Not your average burger joint.

As soon as you step into its glass-encased premises, you breathe in the fun vibes mostly coming from a circular bar in the middle of the wide room. Huddled around it are groups of people sitting or standing, conversing, laughing or moving to the piped-in music while holding tall, colorful drinks. Basically the same casual activities can be observed in the areas scattered around the bar where the dining customers are seated… before they stop whatever they’re doing to appreciate the food being served. Meanwhile, over in the back is an open kitchen with what seems like an army of cooks and kitchen helpers, all in a flurry as the latest orders arrive.
 
This informality defines numnum and you can be forgiven for thinking that you’ve walked into a fast food joint. It just proves that the chef-owner’s intention of bringing good food to a wider audience has undoubtedly succeeded.
 
Finnish-Turk chef Mehmet Gürs planned this kind of ambience with the aim of improving on American and Italian comfort food. You know, the dependable meals that most of us have eaten at one time or another growing up and those that we still relish because they’re simple and satisfying. Here, everything is recognizable and it shows in the lit eyes of diners when the food arrives.
 
As soon as you slip the food into your mouth, however, you realize that what you are enjoying is not at all the comfort food you think you remember. It’s been brought to an elevated gustatory level by the world-renowned chef.
 
A couple friends and I realized this as soon as we started sampling their current revised menu. We decided that the best way to cover numnum’s rather extensive offering was to do a degustation. Our task was made easier with the guidance of Olcay Ergeç, the restaurant manager, and PR Nihal Üstündeniz, who both practically got us through several pages of choices including the daunting extensive beverage lists. Also we didn’t have to concern ourselves with the beckoning Burger section since it was recently featured in TOIST (Oct. 08).
 
Settling for Monty’s Hill, the versatile Australian Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon to accompany the disparate flavors throughout the meal, we begun by opting for the Combo (28.75 TL), billed as “A little bit of this…”, which turned out to be a good intro to the Starters’ variety, while bypassing the only soup available (minestrone Toscana). The big plate carried foursomes of crunchy chicken tenders, onion rings, Buffalo wings, smoked chicken nachos and calamari garnished with slivers of celery sticks - all available as separate items - attended by five different dipping sauces. Of the five, the jalapeno in garlic butter sauce was the most drool-inducing and our favourite.
 
The Sandwiches list had some of my all-time favorite combinations and I would have been gung-ho to find out what possible tweaking Mehmet could have come up with in such classics as ham and cheese, pepper and mozzarella, shredded barbeque beef, pesto chicken - among others - but my companions reminded me that we were just in the second leg of this tasting session. So we asked to share the New Club Sandwich (16.75TL).
 
It was served in a homespun way on a wood cutting board with a small earthen planter propping up perfectly done fries and a dish of coleslaw on the side. Well, these club sandwiches were not like any my friends or I have had in any cafeteria or bistro elsewhere, with smoked turkey, beef ham, mozzarella, hard-boiled egg, marinated tomatoes complimenting each other with a mere whiff of mayo and Dijon to unite them. As for the coleslaw, forget the Dutch koolsla, the Brit cold slaw or the southern U.S. version of cabbage salad, here it had an unusual pan-Asian sweet-tanginess that made it light and new.
 
Moving on, we could not resist trying out one of the 18 different pizza combinations that can be reassembled according to individual tastes. I chose the pizza for the group- opting for the Meat Etc. (19.75TL), made up of ground beef, pepperoni, roasted peppers, grilled onions, jalapeno in a basil-tomato sauce topped by mozzarella, and I squealed in surprise when it came as square instead of round with a thin crust that I prefer in a pizza.
 
At this point we had to take a break from all the meat to switch to something all together different from the salad list. Among their “colossal classics” was Hot Smoked Salmon Nicoise (13.50/16.50TL). This intrigued us because of the unusual pairing of hot and cold in this popular salad, a personal favorite. What hit us were the crunchy greens, drizzled in fresh herb vinaigrette, exposing the distinct taste of smoked salmon.
 
When we finally got to choosing from the Main Courses, it was clear the only way to go was the “Dingle Dangle” (32TL), which was supposedly a real sampler of what the kitchen could do with meat entrees and a large enough portion for three. Beef tenderloin, spicy chicken breast, meatball and lamb loin were all grilled medium-rare (on request) and left hanging in a rack of skewers dangling over roasted potatoes, cucumber salad and a small dipping dish of rosemary-roasted garlic oil. The creative presentation had such visual impact that it elicited glee from my company when it was set on the table. It not only looked good, reminiscent of Brazilian churrasco, but also tasted good.
 
After all those dangling goodies, we needed simplicity in the sweets, before coffee, to end the triathlon of dining we were having, so we made do with the most familiar of the newly listed Desserts. They were: Crème Brule (8.50TL), New-York-style white chocolate Cheesecake (9.25TL) and sweet-sour Lemon tart (8.25TL) with vanilla sauce. All three transcended the usual, as does numnum its competition.
 
numnum’s at Kanyon (0212-353 0708); G-mall in Maçka (0212-296 2685); Meydan (0216-527 1314); Astoria (0212-215 3040; Panora Ankara (0312-490 4515).
www.numnum.com.tr
 
 
 
*numnum Kanyon has a lunchtime capacity of 150-200 persons; reservations are not accepted. Aside from management positions, it employs 25 cooks and 26 wait staff. Part of the latter’s training, prior to ‘graduating’ to the floor, is to undergo 15 days of observing how the food is prepared in the kitchen to ensure that each waiter is completely knowledgeable about the menu.