Friend or Foe? The Groupon hits Cafe Izmir

I read that Café Izmir located on Lower Greenville was known for “Dallas’ Best Hummus.” Being such fans of hummus and having it regularly in our fridge, we had to see what all the fuss was about. Café Izmir is a Mediterranean Tapas and Family style restaurant with dishes coming from Greek, Turkish, Lebanese and Persian cuisines. Sara, Diana and I decided that it seemed like a great place for us to catch up and share a number of dishes and some wine.

We arrived around 7:30 on a Monday night, to a very small restaurant and an extremely busy crowd. We looked around and couldn’t believe what a wait there was for a random Monday, when we overheard someone say that this was the last day that a Groupon could be used there. We knew we had an interesting night ahead of us. I love Groupon and have gotten many great deals, however not having it and being in the mix of a long wait made for a very impatient and frustrating beginning to our meal. We finally were seated about an hour later and it took about 10 minutes to even get our water. Again, I understand that the night we chose probably skews this review; however knowing that it would be busier we could not understand why one waiter was given twelve tables in our section.

The waiter gives you a piece of paper similar to sushi restaurants in which you can check how many of what plates you would like. We ordered an order of hummus with garlic (you can get no garlic if you prefer), pita bread, a chicken kabob, piroshki, veggie dolmas and a lamb roll. We got the hummus and pita bread pretty quickly and were eager to try “the best hummus in Dallas.” We dug in and were all very impressed. This hummus is uniquely spicy, due to the fact that they use raw garlic instead of roasted, which Sara so keenly pointed out. It is much creamier than other hummus that I have tried. The pita bread was delicious, very warm and fluffy and a great companion to the hummus. Sara noted that this was her second favorite hummus in Dallas and Diana and I both agreed it was very good, but could not come to the decisive conclusion that it was in fact the best. However, I am already craving some more.

We then received our other plates and began to start dividing up the food and digging in. The Lamb Roll that consisted of slow roasted shredded leg of lamb and pico de gallo wrapped in a hot tortilla was named Diana and Sara’s favorite. The portions of the plates are small, and we could have easily finished off another order of this plate. My favorite was the Piroshki which contained spiced beef, vegetables and goat cheese wrapped in sautéed bread. I absolutely loved the contrast of the goat cheese with the beef and the vegetables all wrapped in the crispy bread. I deemed it a “Middle Eastern egg roll” and loved every bite. The others enjoyed it as well.

The chicken kabob was tasty, but wasn’t anything completely different that we hadn’t tasted before. However, the chicken had a great smoky flavor and was cooked superbly. Our least favorite of the plates were definitely the veggie dolmas. They were very soggy and were lack luster in flavor, without having any meat in them. I have had much better dolmas before. The only thing left on the plates at the end of the meal was one straggling dolma that no one cared to finish off.

Since we shared a number of small plates, and had waited for such a long time, we actually felt like we had room for dessert and decided on the Izmir Special Dessert which came out in a glorious sundae dish filled with baklava, butter pound cake quarters, strawberries, vanilla ice cream, Frangelico sauce and whipped cream. This made the lack of attentive service and exceptionally long wait a little more tolerable. We dug in and cleaned the dish. It was absolutely delectable and Diana even said that it was the first time she actually enjoyed baklava. Sara pointed out that the baklava had a very distinct and unique flavor that she had never tasted before when trying the dish. I couldn’t make any brilliant observations, as I was too busy stuffing my face.

Another issue of service came up when we were waiting for our check and realized our dinner had turned into a 2 hour production. Luckily, our neighbor next to us “Jose G” offered us his extra Groupon, saving us $20 on our ticket! It definitely made the pain and frustration of waiting for so long for our meal more worth it.  Overall, I think that Café Izmir has a number of things to offer. It is a great place to catch up with people and share a variety of dishes. The food is good, particularly the hummus, dessert and our two favorite dishes. I would love to go back to meet a friend for a drink and some tapas. So often we eat a meal and feel overly stuffed and uncomfortable, where this was the perfect amount of food where you can actually enjoy eating a dessert.  I would be interested to hear about the service from other people who have been on regular nights, thinking maybe we just were unlucky. Some wise words to our followers: out of respect to fellow diners, use your Groupon before the last day it expires!!!