?> {"id":2179,"date":"2010-01-11T21:56:24","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T02:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2010-02-02T21:05:28","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T02:05:28","slug":"hanci-turkish-cuisine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twofatbellies.com\/2010\/01\/hanci-turkish-cuisine\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanci Turkish Cuisine"},"content":{"rendered":"
Updated 2\/2\/10 – Hanci Turkish Cuisine is no longer a BYO. It now offers a limited wine\/beer list. There is a corkage fee of $10\/bottle if you bring your own wine.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m always looking for good BYO restaurants in the city, after being spoiled with the huge number of BYO options in NJ. I read about Hanci Turkish Cuisine, a BYO right in our neighborhood, so one Friday night Josh and I decided to give it a shot. The restaurant is small but the bright lighting and simple d\u00e9cor make it seem much larger and more airy. Even though tables are close together, I didn\u2019t feel cramped.<\/p>\n The restaurant wasn\u2019t full so they graciously let us sit at a four-top instead of a table for two, which turned out well because we ended up with a ton of food on the table. We started off sharing the mixed appetizer plate, which came with a taste of most of the cold appetizers and dips on the menu, including hummus, ezme (chopped tomatoes, spices, green peppers, onions, olive oil, and lemon), patlican salad (like baba ghanoush), tarama (red caviar spread), zeytinyagli pirasa (leeks and carrots cooked in olive oil), and haydari (thick yogurt with walnuts, garlic, and dill). There is both a small and large option, so we asked our waitress what she recommended. She told us quite honestly that there wasn\u2019t a huge difference between the small and large sizes, so we were better off ordering the small and saving a few dollars. I was surprised that she was so frank about it and didn\u2019t try to up-sell us, which raised my impression of the restaurant immediately.<\/p>\n