Steak and Salad is the Least of What Is Offered Here
The sign out front couldn’t be less enticing, a plainly unadorned marquee with the words Steak & Salad in red lettering on a white background. In the restaurant’s defense, that is the name of the restaurant, though that alone is worth a lesson in the pros and cons of good marketing.
I had passed the small building in the 1300 block of Mills Avenue for months and couldn’t think of a good reason to stop. Then one day a blackboard had been placed outside that read, “Now serving Turkish food.” Now there was a reason to stop. Now I have even better reasons to go back.
The way I heard the story, the owners opened the restaurant, which was the former Friends cafe, with a menu that featured the eponymous food items, your basic salads and basic cuts of (decidedly inexpensive) meats. Then a server pointed out to the owners that they were of Turkish descent, and perhaps they might try serving some of their traditional homeland foods.
So a separate menu was added with such things as kebabs and kofte and bulgur pilav and red lentil soup.
For my entree I had the adana kebab, which the menu calls a spicy meatloaf. That’s pretty much the perfect description. The ground meat concoction was freckled with bits of red pepper, which added tastes of fire. But just in case that wasn’t enough spice, a whole grilled jalapeno was included. The meat and pepper were atop a flat pita, which also had slices of tomatoes and raw onions. You could either eat with a knife and fork or fold it all up into a wrap. At first I wanted to add a little tzatziki or other sauce, but once I started eating it I realized none was needed. A generous serving of bulgur pilav was included.
I also had the kofte, which are sort of like meatballs, and the shish kebab, which ahd sirloin steak tips and mushrooms. (I could leave without having some sort of steak.)
Dinners also include a choice from an array of side dishes, which are identified as salads. The shepherd salad was a mixture of large chunks of chopped tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and green peppers in a vinaigrette, a light and fresh-tasting salad. Eggplant and spinach salads were more like dips, along the lines of babaganouj or hummus. And they, too, were delicious.
The restaurant is small, fewer than 40 seats by my count, but it’s tidy and has the look of having been recently painted.
Oh, about the bar. The menu lists a number of cocktails, but be warned -- these are not made with actual liquor. They are fashioned out of wine-based liquids meant for restaurants with licenses restricting them to beer and wine. To me, this is sort of like offering chopped steak fashioned out of tofu.
If, like me, you’ve passed Steak & Salad and dismissed it as unworthy of your time, I hope you’ll stop in. The folks are friendly, the setting is comfortable, and the food -- at least the Mediterranean fare -- is quite good.
Steak & Salad is at 1326 N. Mills Ave., Orlando. It is open for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday. The phone number is 407-898-0999. The Web site is steakandsaladorlando.com.
When it comes to affordable steakhouses in the city – Longhorn, Ponderosa, Sizzler, Logan’s, etc. – there’s no shortage from which to choose. So when the gay-friendly Friends Restaurant closed and was replaced by a chophouse of the cheap kind, it hardly made an impression in the ViMi. The fact that the owners, a delightful Turkish couple, chose the laconic appellation of “Steak & Salad” for their eatery probably didn’t help to attract diners. But then, 10 months into serving a steady diet of no-nonsense meals, they introduced dishes from their native land and the excitement has been building ever since. Opening the menu reveals a standard selection of sandwiches, salads, pizza and steaks, with “Turkish kitchen” selections appearing on the back page. With so many options on the chop block, I felt obliged to sample a small 6-ounce ribeye ($10.99), a USDA Select cut. While the grade was a notch below Prime and Choice, it was much better, and more tender, than I thought it would be. The baked potato was fine, and for $1 extra I gravitated toward the back of the menu and opted to upgrade my salad to a bowl of çoban salatasi (regularly $2.99), a tangy side akin to tabbouleh, but with less parsley and more cucumber. Clearly, we had our sights set on that back page from the moment we walked in. After a few bites of the steak, we packed it in a to-go box and reveled in the dish we were really looking forward to devouring – the Turkish mixed grill ($22.99). The platter featured a strip of spicy ground adana kebab, four bulbous rounds of ground köfte kebab and two skewers each of beef (shish) and chicken kebabs. The meats were served over pita bread, soaking up the juices, and a mound of bulghur pilaf, cooked in a beef base with tomatoes, peppers and onions. All the meats were outstanding, particularly the moist and superbly tender chicken cubes. The adana and köfte kebabs both had lamb-beef mixtures, but the former packed a peppery punch while the latter comprised a mix of eggs, bread crumbs, onion and garlic. Again, both were thoroughly gratifying, and if you’re thinking that the beef skewers were the weakest of the lot, you’d be dead wrong. In fact, it was hard to pick a favorite as all were tender, flavorful and expertly grilled. We chose a side of eggplant salad to enjoy with the platter – think babaghanoush jacked with a bulb of garlic and served with grilled slices of bread. One notable omission – the döner kebab (aka gyros) – will be on the menu in about a month’s time. They’re just awaiting delivery of the vertical spit. As a prelude to the platter, the borek ($2.99) – feta and parsley stuffed in a light, flaky pastry – is one I’d certainly order again. Grape leaves ($2.99) were spot-on stuffing-wise, but the leafy skin seemed thicker than average. Chocolate cake ($3.99) and cheesecake ($3.99) seemed to have come from Sam’s Club, but the baklava ($2.99) is flown in from Turkey, and while it may not be as divine as Anatolia’s, it’s certainly worth saving room for, along with a demitasse of Turkish coffee ($2.25). If it weren’t for the brisk lunchtime delivery business (their burgers, pizza and sandwiches are most popular), Steak & Salad would go all Turkey. Sure, there will be those who’ll continue to opt for the traditional, but the real story here is on the back page.
