Saray had big shoes to fill since we had just had a truly delicious Turkish dinner the previous night at Divan in de Jordaan. We were planning on going to a nearby Indonesian place (Warung Spang Makandra) but were turned away by the long wait for a table. At Saray we were warmly greeted and offered a table, but unfortunately that was where the warmth ended.
After giving our order we waited for 20 minutes without drinks before the server came over and asked to take our order again. We didn't make a fuss, understanding that these things happen. We gave our order a second time and began the next round of waiting. And waiting.
We had ordered the mix meze (a sampling of hot and cold appetizers) for the table. When it finally arrived, it was disappointing. The bread was just ordinary sliced sandwich bread with no warmth or spices or oil like we had enjoyed the night before. I know it's serving as a vehicle for toppings, but I appreciate when things are thoughtfully prepared or at least warmed up. The baba ganoush (a grilled eggplant-based spread) was really bland, as was the humus, the calamari was average, and I actually don't remember the rest of the apps, they didn't make much of an impression. By this point our hunger was no joke, but as hungry as the three of us were we didn't even finish everything... seriously says it all.
It was another long wait for the entree. I think it was a full hour after they cleared the apps. For my entree I ordered the güveç which was actually a really interesting dish unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It was a lamb stew with assorted veggies, served in an urn with a hard popover-like bread covering the top of the urn. The server cracks open the top and pours the contents of the stew onto a separate bowl for you to eat. The presentation was great but the actual lamb was tough and almost gamey. I did enjoy dipping pieces of the popover-topping into the stew's broth.
The most upsetting part was that midway through the meal our server became incredibly cold toward us. No idea why! We're very polite people, and although we don't speak Dutch we did say "dank u wel" frequently. His treatment of us actually made me feel uncomfortable and sad.
So overall: bland food, temperamental server, + extremely slow service = not a great experience. read more