Mangal – London with Hugo Mendez (english version)

A wicked turkish restaurant with a fabulous mix grilled plate full of top quality meat.
A bit like the Lahore restaurant : serious, clean and no fuss.
The place is located in the turkish quarter of Dalston in Hackney.

The decoration is simple, not overly warm but correctly lighten (once more, spotlights in the ceiling, it seems to be be trendy in London)

Here you dont think too much, it’s mix grill for everyone and eggplants salad for starter. A friend once tried the vegetarian meal and she was disappointed as there are only three choices and they’re a bit hot. The eggplant salad seems to be the best deal.

Before coming here, we were – once more – at the Bar 23 and a Turkish car driver claiming he was actually driving the family of the king of Malaysia (hum… ) introduced me to the Efes Draft.
In Paris, I often take the Efes beer mais I have never seen the Draft before. It’s almost brown and very tasty. In London in the restaurants which don’t serve alcohol, you can bring your own beer. Being in a turkish neighbourhood, we had lots of choice among the Turkish alcohols.

Starter/
The mix of fresh vegetables is very nice : carotts, red cabbage, gherkins, rocket salad and lemon, it’s crunchy, tasty and there’s no dressing which is cool as we needed a break before attacking the mix grill and after having eaten the day before at Lahore.

The egpplants salad is damned good, a pure taste ! I couldn’t get a good focus with my camera, maybe because of this bloody spotlights. Well, it was good and didn’t have a real taste of ratatouille : vegetables longer cooked, more melted, and slightly sugared but without getting any honey flavour, do you see what I mean?

Meal
Concerning the meats, it’s a real Cannes festival. There were even maybe too much to eat but I shouldn’t say that. Lamb, chicken, kebabd… it’s clear : I have never had a turkish grill with that quality of meat in Paris. I don’t say it doesnt exist, just that I have never experienced it before.

It’s f… hot above the grill and you also get the terrible noise of the cooker hood. Even when you’re just shooting videos, u dont stay too long. As the guy answered me ironically when I asked him if it wasn’t painfully hot, – “it’s not hot man, it’s just you who get the feeling it’s hot”.

Mangal from Guillaume Le Roux on Vimeo.
When we left, we just saluted the team which let me film without any problems, good atmosphere.

I’ll come back for sure and I will do so with a large group of friends.