Samdan

Moody waiters. Re-​heated food. Expensive for what it is. Much better turkish food elsewhere.

One of my favourite local restaurants! Samdan gets the full 5 star rating for consistently producing excellent food. We try to go at least once a month and order the same every time — the lamb shish — every time we have visited the food has been delightful! The lamb is seasoned and marinated to perfection — succulent, juicy and the right amount of charred. It is served with a lightly dressed salad, pomegranate seeds and seasoned rice. Wash down with a lovely bottle of Ventoux and you cannot go wrong! There is a lovely cushioned outdoor section which is lovely during the summer. The restaurant is very busy so make sure you get a reservation! The bread and dips are a must — we always order extra!
My personal recommendations:
Starter Recommendation:
Aubergine In Exotic Sauce
(Imam Bayıldı)
Delicately fried aubergine
stuffed with mixed peppers, onions, pine
nuts, garlic and tomato sauce.
(£5.20)
Main Recommendation:
Lamb Shish
Chargrilled marinated cubes of lamb
served with rice and salad.
(£12.95)
Red Wine Recommendation:
Ventoux, Delas, Rhone Valley, France
(80% Grenache, 20% Syrah) Rounded and fruit–
driven, with ripe red berries on the nose, and a
plump, juicy palate.
£5.25 /£19.95

We live in Winchmore Hill and have visited this restaurant a number of times. The food is generally excellent, however the service is patchy. We booked a table for 9.15pm last night and arrived at 9.20pm to be greeted with you’re 20 minutes late. No hello or welcome, just a telling off for being what was actually 5 minutes late (they had made a mistake with the table booking time). It then took a long time for our orders to be taken, and for the food to arrive, and we had only just finished our main courses at 11pm. The waitress immediately brought dessert menus over and, literally 1 minute later came back to ask us what we wanted. When we said that we needed a bit more time, she actually tapped her watch and said that we would have to order now as the kitchen was closing. We have experienced sub standard service in this restaurant before, but last night’s experience put a real dampener on our evening and I’m not sure I would return. I would definitely be extremely cautious about recommending to others.

We have visited this restaurant on a few occasions and have always enjoyed the food. However the quality of service is often unfriendly and reached new lows in last night’s visit. Having been telephoned and told that the table we booked for 7.30pm would need to be vacated by 9.30pm, as they had another sitting, we were tempted to call off our visit, but decided to go ahead as we were meeting friends there. Upon arrival we were seated by a draftee door. We were reminded virtually every time a waiter visited our table that we needed to eat quickly as the table was needed later. At other times waiters dropped food on the table and walked off without saying a word. We were made to feel uncomfortable, as if we were lucky to be eating there at all. At 8.50 one waiter actually told us we had overstayed our welcome and asked us to finish even though we were still eating our main course! We complained but saw no manager. When one is paying for a meal one would expect to have an enjoyable and relaxing time and not have to put up with being treated like cattle. A restaurant is there to serve customers not to make as much money as possible from every available seat. Pathetic and as with all dissatisfied customers I will not return and will tell everyone else I know to avoid this place.

I live local to Winchmore hill, so the other day I was streaming through the internet searching certain websites to find an ideal restaurant in the area for a meal with my girlfriend, even though I knew this restaurant was located in the area, I had never really visited the place. But due to strong recommendations and high ratings, I finally decided to try it out and I must say I was very impressed. We received a very warm welcoming and atmosphere, I received a small complimentary starter, consisting of organic olives and turkish bread which was very tasty. We realised there was a very rich and wide range of dishes to choose from on the main menu, and the prices were generally affordable. We ordered a selection of hot and cold meze which was fresh and delightful, following the starters, we ordered our main course, I ordered the Chef Special and my girlfriend ordered a Fish dish, and we were both very pleased by the meal, the dishes were cooked to perfection and were delicious. The service was also brilliant, which made us feel comfortable. All in all I will definitely recommend this restaurant to everyone, however it tends to get busy on the weekends so a booking may be necessary.

This is a wicked little Turkish restaurant. I loved the food. It was all fresh and tasty. All the usual suspects appeared on the menu. I chose the £20 fixed menu. I was very impressed. One word to the wise. If you do eat from the fixed menu, fast yourself for the day. There was so much food! It was great. I was eating with friends and we all commented on how tasty it all was and how full we were when we left. It does get busy on the weekend so a booking is recommended. Enjoy!