You'll have to forgive me for having not heard of Cappadocia in Bimirnghams jewellery quarter until a couple of months ago, I'm a little out of touch. The first time I came across it was on meeting a friend nearby for lunch and walking past, it looked interesting, I made a metal note to visit. Fast forward to this weekend and we popped in for lunch.
The food at Cappadocia is billed as authentic Turkish cuisine, so it was something I was really looking forward to. I've only been once to Turkey itself. It was a girls holiday back in 2007, so suffice to say I don't remember THAT much about the food, so I'm not sure I can vouch for authenticity, but I can certainly vouch for the flavours!
We had Imogen with us, who was welcomed with open arms which was lovely. We ordered carefully, with aim of letting her try some bits of the food too.
We started out with a couple of the Hot and Cold Meze dishes - the CACIK - Cucumber, dill, garlic, extra virgin olive oil in creamy strained yoghurt, and, on the recommendation of the manager the SUCUK & HELLIM - Grilled Spicy Beef Sausage & Cypriot Halloumi Cheese.
Imogen wolfed down about half the portion of the Cacik and accompanying bread, leaving us wishing we had ordered another starter dish too! Next time, we will definitely order the HUMMUS KAVURMA - Diced lamb pan fried with garlic butter sauce, onions, parsley and poured on homemade hummus, which sounds just divine!
We both ordered from the Charcoal Grill for our mains. I had the SARMA BEYTI - Chicken Beyti, red onion, fresh chopped tomatoes, and herbs wrapped with tortilla bread, bed on yoghurt, topped with butter & tomato sauce.
The sauce was so rich and packed full of flavour, as was the minced chicken kebab meat and this along with the huge dollops of cooling yoghurt and scattering of sweet pomegranate seeds made a really delicious main course.
Lee chose the YOĞURTLU KUZU KEBAB - Char-grilled Lamb kebab over of roasted bread with iskender sauce and yoghurt.
You can always tell when Lee really likes something as he goes all silent and this was definitely one of these times! Both dishes came served with salad, spiked with pickled red cabbage which was a treat as well as rice and burger wheat. Imogen also really seemed to enjoy the bits of my chicken kebab as well as devouring a good amount of our rice and bulger wheat and picking all the cucumber our of my salad for herself!
We both declared our meal at Cappadocia a resounding success and can't wait to head back to try some more of the food there, especially the fantastic sounding Meze dishes.
Family friendly? The staff were really welcoming to us with Imogen and there are highchairs available. We didn't need to use the changing facilities and if I'm honest I forgot to go and check them out but I'm sure they are also up to scratch!
Disclosure: Thanks to Cappadocia for inviting us down to try out the food and for a lovely experience.
