Trying Turkish in Middlesbrough town

Middlesbrough is not a city. We don't have loads of different eateries popping up on a weekly basis. We get really excited when hearing of something new opening up and you'll find we all want to try it out and give our opinions. The Meze Lounge is relatively new and I've been wanting to visit for a while now after lots people have said such great things about it. After much pestering, we finally set a date to visit, which happened to be the one year anniversary of us moving into our home together.

I'm really picky with restaurants, as you may have seen in my other posts, so I was expecting big things from this place. The restaurant was small but there was still a good few tables and they were all far enough apart that you felt like you had own space. There were only a few wait staff, which I liked as too many in such a small space can be suffocating, and we got shown to our seats straight away. It was a Thursday night when we went and not too busy at the time but I was told to book as it is very popular.

We decided to go all out and get a starter. I had the Sigara Borek which was filo pastry filled with Turkish white cheese, parsley and herbs and Matt had Lahmacun which was seasoned lamb mincemeat delicately spread on a thin base of dough with onions and parsley oven baked. My was lovely, my only thoughts were that the cheese was a little too strong for me, Matt loved his meal.

From this it was on to our mains! I picked the Tavuk Kebab, which was chunks of chicken fillet marinated with herbs and spices and chargrilled on skewers, technically it was called Ali Nazik as I got the special yoghurt and aubergine sauce with it. Matt had the Karisik Kebab which was a mixture of the chicken one I had, Adana which is lamb mincemeat seasoned on a skewer and Kuzu which was chunks of lamb marinated on a skewer. My chicken was full of flavour and good quality meat. It came with rice & chickpeas, a salad, some Turkish bread and a lovely spicy potato stew. It was gorgeous and what topped it off was the yoghurt and aubergine dip! It was so light and creamy, gorgeous with the chicken and rice. Matt thoroughly enjoyed his mixed kebab stating that this place definitely lived up to the hype.

At this point, we were bursting at the seams but we decided to go all out and order dessert. We both picked chocolate fudge cake, although there were Turkish options, and it was divine. Some chocolate cake you get in restaurants is pretty standard but this was so nice. It really did finish a great night of amazing food.

If you want somewhere to go out for dinner, or lunch, in Middlesbrough I definitely suggest the Meze Lounge. It may be a little walk from town but it is worth it.

Let me know if you've been and what you think of it!