Piknik Köfte & Piyaz

This is a cafeteria style place with many Turkish dishes to choose from. I ordered menu #1 (Turkish meatballs, salad or piyaz, ayran). You grab a tray, pick your salad and drink, put dressing on your salad, get some fresh bread and some flatware, pay and go to your table. Once your main dish is ready, they bring it to you. They require extra time for Menu #2, meatballs with cheese, since it is prepped to order. Meatballs were good, salad was fresh. Paid 13.50 TL (around $ 6 as of May 2014). I picked a table on the second floor, several tables were speaking English, so I assume foreigners also frequent this place. They also offer some small dishes (meze style) if you would like to try something new. It is located just past Galatasaray Lisesi when you’re walking down Istiklal Street towards Pera.

As with other reviews for places in Turkey, this would have happened earlier if I had realised before that Unilocal had included Turkey.
This is a great place and one of the great examples of a typical type of Turkish restaurant serving «ready food,» food already prepared. This type of eatery is common in Turkey but in quality and taste it can far exceed what one might expect if used to similar «cafeteria» –like places in the US which usually serve junk. In Turkey, this type of place can range from bad to wonderful, with a great range of really great food purchased by the portion. Everything we’ve had here is really great. I would note that this place has expanded and spruced up a lot since we first found it but we rely on this as an expected place to eat when in the Taksim area.