Turquoise grill: food
2 locations, including Sugar Land and Houston
Proprietor Jim Dokuyucu imbues his idiosyncratic office-building deli (which turns into a Turkish restaurant at night) with real joie de vivre. You can get everything from sprightly Middle Eastern dips to kebabs to multi-culti brick-oven pizzas and calzones here, not to mention the best tabbouleh in town. Don't pass up fresh-baked shepherd bread or superb baklava.
I don't know where to start. Dinner recently at the Sugar Land location. Doors are open, too darn hot outside, air conditioning cannot keep up, so our table inside was hot and there was no moving air (ceiling fans would be nice). Ordered drinks, and then waited. And waited. Finally went to the bar and asked for our drinks. Our waitress shows up shortly thereafter with them, brought the wrong beer. Street musician starts to wear on you - this place is trying to compress a sports bar, a street cafe, and a formal dining room into one space. To darn loud. Close the darn front door, OK? Flat screens are a major distraction in the dining area. Waitress is young, not trained, clearly in over her head. Food arrives, my lady indicates her meal is flavorless. Mine has some flavor, but the beef is tough. Then, the waitress really starts to show her lack of training - NEVER offers to bring the table any more drinks or fill water glasses. What the heck? Then she brings the check - there are two couples at our table, she knows this, brings the two checks, both are wrong. Two attempts later she gets the amounts correct. Street musician finally moves on, then the piped-in music starts. I forget the music format, but then it changes to a disco-club beat and gets LOUD. Oh, and the waitress brings the check without offering dessert. We order dessert, one helping to share between my lady and I, and two different waiters/waitresses show up at different times with a helping each. Instead of just leaving the second helping (which would have been a nice gesture, after what we have experienced), the server turns and returns the dessert to the kitchen. This is the strangest dining setup I can recall, and given the youth who are serving, and the attempt to be all things for all types of patrons, this is not an intimate dining experience. It is not a pleasant place to eat and visit. It is not a sports bar. It is LOUD and hot inside. I should not have to ask the server if they could bring me another drink. I should not have to listen to Kenny G wail away like he is calling ducks from another county. This is not a place to go to for ANY REASON.
Why is this place always deserted? The food is good. I had the Manti. which was excellent. Maybe I'm going at the wrong time or maybe it is the Waitress From Hell. I think it was the owner's Too-Cool-For-School daughter who clearly didn't want to be there on a Saturday. I have never felt like I was putting another human being out so much when I ordered iced tea from her.