Private Chef Turkish Kitchen


Location

    Before my friends arrived in Chiayi I was asked what was for dinner.  They picked the Turkish restaurant I had found the week before on my trip to Mt. Martin's Hospital to get vaccinated and a lovely ride around Lantan Lake; the restaurant popped up on the GPS when I was searching for the way back home. 

    I met my friends downstairs and we went straight there for a 7:30 reservation, but we didn’t need one; there were plenty of empty tables in the colorful, happy restaurant with painted floors and a surprise on the menu; a rugby-ball-shaped inflated cracker dotted with sesame seed; I acted like I’d seen it before. The Turkish lamb stew and cheese shrimp with lentil and chicken soup with homemade bread, a glass of apple juice. Quite a presentation and tasty without being salty. We loved it! 

    The owner, a Turkish man married to a Taiwanese with a
child playing around the tables, Taiwan style, have been in business ten years. They didn’t speak a word of English but the menu was bilingual and well-organized. The chef brought the zeppelin cracker out himself to safeguard its delivery.

    Up a small street in the Daya section of East Chiayi, it was a surprise home-style heaven of food made lovingly with regional pride, Turkish folk song in the air and on TV; a wonderful experience in our search for all cuisines foreign in Chiayi (750 NT for two); something to take the edge off of all the little Taiwanese places with the same foods, and Taiwanese and western fast food franchises. 

After my ride around the lake, I rode over to the nearby Turkish restaurant and had a delicious chicken gyro with rice, lentil soup, bread and salad I ordered but didn’t need, potato salad and pickled turnip side with a big glass of iced rose tea and pudding dessert, all for 260NT- ($9us) . I was surprised they had seating after the dumpling place dumped me the day before. 



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