Anatolia Mediterranean Grill & Breakfast

Although Little Arabia in Anaheim hosts Orange County’s largest and best collection of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean restaurants, it’s not the only place with great options – Fountain Valley, Fullerton, and even Garden Grove offer compelling choices, too. Having pleasantly surprised us with the recent opening of Peruvian Rocoto Pesca Bar, Huntington Beach has unexpectedly also became home to a high-quality Turkish restaurant named Anatolia Mediterranean Grill & Breakfast (aka Anatolia Mediterranean Grill & Restaurant). Located just off the I-405 and across the street from what remains of the Westminster Mall, Anatolia is a smallish, non-chain restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining that overlooks a medical plaza’s parking lot – from the outside, you mightn’t expect much. But based on our experience there, Anatolia is certainly worth visiting.

A laminated, spiral-bound menu includes nearly a dozen pages of food photographs and descriptions, one page of drinks, and around six pages of professional photos spotlighting scenes from Turkey’s Anatolia region – also known as Asia Minor, the Mediterranean peninsula southeast of Europe and northeast of Africa. One and a half pages show off Turkish few breakfast items – two omelets ($14-$15), bagel-like Simit, Achma, Pogaca rolls (3/$12), deep-fried rolls with cheese (6/$12), cheese borek ($3/$12), and a gigantic $45 “spread set” with cheeses, rolls, olives, breads, and drinks. The remainder of the menu features lunch and dinner fare largely found at other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern places, albeit here with Turkish names: For example, Persian ground beef koobideh skewers are listed at Anatolia as “beef lulah / adana,” alongside pizza-like bread boats called “pide” and grape leaves (commonly dolmades) here named “sarma.” A large mezze set for $28 includes four grape leaves, muhammara, hummus, and tzatziki dips, spiced tomato/pomegranate shak shuka, a spicy eggplant/pepper/tomato ezme salad, and pitas – a great value given that ordering all the same items a la carte would cost around $50.

Less common items on the menu include cold bulgur/tomato/pepper appetizers called cig kofte ($14), cooked eshli kofta/ras kebbel bulgur and ground beef dumplings ($16), Albanian liver ($21), and a spiced, oven-baked Shrimp Stew ($18). Less adventurous eaters will find plates of grilled chicken ($21), grilled salmon and sea bass ($26 each), lamb chops with mashed potatoes or rice ($29), and french fries ($6), plus caprese, greek, and chicken caesar salads for $16 to $19. While the dishes we received generally fell a little short of Anatolia’s official photography in plating – an issue we wouldn’t raise at most places, including Long Beach’s famous (and similarly named) Ammatoli – the images were helpful in making decisions, and pretty fair representations of portion sizes.