Simit Sarayi

Lovely place for light eating, tea or coffee time to chit chat with friends. I went few times and every times was satisfied for sure

For me I liked everything, the simit with cheese was good, the servant are so friendly

New York is so lucky to have Simit Sarayi! I stopped here for breakfast before a full day of NYC shopping. The food tasted exactly like the locations in Istanbul. I even overheard an employee tell a customer that almost everything is flown in frozen from Turkey.
My favorite thing here is the cake (all the varieties) as well as their borek. But you really can’t go wrong with any of the baked goods. The only thing that needed improvement was a cookie I got (did not taste authentic).
Simit Sarayi should really consider expanding to Los Angeles… There’s a huge Turkish community here as well as tons of middle eastern people who love Turkish baked goods.

Been to this hot spot a few times and it’s been about the time I write about it. The management is very helpful and thoughtful at all times makes shore our food is fresh tea on the go. The staff is very very help full with knowledge of the menu. Thank u guy for the grate food

A taste of Turkey in the middle of NYC! I The chain is actually from Turkey so you know their stuff is authentic! I’ve had simits in Istanbul before and it’s great to have this place right near my office so I can get a taste of the deliciousness and relive memories of traveling in Turkey!
Make sure to try;
— Simit (make sure you get it warm it tastes so much better)
— Cheese pastries
— Turkish Tea
— Turkish Coffee (note there will be coffee grounds on the bottom)
— Get some fresh squeezed orange juice
There is seating on the second floor if the first floor is full up!
All in check this place out whether it be for breakfast, for a snack or for coffee with a friend!

Location: thanks to the food king — Foodbaby, I have bookmarked this place long time ago. Apparently, i am not familiarized with any turkish bakeries or turkish cuisine, though I have always longing to visit Turkey. Abruptly visiting some disappointed stores on 5TH avenue, I saw this place and I knew that it was time to review their bakeries. When I first stepped into this place, I suddenly felt like I was a minority in the middle east. (Well, i am still minority in USA, but this places seems to be the center of middle east) All customers look like that they are from middle east because they spoke language in Arabic. Okay, I was wondering around to see which one I should order.
Food: Finally, I decided to have their traditional bakeries — Gul Boregi with Spinach and cheese. I would say, it was bland. The spinach is not seasoned and bluntly mixed with cheese making the whole bakery seems to be a dough without any flavor. I was upset, even though they heated the bakeries. I cannot image who to eat it without heating up.
Service: service is disturbing. It looked like they did not understand what I wanted and the whole experience of service is lack of welcoming feelings. And the tables are disgusting… I do not know if they have ever wiped it yet.
The total experience is a big NO. I am not thinking about coming back
THREE STAR

I’ve been there with my friends. The place was warm but service was average. I drunk Turkish tea and ate «simit». I had tasted them before in Turkey, tastes like not fresh.

I would have given this place 5 stars, however the attitude of the girl (Ozge) at the register prevented me from doing so.

The Spinach and cheese rose borek was really amazing. Def eat heated. I had a salmon and avocado kimit, but i didn’t heat it. I think this was a mistake.
I took one star off because i saw some ladies open their soup and decide they got the wrong one and put it back in the display. If you buy anything make sure it’s from behind the counter because no one is watching the fridges by the door properly.

Decided to stop by Simit Sarayi after work to purchase some breakfast items for the following morning.
Simit was equivalent to the same high-​quality standard I experienced before.
The Simit stuffed with yellow cheese was solid but unspectacular. The Simit portion was fine, just like a standard Simit, but the yellow cheese was pretty mild and was rather bland.
The Chocolate Chip Cookie was the real wildcard. A seemingly chocolate heavyweight turned out to be quite the featherweight. It was a very light and airy chocolate chip cookie that was very moist and at the same time crumbly too; delicately breaking apart with a slight touch.
I could see myself eating a bunch of these cookies as they were so light tasting.
Quite the surprise indeed!

Came across this place by chance and what a nice treat this turned out to be!
Grabbed a pizza baguette type thing, and few others. Tasted amazing and the staff were super sweet and very friendly. Guess we’ll have to go back!

So many delicious simit options.
I opted for the simit sandwich with feta, lettuce, onions, and tomato.
Light but still very flavorful.
I’ll definitely be back to try their other stuff.

