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Yenikoy Cafe & Restaurant

Amy McNeilage

Substantial: The complete breakfast banquet with Turkish tea at Yenikoy.
Substantial: The complete breakfast banquet with Turkish tea at Yenikoy.Dominic Lorrimer

Turkish$$

When it comes to food, there are big portions, there are very big portions and then there are Turkish portions. What's more, in Turkish feasting, breakfast is the main game, with enough plates to fill a large table and enough food to keep you full into the evening.

At Yenikoy Cafe & Restaurant in Newtown, the $25 breakfast banquet is thoroughly authentic, indistinguishable from those served in Istanbul. Items that cannot be replicated locally, such as the cherry jam, are imported.

We haven't long ordered when the first plates land – black and green olives, butter, cheeses, apricot and cherry jams, honey, a mix of tahini and grape molasses, sliced tomato and cucumber, melon, walnuts, dried apricots and figs, sesame-based halva and an assortment of pastries. Our table is well-covered but the food keeps coming.

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The extensive sweets selection.
The extensive sweets selection.Dominic Lorrimer

The most substantial element of the feast is the spinach and cheese gozleme, and the traditional dishes menemen and sucuk​ with fried eggs.

The menemen, a mix of tomatoes, peppers, spices and eggs, lacks flavour but improves when eaten with the many sides.

The sucuk​, on the other hand, a peppery Turkish sausage, is very flavoursome.

The venue is spacious but it's wise to book on weekends.
The venue is spacious but it's wise to book on weekends.Dominic Lorrimer
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The trio of cheeses includes a soft-textured kasar​ with full-bodied flavour, and a salty ezine white cheese, similar in taste and texture to feta.

The pastries are our favourite. The cheese-filled pogaca is slightly sweet with a similar texture to foccacia, while the sigara borek​ is a rich, cigar-shaped pastry filled with feta and parsley.

We scarcely need it but are also given unlimited Turkish bread to clean up the sauces.

The banquet requires a minimum of two people and is an experience best shared. It is available until 4pm and we graze on ours for three hours, still leaving with uneaten food on the table.

A separate breakfast menu offers various gozleme​, pide​ and egg dishes, but we are told nine out of 10 customers order the banquet. At $25 a head, it hardly makes sense to order anything else.

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The lunch menu starts at midday, with burgers, salads and specialty Turkish dishes, and the kitchen switches to dinner at 5pm. Yenikoy is licensed, with a decent array of beers and Australian wines.

It is wise to book for weekends, as the restaurant can quickly fill up with large groups. On the Sunday we visit, a number of long tables seat big Turkish families, with steam rising from their silver kettles. The traditional tea semavers (Turkish for samovar) are double stacked. Strong tea is steeped in the top kettle and diluted to individual taste using the boiling water in the bottom kettle.

The restaurant is spacious inside, stylishly decorated with turquoise ceramics and wooden ornaments, while outside are comfortable bench tables with blankets and overhead heaters.

The restaurant, named after a wealthy neighbourhood in Istanbul, was opened last year by Zeki Atilgan, owner of the Gaziantep Sweets & Pastry shop in Auburn. Family friend Zali Mustafa came on board a few months ago as co-owner and her mother manages front of house.

Do not leave Yenikoy without trying some baklava, which comes from Atilgan's store and makes for an enticing spread in the front window. As well as common garden variety baklava, there are some excitingly unusual flavours. The hazelnut and chocolate tastes like Nutella​, covered in buttery, flaky pastry, while the white chocolate and coconut is very coconutty​ and tremendously rich.

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Restaurant competition is fierce on King Street and the site Yenikoy sits on has had a notoriously high cafe turnover in recent years. For now at least, well-priced, hearty Turkish food is keeping the tables full.

THE LOW-DOWN
THE PICKS
 Breakfast banquet, savoury Turkish pastries, baklava
THE COFFEE Turkish coffee by Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi
THE LOOK Spacious with modern, Ottoman-inspired details
THE SERVICE Hospitable and eager to please

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