich. Finally, the seared squid salad is served by the chef instead. It actually is a little disasspointing as we could only fine three to four small quids in the starter-sized bowl, underneath them is mixed vegetables, onion and walnuts. It tastes better than looks to be honest. It combines sourness and a little sweetness, and the walnut gives a nutlike flavour to the squid.
During dining, the lovely girl provides high quality service. We love her smile very much. In comparison to her, we find the chef himself is a little cool and did not come to ask us about food which is what described by other guests online.
Overall, we are satisfied with the meze, especially hummus, yogurt and aubergine and lentil soup. A gentleman ordered a meat dish and he completed it all, so we also recommend its main dish.
Thank you for this very comprehensive run down of your visit to Hanedan! 🙂