If you have never had a proper Turkish kebab, Bloomfield's Penn Avenue is a good place to start. Istanbloom Mediterranean Restaurant, also known as Istanbloom Mediterranean Grill, is an authentic Turkish grill that does things the old-fashioned way: open-flame charcoal hearth cooking, 100% Halal meats, and lavash baked fresh every day. The whole place is built around bringing the communal dining culture of the Bosphorus to western Pennsylvania, and it shows in the details, right down to the Aegean spices — Turkish sumac, Aleppo peppers and wild thyme — brought in from Gaziantep and Urfa.
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The menu is built around the grill. The Lamb Adana is a standout at $25.99, finely minced lamb worked with red peppers and spices, skewered and chargrilled, then served with grilled tomato, bell pepper, rice and a house salad. The Beyti Kebab, $26.99, wraps ground lamb grilled on a skewer in lavash and tops it with tomato sauce and yogurt, also with rice on the side. For something lighter, the Chicken Doner is $21.99, sliced from a vertical rotisserie and served with rice, grilled tomato, bell pepper and house salad, with a gluten-free option available. Beyond those, there is a wide spread of kebabs and grills to choose from: Lamb Shish, Izgara Kofte, lamb chops, doner, Iskender, a mixed grill, chicken kebab, salmon and shrimp kebabs, and whole fish like branzino and dorado.
No Turkish meal is complete without mezes, and Istanbloom does them properly. Cold appetizers like hummus, baba ganoush, grape leaves, sauced eggplant, spicy ezme, haydari, tabuli and piyaz are $7.99 each, or you can get a small mixed plate for the same price and a large one for $32.99. Hot appetizers — falafel, cigarette borek, spinach borek, breaded calamari and zucchini — are $11.99 each. There are also soups and salads, like the lentil soup at $7.50 and the shepherd's salad at $13.99, plus several vegetarian platters at $21.99 each if you are skipping the meat. Save room for dessert: baklava and chocolate baklava come four pieces for $12.99, while kazandibi, rice pudding and kunefe round out the sweets. Drinks range from herbal tea and Turkish coffee to canned sodas and Pellegrino.
A few things are worth knowing before you go. The food is grilled to order, so full dishes take about 20 to 30 minutes, which is something to keep in mind if you are in a rush. Reservations are accepted and walk-ins are welcome, and there is free parking in the back lot along with metered street parking. If you would rather take the bus, the stop at Penn Avenue and 44th Street, by Children's Hospital, is served by the 48 and 51 lines from downtown. There is a $20 corkage fee per bottle, and parties of six or more include an 18% gratuity. For larger groups, Istanbloom also runs a catering business that delivers charcoal-grilled spreads across Pittsburgh, from Lawrenceville and Oakland to the Strip District and the North Shore, with packages starting at $14.99 per person for orders of ten or more.
