50TL meal & drink for 2 – Dostlar Restaurant

The idea of these restaurant reviews is to see in how may local restaurants you can purchase a meal for two plus drinks for 50TL or less. In most cases this would be for a single course and drink, but not the cheapest on the menu.

Dostlar restaurant is situated between Karaoğlanoğlu and Alsancak (see map below courtesy of Hans Doeleman at www.cyprusdownload.nl), next to Deniz Kisi restaurant, and caters for locals as well as tourists. The setting was nothing special and there is a small off road car park. It seemed to be very popular even on a Monday night. Service was a little slow but not so much so that you became impatient. Drinks were mid price for this area, with an Efes costing 4TL and a brandy sour 6TL.

I had the Chicken şiş for 12TL and my partner had mixed kebab for 20TL – the most expensive meal on the menu. They both came with salad and chips and filled huge plates. Additional to this we were given a plate of delicious Turkish pita bread. My chicken whilst not being exceptional was certainly worth the price paid and my partner indicated that his mixed kebab was good although, for the price, possibly not one of the better examples he had eaten.

We declined the dessert, baklava would have cost an additional 4TL but had Turkish coffee for an additional 2TL each. A bottle of wine would have cost 25TL and most alcoholic drinks, for example gin and tonic, were in the 6-8TL range. There were many combinations of meals for 2 which would not break the 50TL budget, for example 2 Chicken şiş, 1 beer, 1 brandy sour, 2 baklava and 2 Turkish coffees would have cost 47TL. It might be worth noting that kleftico night is on Tuesday.