If I were asked to review this place only on the simit and the convenience of the place, the cleanliness, décor, comfort, etc. I would definitely have rated it a perfect 5 star as the simit is as authentic as it gets. My favorite is simit ring toasted three times then put the feta cheese and tomatoes inside. Once you try it, it is guaranteed you’ll be hooked! (if you like crispy goodies) also simit ring toasted the same way with nutella. Super!
Super affordable, no tip policy/​self service, super comfy seatings, clean, new/​fresh, airy, with wifi in the middle of Midtown! Like dream come true! LOL! :))
They are still trying to find their ways so changing their policies too often, even the way they make other pastries. Soups are terrible, don’t try. Chocolate deserts even worse. Really really too bad that they are making such mistakes. (Sorry, Simit Sarayi, I have to be honest here). There is one bakery with dill and cheese that is really to die for, could’t recommend any higher. Extremely high calorie though, be careful :) Cookies with tahini (which was one of my faves in Turkey) needs more tahini and sugar inside to be authentic. Aycorek is almost authentic once they get to cook it thoroughly, comes always not thoroughly baked. Muffins are bad, not worth trying. Menemen (turkish omelette) is a OK, breakfast plate although overpriced scratches the itch again with *toasted* simit.yum.

I tried this potato knish thing at Simit Sarayi. It was pretty good. Very buttery, very savory, very mash potato-​y. Definitely cannot eat this everyday. Way too rich.
Also, hot sauce would have been pretty good with that knish now that I think about it. (And, yes, I know it is not called a knish, but that’s basically what it was, just the Turkish version.)
Peace.

Went here with a few of my Turkish friends and they introduced me to the famous «simit.» You’ve got to taste it! It’s fresh, soft, and delicious! They brought nutella with them, so we dipped the simits in our tub of nutella and the combination is to die for!
We also had some of the simit pizza and simit burgers and their fresh Turkish tea and Turkish coffee. They pour it old school from a Turkish kettle. It was so delicious. It doesn’t taste like that Lipton crap we are used to here.
The inside and the bathrooms are so clean (sometimes a rarity in the city) and you can always find seats for your group of friends. I’ll be coming here more often! Grab a bite here and you will not be disappointed!!! (It also has wifi!!!)

The best café in town.
Very clean, staff are super friendly, the food is delicious
I ordered a burger (I’m not a big fan of burger) but I gave it try.
It was the best burger I ever ate in my life. You have to try it. It was just perfect, NOT oily or over/​under cooked
The burger came with fries and a Turkish tea or Soda. For 12 $
I also order cheese cake.

I really wanted to love this place. I love turkish pastries and was expecting this place to be amazing. We came in, ordered 2 simit sandwiches and waited for them to be warmed up. After a few minutes, we checked on our order, turns out, we had to go to cashier and pay. We went to pay and pick the pastries, turns out they gave it to someone else. We ordered again and waited for them to be warmed up in their tiny oven, where they stack everything on top of each other. Anyways, took the simits and they said our scrambled egg order would arrive shortly. After 15 minutes, we checked on our egg order again and they brought us a wrong order with sausage. We asked them to change. The right food arrived after 10 minutes.
The whole order placing and getting everything to finally sit down and eat took at least half an hour. For a fast food place like this, located on Fifth avenue in NYC, it’s crazy! Apart from that, the food is nothing extraordinary.
My advice to you, skip this place and just go to Maison Kaiser one block down. Much better quality food, much better service, more organized.

Maybe I’m not a simit expert… but I don’t understand the lackluster reviews… I just visited and I found the simit to be great… similar to a good nyc bagel but not as much dough and covered in sesame seeds. It was fantastic and I had it plain, no cheese or anything. The price point is super inexpensive too it’s!1.49 for one.
I also had these wonderful mini cookies, one apple, and one fig, and I was concerned that they would be hard after reading another Unilocal review… not even close… They were soft like a fig newton except fresh and not full of chemicals. It’s also worth noting I tried Turkish ice coffee, and that also was fantastic nicely strong but not bitter. I’m glad I didn’t rely on some of the reviews. I adore this place and prices are even a bit cheaper Starbucks!!! Definitely will be back… It’s a great place for snacks or light meal.

Seriously… the simit is just a BETTER version of a bagel.
I got the breakfast platter for $ 14, which has a pretty diverse spread — coffee/​tea, boiled egg, jam, butter, cheese, honey, walnut, olives, meat slices, cukes, tomato, lettuce and of course a simit. Everything in the platter tasted good but there definitely didn’t need to be a 1″ cube of solid butter, half a cucumber sliced up and what might have been an entire tomato. These cheap ingredients were not enough to jack up the price. They also served the hot simit with rest of plate straight out of the fridge so the simit got cold really fast.
I would totally go back because of how perfect the simit was but would certainly not get the platter again.

My Turkish friend took me here and I thought the concept of this restaurant is amazing its like a better run panera.
When you walk in you wait online and pick the food you want. I got the a cheese and a potato pastry with fresh orange juice. They heat the food while you wait online and by the time you get to the register it warm and you can bring it upstairs to enjoy your food.
The food I got was delicious and so was the juice but when I finished the food they have wait staff that cleans up after you and also can get you more food and drinks without having to wait online again which was nice so I got a Turkish coffee and it was brought to my table.
I will definitely come here again.