Aksular in Green Lanes

For many years Palmers Green and Southgate in North London have been the centre of the Turkish community. Turks, who started off in areas such as Dalston in Hackney, got richer and moved northwards. Many of the more affluent ones ended up in the area around Southgate and Palmers Green. All of which means that this is now a great place for cheap Turkish meals.

Anyone who has travelled through Turkey will know that the country is huge and that the roads are punctuated by gigantic service stations with huge restaurants, where you can buy excellent food at rock bottom prices.

The new restaurants around Southgate are very similar. They have lots of tables, fast service and they are very cheap. It’s not the place for a romantic first date, but if you have a hungry family, you’ll get a very good meal.

Aksular is on the Green Lanes. It’s so popular that the restaurant has recently doubled in size and they’ve opened another branch in Enfield Town. The restaurant is a bit like the road houses that you find in Turkey. It is cheap, clean and functional and is full of families. It has lines and lines of tables and the service is friendly and brisk. As soon as you’re seated, you are given salads, hummus and aubergine dish imam biyaldi. These are free! If you want, you can order other starters but you have to pay for them– I chose a chicken soup which had lots of shredded chicken;. My son had some prawns, nicely grilled with garlic..

My daughter tucking into the starters

The main courses are basic but very good. I had grilled chops, my brother had a mixed shish kebab (with cubes of lamb, chops and meatballs) and my mother had chicken kebab. My son had some sort of donner kebab which was served in bread with a sauce on it. And my wife had fillets of sea bass. The dishes came with rice or potatoes. There’s very little to say about the food. It is good, plentiful and very tasty. And it’s all cooked in the traditional method over a long tray of charcoal.

The staff are delightful. After the meal, a couple of us ordered Turkish coffee. The waitress insisted on giving everyone else a glass of Turkish tea – free of charge. We also got pieces of baklava – the traditional pastry with syrup and nuts. Again, this was free.

We didn’t have any alcoholic drinks -although the place sells a reasonable range of beers and wines. But we’d effectively had a three course meal and for six of us the price was £72. I’d describe it as a bloody bargain!

On similar lines, a restaurant called Kervan Sofrasi has opened about half a mile away in Southgate. It occupies a building which used to be a large pub called ‘The Waggon and Horses’ in the main road, Chase Side. Again lots of tables, big crowds, simple food and lots of it. It’s very popular with the local Turkish community and with anyone else who enjoys good food with lots of flavour and not too much

Kervan Sofasi in Palmers Green

embellishment. Again, there are other branches of the same restaurant – including one in nearby Edmonton. Kervan Sofrasi is slightly different to the Aksular because it tends to cater to parties of slightly younger people – including office workers and birthday parties. But there are still plenty of families enjoying a meal together. And again it’s cheap. I went out with four friends and we had a huge pile of charcoal grilled lamb, chicken, meatballs and even a quail. There were salads and dips to start and we all had beers and coffee. The price including service was £100 – again extremely good value.