TONQAL RESTORAN, Baku - Azerbeijan

Entry Gate

Tonight, I have been in Tonqal Restoran in Baku. This restaurant is a very interesting atmosphere behind high walls from the main street. It has an impressive entry gate from Haydar Aliyev Street . The layout is almost like a fortress, from outside it is difficult to notice what is behing the walls. When you pass the main entrance, you find yourself in very big nice garden area with tables in the middle and small wooden buildings scattered around the edges of the garden. Beautiful landscaping and great trees makes is a very nice ambience to eat. Being in the end of May, the weather was very comfortable. 

Service was not elegant, but friendly and comfortable. The restaurant was mainly serving Kebab and meat specialities. Kebabs were succesful and I would give a full recommendation to the grilled lamb chopsticks which were really delicious. And also we have tried some local tomato from Azerbeijan which was also very succesfull by it's flavour and smell (doesn't taste like the ones you buy from your big city supermarkets!)

We had an interesting serving of yaprak dolmasi (rice and ground meat stuffed grape leaf) as the second course. They were delicious and tender. (served with yogurt souce) And we have tried a local cabernet sauvignon which was a smooth wine leaving a strange taste in the end. It wasn't bad, but I can not call it a nice cabernet sauvignon.

Over all; if you are in Baku, I would recommend you to visit this extraordinary restaurant, And for food, I would give them 8 out of 10.

Mehmet OZER

29.05.2012

Baku, Azerbeijan

Story of My Blog - Food and Restaurant around the World

Dear Reader,

This February when we were having a dinner at "Avenue 31" in Monte Carlo, I told to my friend Nikolay about my dream of writing a blog about my experiences in different restaurants around the world and Nikolay said a very simple fact; you either do it now or never..... So he was the one to encourage me on starting this blog. I have started by collecting the cards of different restaurants where I have been and I began to take take short notes on the back sides of the cards to remind me the details to write on my blog.

I am an electrical engineer managing Tuncmatik company and I travel a lot due to my job and also love to travel on my vacations. So this gives me a lot of opportunity to try many different local restaurants and local food around the world. As we are guest in any countries, we have our business partners who invite us to local nice restaurants and they guide us around their local menu. So simply, most of the time I don't just go and eat like a tourist; I have the chance of eating in selected restaurants and recommended menus; but also I do have my own experimental choices from time to time.

Any how, in my blog I will try to share with you my views of different restaurants and menus around the world; some times we will be in Kiev, some times in Hong Kong or Miami. Frankly speaking I'm not a professional gourmet, I am someone who loves to enjoy fine restaurants and different cousines. I will try to reflect you my views for the food, atmosphere and service etc. I hope you will enjoy reading them.

Regards,

Mehmet ÖZER