The neon beer signs in the windows of Anatolian Table Restaurant are familiar, but beyond that the territory is new, unless you've traveled or lived in Turkey.
Sure, there are tabouli, eggplant, yogurt, hummus and lamb, but for the most part, the menu opens fresh doors onto the country's kitchen.
There are crispy cubes of pan-fried lamb's liver dusted with oregano, sweetened with slices of raw red onion and brightened with a squeeze of lemon juice ($6.95), just the sort of hot and fortifying appetizer welcome in mid-winter.
There are meaty and bony whole fried anchovies, richly flavored and as crispy and salty as French fries, but without any ketchup to dip them in ($18.95).
And there's grilled pepperami, a parchment-enclosed sausage of veal and lamb not far removed from pepperoni in name, richness, spiciness and dense texture ($5.95).
Turkish natives Ertugrul and Tugce Hazar bring to Rocklin an ambitious and faithful interpretation of foods common to the rugged Anatolian peninsula, crossed and influenced for centuries by migrants from throughout Asia, Europe and Africa.
The dishes that endure today, at least as prepared by the Hazars, tend to the dark and robust. They can be as simple, direct and fresh as the smooth and lilting hummus ($5.45), or as involved as the wholesome imam bayildi, a whole baby eggplant stuffed and baked with tomatoes, onions, herbs and olive oil ($6.95).
Much of the food has a saturating richness to it, but rarely is it oily or heavy, and even then its weightiness can be cut with a squeeze of lemon or a dab of yogurt, common accompaniments.
Turkish beverages also quickly revive the palate. In addition to several fruit juices, the menu includes the refreshing ayran, a yogurt-based drink that looks like a glass of milk but tastes briskly sweet and salty ($2.25). It's the customary beverage to go with a kebab meat, advised one of our dinner companions, Fethiye Akbulut Miller, a native of Mersin, Turkey, and author of the local food blog YogurtLand.
If not for her urging, I doubt we ever would have tried another Turkish beverage, salgam suyu, salty and peppery fermented turnip juice also traditionally drunk with kebabs ($2.49). I'd order it again, but that may say more of the restaurant's abbreviated wine list than the juice, though it was invigorating.
Where to begin? Miller suggested the mixed appetizer plate for two ($14.95). Actually, it was enough to provide four guests with a lively introduction to the range of Turkish starters, from the aforementioned hummus to dolmas, vine leaves stuffed with a bright mix of rice, onions, pine nuts and black currants. There was a refreshing cacik, housemade yogurt with chopped cucumber, garlic and mint, and patlican babaganuc, smoky baked eggplant with yogurt, tahini and olive oil.
Several of these appetizers are best spread on bread, and Anatolian Table is accommodating, both by baking its substantial loaves twice daily and by readily replenishing baskets.
As guests enter the restaurant they can't help but spot in the open kitchen a vertical rotisserie of the restaurant's signature meat, doner kebab. This is richly concentrated grilled lamb that chefs cut off in thin slices to be eaten either on their own ($11.95) or as iskender, whereby the cuts are layered on slabs of buttery bread and topped with a fruity tomato sauce and yogurt, the tang of which provides welcome lift to the earthiness of the meat ($14.45).
Other impressive dishes we sampled included adana, a sumptuous and spicy blend of ground lamb and veal grilled on a skewer ($13.95); cupra, a whole grilled sea bream, a Mediterranean fish whose tight and moist white flesh contrasted starkly with its dark and crisp skin ($19.95), and kusbasi pide, a long boat-shaped vessel of baked bread with pretty rolled-up edges, its cargo small chunks of tender, sweet and mildly seasoned lamb with cauliflower, broccoli, red pepper, squash, onion and mushrooms ($11.95).
If "pide" sounds like pizza, well, that's what it closely resembles. A more traditional thin-crusted version, lahmacun, also is on the menu, but it wasn't as substantial in structure, content or flavor ($4.95).
Call Bee restaurant critic Mike Dunne, (916) 321-1143. Read his dining blog at www.sacbee.com/appetizers. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/dunne.
