Best Food in Fethiye
We stumbled across this little paradise after finishing our shopping at Tansas.

We took our daughter Kylie there as a birthday treat, she's 11

The restaurant is directly across the road from Tansas which itself is on the main Fethiye to Calis Beach road.

Somine Kebab has recently opened and has both terrace and inside dining. First impressions would lead you to believe this place is really expensive. No expense has been spared and the whole restaurant is clean and impressive to say the least.

Our first visit (we've been a few times now) and the Turkish staff were very friendly and offered us a very warm welcome. We chose to dine outside on the terrace. A nice water fountain clouds any traffic nice from the road nearby. My husband is always one for inspecting kitchens and today was no exception.

After his visit to the kitchen, he returned with the owner who also sat with us and explained the restaurant history. By the way, the kitchen according to my hubbie was spotless!

Although, this restaurant is newly opened, the owner(s) come from another part of Turkey (Eskisehir). They started their business from Eskisehir in 1984 and it's refreshing to know that the management and 3 chefs all hail from the same area, thereby bringing their wealth and knowledge of real Turkish cooking and preparation to touristy Fethiye.

They offer a wide ranging menu catering for all tastes. Steaks, Chicken, Pizzas, Fish, Vegetarian but of course their real speciality is their kebabs.

The restaurant layout and decor is more akin to that of a 5 star hotel restaurant so we were more than pleased to see very reasonable menu pricing (and refreshingly, reductions made for childrens orders).

For example,

Lamb Chops, with all the trimmings 12YTL,

Adana Kebab 8YTL, 1/2 Chicken 10YTL, Pepper Steak 18YTL, Garlic Prawns 12YTL

I know the prices because we took one of their menus to our apartment in case we wanted to use their paket delivery service.

I opted for their steak whilst hubby went for the Doner Kebab with Yoghurt Sauce.

The 3 kids had fish fingers & chips, spaghetti bolognaise & chicken wings with chips & baked beans.

It's good to see the management have wisely catered for young children's tastes with good old-fashioned dishes.

So many restaurants we've visited and the children are left to plunder through a menu that means nothing to them and the food ordered more often than not just goes to waste.

For a lunchtime, early afternoon session, the restaurant was quite busy with a good mix of both Turkish and foreign tourists.

Beer and soft drinks were very reasonably priced. Large Efes Beer just 2.5YTL and Cola, Fanta was 2YTL.

The bread and pizzas are freshly cooked in a stone/clay oven and I have to say this in my opinion adds that extra class to any Turkish restaurant. So refreshing to see the bread and garlic butter are complimentary.

Hubby and I selected a bottle of their house white from a very extensive list of wines ranging in price from 20YTL to 35YTL.

Our meals all arrived together (that's not always normal in Turkey) and were very well presented. Considering we had opted for the reduced price childrens portions, they were more than plentiful.

Steak was perfectly cooked (medium) but one criticism - no steak knives? It wasn't so important for me as the steak was no prob. (We pointed this out to the owner and since our first visit, he's invested in steak knives).

Hubbies doner was the largest plate of food I've seen in a long while, he wasn't complaining though as the meat was delicious and far better than the fast food shops we've tried before.

Children were very happy too. Becky (our 8yr old) just loved the chicken wings which were freshly barbecued. The baked beans were a pretty good Heinz copy so watch out Heinz!

The head chef joined our table to enquire if everything was ok. A nice touch and we had nothing to complain about - only praise.

Nice background music accompanied the meal - we really don't like loud thumping music that drowns out conversation.

There's no rushing around in this restaurant and we were very relaxed.

The meal finished, we were all well and truly stuffed.

It was a nice suprise when the head waiter, Ramazan brought to our table a birthday cake for Kylie and everyone in the restaurant joined in with a Turkish/English rendition of Happy Birthday Kylie.

We learned that one of the waiting staff had gone into town to get the cake whilst we were eating our meal. They even had her name iced on the cake. Not bad eh. The owner insisted on not charging us for the cake despite our protests.


We rounded off the meal with a nice Turkish coffee and paid the bill.

How much do you think?

77YTL or in sterling (at the time) 28 pounds.

So with a bottle of wine, 2 meat main courses and 3 childrens meals plus soft drinks and coffees a mere 5.50 a head.

Now you can see why we like Somine Kebab so much and we think they will do very well if they maintain this level of service and quality of food.

We were told they are also opening during the winter months and we may well be tempted to spend our first Christmas holiday in Fethiye this year, providing they can come up with Cranberry Sauce and Parsnips but the kids insist. No Brussels sprouts please!

If you decide to visit Somine Kebab, then please say a big hello to Tahir, Aytac, Ramazan, Murat and Senol from Pauline, Ken and family.    []

Food:    Service:    Ambiance:    Overall: 
Recommended Dishes: steaks

     ­Anonymous   

Food fit for a King
We only came for two weeks, but wish we had come for longer. It doesn't really matter because we have now decided to up roots from the UK and move to Fethiye permanently.

Fethiye we are told is a great place for all-year round living and we expect this winter will be our first in Fethiye.

We spent a good deal of time touring the area and whilst researching the area on the net we stumbled across a members forum that specifically addressed the Fethiye & Calis areas.

We ended up spending a great deal of time in Calis and it is here that we will probably move to. Anyway, the purpose of this article is to inform you of a great restaurant we found after it was recommended on the Calis Forum.

It's called Somine Kebap. Now hold on, it's not just a run of the mill kebab house. I have also seen the review on here by another member and I must concur with this lady, the food at Somine Kebap is outstanding.

We visited this place numerous times for both daytime and evening meals and we never had anything to complain about.

Their menu is diverse and offers both meat and fish dishes. The steaks are fantastic while the kebabs are like nothing we have ever tasted - full marks to the management as they have got everything right. We were told the restaurant is newly opened but the owner has been in the restaurant business for over 20 years, so he knows a thing or two about food!

Well, I started this article off as "food fit for a king" and this is what happened!

The Somine Kebab menu has 3 special dishes that require 24 hours advance notice. We were told the specials are very popular options with their Turkish customers so we had to try for ourselves.

The problem was that the specials are designed for a larger group. ie. a whole lamb or turkey or full rib of beef.

From the menu and the pictures it sounded so tempting so we just had to give it a go. We teamed up with a couple we had met in our hotel and made the advance order for their whole stuffed turkey. We realised that even for four people the whole turkey was going to be far too much for us four however, the chef promised to keep any left-overs for us and prepare for us alternative dishes for future visits at no extra cost. Not bad eh.

The cost is 100 lira for the Turkey. We arrived at the restaurant at 8'ish and the Turkey was almost cooked. The chef had very slowly cooked the Turkey in their clay oven.

When the Turkey was delivered to our table, the whole restaurant was looking at our food and some other english customers took photos too. It really was a sight to see!

The turkey was perfectly cooked and the meat just fell off the bone when carved.

The stuffing they had used was a perfect compliment and the side dishes of potatoes and fresh vegetables left us feeling like Lord of the Manor!

It was the best food we have ever tasted and leaves our traditional Christmas turkey looking a tad sad in retrospect. These people really know how to cook and we highly recommend this restaurant to everyone.

There was plenty left over and the next day we were treated to a turkey curry but declined their offer for any further dishes containing turkey and was happy to see the remaining meat going to the staff table.

A thoroughly enjoyable time we had at Somine Kebab and definitely engraved in our memories that made this holiday for us so special. Full marks to the other member who posted her review about Somine Kebab. It really was food fit for a king!    []

Food:    Service:    Ambiance:    Overall: 
Recommended Dishes: steak

     ­GrahamBev