Caravanserai | 1-3 Dornoch Terrace, WEST END QLD 4101

It had been a while since we had dinner with A & H and baby A. Given that a catch up was long overdue, we decided to do it over some delicious food at Caravanserai.

Caravanserai is a very popular local West End institution that has been around for years. Painted in red, this Turkish restaurant provides a very exotic and almost mysterious ambience with its traditional Turkish fabric tablecloths, flickering candlelights on every table as well as the colourful glass lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Not to mention that every now and then, you'll grab a good whiff of the spices from the open plan kitchen.

The night started being very quite with only two tables in the restaurant but sometime between ordering a Turkish lemonade ($3.50) and placing our dinner order, the restaurant was fully packed. We started off with Caravanserai meze ($24.50) which comes with hummus, babagounosh, beetroot dip, carrot pickle, marinated olives, feta, artichokes, dolma and capsicum salad with warm Turkish bread. The size was quite generous and certainly enough for the four of us as an appetiser.

The main courses for our table were very easy. Three of the chicken breast marinated, honey almond butter, cous cous salad, capsicum & walnut sauce ($29.50) for the others and one sumac encrusted salmon, sweet potato and cumin seed mash, greens and mojo verde ($31.50) for me. The mains took a while to come, but that was understandable given how busy the kitchen was. I wasn't sure if it was the long wait, but the dishes looked very appetising. They also came in very big portions, which I certainly did not mind. The salmon was really well cooked, the flesh was soft and fatty, and it was so delicious when mixed with the sweet potato and cumin seed mash, so I hardly touched the mojo verde. Under normal circumstances, the other travel bunnie would let me try his dish so that I know what it taste like, but this time round before I even had the chance, he had already finished it. Needless to say the chicken dish was well received.

Dinner was fantastic, but we found it extremely difficult to catch up with each other as the restaurant was so loud and the acoustics were terrible with all the doors and windows closed. We found ourselves shouting at one another and when the mains arrived, our voices had gone.

I've never been overly fond of Turkish cuisine but Caravanserai no doubt puts a modern twist into their middle-eastern dishes and together with their charming ambience, it's no wonder this Turkish restaurant is amongst one of the most popular around town.

Total Bunnie Dollars Spent: $163.50









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