First Visit: Cafe Olive just off Commercial Drive

When I lived in Germany, I was lucky enough to have a Turkish restaurant around the corner from me.

I loved that place! Just like a lot of Chinese restaurants here which serve "Candianized" Chinese food, it served "Germanized" Turkish food.

However they also served "real" Turkish food. Wonderful boreks with phyllo pastry and lots of dishes which, alas, don't appear to be available in Vancouver.

My taste for Turkish food has remained but until we visited Cafe Olive I had not been able to satisfy my cravings for Turkish food.

Not only is the food tasty but it is also vegetarian (which alot of "Mediterranean" (i.e.Turkish, Italian, French and Greek food) is!) and very inexpensive.

Barb and I had a late lunch at Cafe Olive recently. We shared a small mezze platter for $5.45 and a Rose Borek with Salad for $5.55. At these prices, you could eat very well for very little! The mezze (appetizer) platter comes with your choice of three appetizers. We chose eggplant and red pepper dip (nice!), artichokes, beans, lemon and dill in olive oil (I love anything with artichokes!), and "girit" which was feta, sun dried tomatoes with walnuts and garlic (this was our favourite).

The Borek had phyllo pastry which evoked happy memories of eating at great Turkish restaurants in Germany!

We will definitely come back and write a mini-review then!

Cafe Olive, 1716 Charles Street, 1/2 block East of Commercial, 604 251 4141