Nothing to Do with Istanbul but Everything to Do with Comfort Food

There are some days in a month where all you want is cheese, chocolate & anything fried. The concept of ‘Comfort Food’ is very appealing. For me, it holds more novelty than any other pretentious food trend. Sometimes, you just want to slap your hair into a ponytail, spend time with your BFF and chomp on sinfully familiar flavours & textures. 

The Turkey Project is the epitome of this concept! Classic American style soul food served in classic American style portions, this place serves up classics like Cheese Fries & Fried Chicken with a lot of detail given to flavours, textures & techniques.

I could’ve just gone to the American Diner for burgers & fries but, what sets this apart is the sheer quality of produce, the strong show of techniques and just the satisfaction you get from biting into one of their burgers. I do know the owners, but I paid for my meal. Honestly, at the end, I was asked to give as much negative feedback as I could muster, & that was one difficult job.

We started with their Cheese Fries that came with their own house-made cheese sauce and was aptly named Fries Before Guys. Crinkle cut fries are hard to come by and these were perfectly fried and topped with red onions, jalapeños & tomatoes and then slathered with their secret sauce. I’m warning you, these are highly addictive! Up next was their Fricken’ which was basically Fried Chicken. Fried Chicken is my weakness. In fact, fried anything is my weakness. The chicken was well-marinated and beaten and had a thin layer of Panko on it. Huge fillets of chicken were fried to a crisp and drizzled with classic American condiments like ketchup, mustard & BBQ sauce. It was too big for two people who wanted to experiment. That was the only downside.

We ordered for their Santorini Summer Pizza which was a server recommendation. The base was as thin as it gets, the toppings were flavourful, the jalapeños made another appearance but what really elevated this pizza was the confit garlic & the fresh parsley on top. The Classic American Burger followed next. It’s just sad that India can’t do good burgers. Even though the patty was well cooked, the caramelised onions lent it sweetness offset by a smokey BBQ sauce. The soggy tomatoes and the mediocre bun let it down; this burger could've been on to something if it had large, crisp & juicy tomatoes, crisper turkey bacon & a solid Brioche Bun. 

Cute & cosy, this restaurant is split into two levels. The furniture is minimal chic with accents of grey, the tiles add colour and the planters sprinkle life to the space. I would tick off this to my list of places I end up at when I crave classic, decadent things like cheese and potatoes and fried potatoes with cheese on top. If only they had some Nutella on the menu! *sigh*