Ískender’s Turkish Cuisine & Lounge

The restaurant is named after a dish, and the dish is the fastest way to understand the kitchen. Iskender arrives as beef doner over bread, soaked in tomato sauce and browned butter, with yogurt set alongside to cut the richness — a plate that turns shaved meat into something composed rather than wrapped and handed across a counter. Ordering it first is the shortcut. It tells you what this Turkish grill and lounge a few minutes from the Falls is built to do before the rest of the menu makes its longer case.

That case runs through the grill. Adana Kebab brings minced meat with grilled tomato, pepper, lavash, and bulgur; Beyti Sarma wraps a minced beef kebab in lavash under tomato sauce and yogurt; lamb shish arrives as two skewers with bulgur and bread, and four lamb chops come with mashed potato and grilled vegetables. Around the skewers sits the rest of a Turkish table. Mix Meze opens a plate of humus, haydari, spicy ezme, and babaganuc. Manti, the small dumplings filled with ground beef under yogurt sauce, and Sigara Boregi, fried pastry rolls of parsley and cheese, bridge the cold starters and the fire. Dessert holds its own lane — Kunefe, Cold Baklava, Trilece — closed out with a small cup of Turkish coffee.