Istanbul Bay: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Istanbul Bay is a Turkish grill in Brooklyn. It serves lamb, chicken, and fish. A vegetarian can still build a full meal here. The menu carries no dietary labels, but it lists a Vegetarian Entree category and a long run of meatless cold appetizers. This profile covers the brand, and the Bensonhurst fast food counter at 2202 86th Street serves as the example address.

The cold appetizers do most of the work. You can order Hummus, Babaganoush, Haydari with yogurt, garlic, dill, and walnuts, Tabuli, Piyaz with white beans and red beans, Cacik, Spicy Ezme with walnuts and pomegranate sour, or Spinach Saute with dill and peppers. The Stuffed Grape Leaves hold rice, parsley, and mint. A Mix Appetizers plate samples the cold dishes for the table and comes in a medium and a large size.

Hot dishes follow. The Sigara Boregi is a feta cheese roll in filo, deep fried, five to an order. The Falafel with Hummus comes in seven pieces. For dinner, the Falafel Plate brings nine falafel with hummus, rice, and salad for $20.75. The pide section helps too. You can order the Veggie Pide with mushroom, tomato, pepper, and onion, the Spinach Pide with mozzarella, the Beyaz Peynirli Pide with feta, or the plain Kasarli Pide with mozzarella. Two pides carry sucuk or pastrami, so read each description before you order. A Falafel Sandwich costs $10, and you can get it as a wrap.

Meat runs through the rest of the menu. The grill turns out chicken and lamb shish, adana, gyro, kofte, and lamb chops over charcoal, and the kitchen adds salmon, shrimp, and branzini. Fried liver cubes sit among the appetizers. The restaurant posts no note on shared grills or fryers. If cross-contact matters to you, ask how the cooks fry the falafel.

Desserts include Kunefe with cheese and pistachio, Baklava, Rice Pudding, Kazandibi, Keskul with almond, and Tres Leches. Vegans should skip the Kunefe, Baklava, Tres Leches, and puddings, since the menu lists cheese, butter, milk, or eggs in each. A vegan can still assemble a plate from the hummus, tabuli, piyaz, eggplant salad, and grape leaves.

The site states that its food is 100% halal certified. It lists three Brooklyn locations, a Bay Ridge restaurant, a Bensonhurst restaurant, and the Bensonhurst fast food counter. The fast food counter lists hours of 11am to 12:45am every day, and you can reach it at (718) 714-4300. Order online through the restaurant’s ordering page. Menus come in several forms. The site posts separate dine-in and take-out menus for each restaurant, plus a banquet menu, so open the one for your location. The site also sells a catering menu at $26 per person for groups of 10 or more.

The pides arrive on a thin crust, which makes them a good second dish to split. Diner quotes on the restaurant’s own site praise the falafel and the cold appetizer plate for two. Go with a group. Order four cold appetizers, the falafel plate, and a veggie pide, then share everything.