A couple of weeks ago, I was going through all the clothes stores in one suburb trying to find an engagement/wedding party appropriate dress. I eventually did find one at 4:30 just as the shops were about to close, but I’d also taken a break from the mad hunt for lunch. We went to Sahara by the Park, which is a Turkish restaurant in Burwood. I’d been craving babaghanoush for the longest time, and the stuff you find in supermarkets doesn’t taste quite the same.

So of course, we order the dips. N and I went in thinking we going to get just the babaghanoush dip, but then we spotted the dip platter and a few other dips we were curious about. We ended up ordering the dip platter with

• babaghanoush (oven roasted eggplant, yoghurt, garlic and spices) – this was my favourite of the three. I’m not much of an eggplant fan normally as I find the texture a bit mushy, but dips are meant to mushy and I’d wished we’d just ordered this.
• cacick (creamed yoghurt, cucumber and mint) – I was expecting a more refreshing version (if that was possible) of tzatziki because of the mint. The mint ended up overpowering everything else, alas.
• pancar (beetroot purée yoghurt and garlic) – D had told me amazing things about a beetroot dip he once had at a fancy function, so I was keen to try. Funnily enough, it tasted something like relish/pickles to me.

Our mission were the dips, so with that satisfied we decided to have some wedges to fill up the rest of our tummies. The wedges and sweet chilli sauce were pretty standard. Nothing amazingly fluffy about them.

And we needed some protein to balance out the carbs, so we got the baby calamari with chips. These chips were deliciously fluffy and tasted delicious with the garlic mayonnaise. The batter:calamari ratio was good – there’s nothing worse than eating something deep fried and being left with a mouthful of batter!

And of course, how could I not order Turkish apple tea? Turkish apple tea doesn’t really vary, I find, but I’d have preferred it to be stronger.

Sahara by the Park is located at Westfield Burwood, 101A Burwood Road, Burwood NSW 2134.