Lamacun, a pizzalike flatbread at Istanbul Grill. Photo by Alison Cook

Imam Bayildi, eggplant stuffed with peppers and onions, at Istanbul Grill. Photo by Alison Cook

I am pretty sure the $3.99 price tag for Istanbul Grill's wonderful lamacun (pronounced "llama-zhoon" in Turkish) represents one of the better dining deals in town. The young staffers in their evil-eye t-shirts may insist to you that it's "little" or "just an appetizer," but this pizza-like flatbread spread with a ground-lamb mixture makes one of my favorite light meals in town.

Strewn with pickled red cabbage, sliced romaine and skinny slivers of red onion from the vegetable garnish on the side, and then folded up like a piece of floppy pizza, the lamacun has everything going for it: bright flavors, the earthy savor of lightly garlicked meat and pine nuts, the delicate chew of the house-baked crust. The pie is the size of a salad plate, cut in half for ease of folding, and the garnished results have the interest level of a well-made sandwich — but not the bulk.

This is the sort of thing that suits me for a quick lunch or a serious mid-afternoon snack when I feel my blood sugar running low. With a steaming glass of Turkish tea or cool glass of ayran, the Turkish yogurt beverage, it's plenty. But of course I find it hard to stop with just a lamacun, because once I'm at this casual, 14-year-old Rice Village institution, I am irresistibly drawn to the many vegetable dips and salads they do so well. So the snack becomes a meal and then a take-out orgy as I stock up on dishes I might want to eat during the week.

I particularly admire the Imam Bayildi, a baby eggplant stuffed with a sweet tangle of red pepper and onion, studded with currants and pine nuts, then roasted until it caramelizes. Served with that pickled-cabbage salad and a sunny tomato sauce, it's a vegetarian's dream dish — and in fact, Houston's vegetarians, so often overlooked by local restaurants, will find much to entertain them at Istanbul Grill. (So will the carnivores in their lives, for that matter.)

Can't decide? Just order one of the more entertaining plates of food in town, the Meze Tabagi, or mixed meze assortment, a constellation of eight little dishes from the appetizer portion of the menu. There is ezme, the sprightly salad of ground red peppers with walnuts; and gentle flaps of braised leek to eat with a dab of salty-tart yogurt cheese; and a startlingly fresh-tasting, herbal tabouli that is long on big leaves of flat parsley and mint, an unusual treatment. The hummus is subtle and rich with sesame.

The only dish I don't care for on this platter is the chopped eggplant salad — and only because I suspect it has been doctored with overweening liquid smoke, a shortcut to achieve the desired charred-eggplant effect.

Manti, house-made dumplings stuffed with lamb in a yogurt sauce, Istanbul Grill. Photo by Alison Cook

Any of the meze dishes are perfect for takeout. So is the restaurant's admirable Iskender Kebab, a doughty casserole of rotisseried lamb and beef shards cooked with yogurt and tomato sauce and hunks of the thick pide loaves that soak up the liquids and bring it all together. Like gumbo, Iskender Kebab is one of those dishes that actually improves when it's reheated the next day.

Still, the dish I love to bring home and gloat over like Midas is the manti, little house-made dumplings no bigger than a fingertip. They are a house special on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only, the soft fluffed pasta crimped around oniony ground lamb and swaddled in that salty-tart yogurt that is so good here. Dusted with a little hot red pepper and mint, these tiny ravioli are hard to stop eating.

A single flock of manti can feed two people in tandem with one of Istanbul's salads or vegetable sides, but this is not a dish I am keen to share. With its unusual yogurt sauce, it's a welcome kink in the world of Houston pasta dishes.

Takeout heaven: assorted meze plate from Istanbul Grill. Photo by Alison Cook

The dining room at Istanbul Grill, with bread oven at the rear. Photo by Alison Cook

Istanbul Grill has more seating these days than when I first visited back in its 1998 infancy and the outdoor picnic tables on the covered front porch add an al fresco option. The parking scrum outside remains the same, though, with double parking the rule in the cramped lot and spaces at a premium on this stretch of Morningside, which is clogged with drinking establishments. My solution: go at an off-hour.

The place still has its old verve and bohemian funk, but Istanbul Grill even serves Turkish wine these days, and it's not bad: try a stumpy little glass of the red called Yakut Kavaklidere and see what you think. It's rustic stuff that works fine with the food.

They still bake their cushiony rounds of pide bread in a brick oven and serve them with bowls of a mysteriously gritty green herb dip dotted with sesame seeds. One of my loaves was scorched when I visited, but the one that went home with me was a beautiful shade of chestnut brown.

I never can resist making impromptu little sandwiches with this bread and scraps of whatever I'm eating. You'd be surprised how good pickled red cabbage salad, red onion and lettuce can be on a hunk of pide, drizzled with a bit of olive oil from the tabletop cruets. It's food at its simplest — and in some ways, most satisfying.

Istanbul Grill: 5613 Morningside, 713-526-2800. Open 11 a.m.—10 p.m. Tuesday—Sunday