This place is all the rage.
In a recent Feast Magazine (a STL foodie type mag) it won best in two categories: Best Fast Casual and Best Food Truck (Savory). Its chef/creator was also nominated for a James Beard award. That is a huge deal in the cooking world.
I expected a lot.
There were 4 of us: Laurie, Vickie, Anna and me. We arrived around 12:15ish. There was a line, but since it was hot outside, the line was mostly inside. Laurie currently doesn't do inside dining, so we asked for our food "to go" and snagged one of the two picnic tables out back. It was hot and there were a lot of flies and gnats, but we survived.
Now, about the food. Laurie and Anna got the same thing, so between the 4 of us, we got 3 different entrees.
Laurie and Anna got the Cevapi. It is like a split pita with a bunch of beef sausages piled on it. There is a side of onions and tzatziki sauce. It also came with a side of red cabbage "slaw." I tried one of the sausages. They were just OK. You know how sausages need spices added to the meat to make them taste like sausages??? These didn't seem to have those spices. It was just bland. So, bland meat on plain pita bread with onions and tzatziki. It is kind of like a gyro with blank meat and no tomatoes.
Vickie got their most popular dish the Pide. It is like a boat shaped bread with chicken and then 2 sauces: one made of roasted red peppers and one that is like tzatziki. Even though we were eating outside, we were eating with real cutlery and since the bread is made on a big wood-burning oven, the bottom gets tough. You really need someone to cut it up with a pizza cutter. They don't, and Vickie had a heck of a time cutting through it to get smaller sections. The chicken was probably dark meat that had been roasted on a spit. It was good but nothing spectacular. The sauces sure helped it have some flavor but again, were nothing terribly new or wonderful. Vickie felt it was "fine" but she didn't like having to work so hard to cut something.
I got the Balik Ekmek. Basically this is a grilled piece of fish in a pita. The menu says "fish of the day." I don't know what kind it was, but it was super thin...something like tilapia. Since it was grilled it was pretty dry. It was on the pita with some lettuce and a BUNCH of cherry tomatoes. I don't like cherry tomatoes, so I took them off and gave them to Laurie (who put them on her sausage sandwich). There was a little spicy yogurt sauce (but not enough). I actually threw the red cabbage "slaw" and squeezed my lemon all over it to make a little crunch and acid. This helped! It wasn't bad...it was just kind of dry and bland.
We did try the rice pudding for dessert. It is just chilled rice pudding. It has some cinnamon and spices in it. On top they sprinkle pistachios and rose petals. It was simple and good. We shared that because Anna had noticed that we were across the street from Serendipity and Anna and Vickie love a good bowl of ice cream.
Balkan Treat Box might be all the rage, but I just don't get it. The fire roasted items and fire baked bread are OK but nothing had much taste. The sauces they add are OK but not enough to really flavor the meats. I know this place has hundreds of 5 star ratings on places like TripAdvisor and Yelp, but to me...meh...3 stars for being interesting and from a different part of the world.
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