I of course googled “Turkish cuisine vs. Middle Eastern cuisine” and found commenters willing to call me and other inquirers “ignorant,” “arrogant,” and “stupid.” (Turkey is next door to Syria, Iraq, and Iran, if you need a hint, but also to Greece and Bulgaria.) One well-informed Reddit user pointed out correctly that Turkey boasts various regional cuisines, just as there’s no one “Mexican food.” She or he was able to single out overlaps between Turkish dishes and those eaten in particular parts of the vast Arab world, though they are “only a minute part of the larger Turkish cuisine.” This erudite person concluded that such a question was “part of the Turkophobic agenda.” And I thought I was just eating out.
Without attempting to get into the finer points, I’ll just assert that a metro Detroiter accustomed to our many Middle Eastern restaurants will feel at ease at Turkish Village. A staffer there tells me the clientele — which was full-house during Ramadan — is largely Dearborn Middle Easterners who’ll sometimes say a dish reminds them of home.
So think of nohut koftesi as falafel and yaprak sarma as grape leaves, and you’ll be fine. Kebabs abound.
The expansive space seats 260, with several rooms and a lot of staff, a few of them attired in red fezes. There’s a good amount of sparkle, red cloth napkins, no alcohol but a long drinks menu.
To start, a trio of dips is brought with your pide (flatbread). I found the flatbread a little stiffer than pita but with less flavor. This was truer one night than another, so this staple may vary with who’s staffing the brick oven. The dips are haydari, which is yogurt with a strong mint flavor, with a bit of garlic (I thought of toothpaste); pembe sultan, yogurt with beets turning it a bright pink, with garlic for sharpness; and ezme, which reminded me of pico de gallo, but grassier — emphasis on the parsley. You can taste each of the very fresh ingredients separately: tomatoes, cucumbers, crushed red peppers, and tomato paste. I could have shoveled up ezme all night if other dishes hadn’t swiftly appeared.
I found the humus bland, not enough garlic (it comes with lavash) but the baba ghanouj is appropriately smoky, and the pide they brought with it was warm, which is a good bonus. Portions are generous. Other appetizers are ksir, described as Turkish tabbouleh with pomegranate vinaigrette; cabbage rolls; and humus topped with beef sausage.
Our voluble server urged us to order the “family style tasting platter,” serving two to four for $84, four to six for $126, or eight to ten for $210. The smallest was plenty for our party of four, all of us hungry: beef and chicken shish, beef and chicken kebabs, lamb kebab, beef and chicken doner. Kabobs are ground meat pressed around a skewer, shish are chunks of meat on a skewer and doner is our familiar gyros, shaved from a vertical spit. They were all juicy, tender and toothsome, with the flavors all pretty similar; as always, I tried to eat more than my share of the lamb. They come with a generous under-layer of rice and hummus, plus salad.
Another night we ordered pistachio beef kebab, served with raw onion and a roasted pepper, and could see but not taste the ground nuts. Asked the difference between two different lamb kebabs, adana and urfa, our server said, “This one tastes like lamb, the other one tastes like lamb, they don’t tell me.” I’m sure they’re both luscious. Another possibility is batenjan, alternating skewered kebabs of eggplant and beef.
Although I liked all the dishes, one that stood out was kusbasili, which is tiny cubes of lamb, cubanelle peppers, tomatoes, and mozzarella atop pide, toasted. It’s pizza-adjacent, and I don’t know if it’s the lamb or the cheese that makes it so welcoming.
Drinks include raw juice of mango, orange, pineapple, carrot, watermelon, strawberry, and more; a dozen virgin mojitos with the same fruit juices and ingredients like crushed peppermints and Red Bull; milkshakes; and ayran, a yogurt drink with salt or mint leaves. My ginger mojito was quite sweet despite the sharpness. I ordered a mango smoothie and found it as thick and satisfying as any I’ve had. Hot or iced Turkish and Yemeni teas and coffees are on offer, such as coffee with cardamom or with cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, and sesame.
Desserts including baklava are made in-house, with ingredients imported from Turkey. The most popular, kunefe, is baked in front of the customer and served warm. There are many kinds, involving pistachios, walnuts, cream, and shredded phyllo. The one I took home puts “fatty cheese,” according to the menu, between layers of crisp pastry threads; it’s a very simple sweetness, but somehow hard to stop eating.
Turkish Village came about because some Detroit-area Yemeni businessmen were vacationing and liked what they found. They hired Turks for the kitchen crew, and the restaurant, which opened March 5, was jammed throughout Ramadan with iftar reservations. Outdoor seating is planned, and additional locations in Michigan.
Final note from a Reddit commenter on “Turkish/Middle Eastern”: “All food belongs to God and emanates from his grace. To say it’s Turkish, Arab or British is redundant. It fills your belly and nourishes you. That’s all there is about food.” Nuff said! We restaurant reviewers can hang it up.
