Rumi Turkish Grill
“We are always impressed with the quality of the food we get delivered from Rumi.”
“A recommendation for the lunch menu is to split the Hummus / Shepards Salad with someone and mix them together.”
“They also have good deserts and excellent Turkish coffee and Turkish tea that is made with tea leaves imported from Turkey.”
Rumi Turkish Grill
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Outdoor Seating: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Very pretty Turkish bistro in Paulus Hook. The space is light, airy and cozy. We had Shepherd salad w/Feta, medium and it was enough for 8 people – very good. The bread they served was outstanding, and they sell it on premises. Everything was neat and clean and the glasses sparkled.
The Hunkar Lamb (on mashed eggplants), Lamb Shish Kebab and Lamb Gyro and my wife's Bronzini (Branzino?) were all very good. They were served with rice, grilled tomato and hot pepper. Everything tasted correct.
Turkish coffee was served in these cute holders and the Kazandabi dessert was out of this world. These two are a must-have. Just be careful of your last sip of the coffee or you'll end up with a mouthful of grinds – which was not exactly unpleasant.
Service was excellent, and it's BYO. We'll definitely be back.
They also deliver, maybe will try that for gyro wraps.
I used to love this place; I would go once a week with my corowrker. The Chicken shish was my go-to. I'd get it as part of my lunch special along with the hummus.
But something recently has changed. We asked the waitress if there was a new cook, but she said no. New recipe maybe? The chicken is seasoned diffferntly- less moist, saltier. The rice has too much butter in it. They now give you pita bread with hummus.
I don't even go to Rumi anymore because it's just not worth the calories. Please revert back to the way you used to make things!!!
Rumi is an excellent place to get food. Friendly service here. Waitress was happy to explain items on the menu and answer questions. Portions here are definitely shareable. They are very fast with some dishes like hummus or babaghanoush, and everything is done fresh and tastes great. They serve the food with good bread. The grilled meats are excellent, too. Chicken was very flavorful. The salads here are good and are quite large portions. They also have good deserts and excellent Turkish coffee and Turkish tea that is made with tea leaves imported from Turkey. Despite the great quality of food and service, Rumi is cheap by Northern NJ / New York standards to eat at, too.
*stuffed cabbage (yum!!!! The filling was moist and super flavorful. The cabbage was rather thick and did well holding all the ingredients. Luckily we got this without the yogurt because I think the yogurt would have made me gag. I did not prefer the presentation of this. It was pretty much five pieces haphazardly placed on a dish. I had to rearrange it for the photo. Despite the horrible presentation, I enjoyed eat this)
*chicken adana (Not bad! The chicken was quite herby and had a little kick to it; meat itself was tender and cooked perfectly. The rice was way too salty… actually tasted saltier than the meat. I could have eaten this chicken maybe with the bread instead of the rice)
*lamb tandir (WAY TOO SALTY! lamb was a tad bit overcooked and the sauce was absolutely too salty. I could only handle tiny bites of this and then chug some water. They also put like two tablespoons of dried herbs on top which was weird and totally unnecessary. I would urge you to stay away from ordering this)
Where to start?! Food was decent. I could honestly eat two baskets of the bread with olive oil. The meats we ordered were alright, perhaps they are inconsistent with the flavor and quality of the dishes. Service was terrible. Servers never come around to the table to clear dishes… only to serve the food and give you the check. I stacked the dirty dishes myself because I'm OCD like that. Overall, I don't think I want to sit down and eat there again. I'd much rather order for pick-up and eat in the convenience and comfort of my home.
Ordered takeout from here since it's very close to where we live and were craving some good turkish food. This review is for take out only; dine-in may be different.
What we ordered:
Chicken Shish Kebab – While the chicken was flavored well and a generous pportion was given, I was not blown away. It was pretty standard – get this if you want to stick to the basics.
Lamb Adana Kebab – unless you already know you like sort of preparation, I would not recommend it. Was not a fan of the texture, and the wasn't especially flavorful.
Also to note, the dishes came with rice, roasted tomato and a roasted jalapeño. The roasted jalapeño I thought was a strange addition since, first of all, it was so incredibly spicy. Being that I love spicy food – it took away from the dish as a whole because it was just overpowering spiciness to the point where you couldn't taste the rest of the food.
Also, the sauces that the meals came with (a spicy and a tzatiki style sauce) – were so underwhelming. The "spicy sauce" was literally Frank's Red Hot sauce. No joke. The meal also came with a whole bag of STALE bread, which made me wonder why they gave us an entire bag — were they just trying to get rid of the old bread??
Needless to say, probably won't be ordering take out from here again — JC needs some better Turkish options – definitely does not compare to what you can get in the city!
Came here with a group of coworkers for lunch and had a great time. We made reservations for noon and when we got there our table was waiting, reserve sign and all. Our waitress was great and super friendly.
The food was awesome, we all had the lunch special which for the great price of $12.95 you get an appetizer, main course, and a beverage. On top of that they are also BYOB, which is always a plus in my book.
I enjoyed the shepherd salad with feta, chicken adana, and an ayran. Everyone I was with loved their food and all said they would definitely come back.
We had a late night quick dinner here. For a Turkish Grill in NJ I had expected more but it kind sufficed.
I got the lamb platter at $29 which I expected would be filling but the lamb chops were really small and overdone for the plate. It came with rice and the starters was bread and hummus. The started bread was amazingly really good but the mains lacked in flavor and serving size. I should have gotten the chicken plate, which seemed a lot better than what I was havinG!
Loved it so much the first time, we came back again! This time with friends who are frequent Rumi diners. Unfortunately, Rumi has expanded their business and do not have the capabilities to handle the expansion and influx of customers. To make a long story short they ran out of water… that's right… they ran out of water. How you may ask? No idea!
We came on a Friday night at around 8 PM, prime time for dinner and were seated in the upstairs portion of the new section of the restaurant. Upon arrival, we were told that they ran out of bread (say what! that's like the best thing they have) and that they would be serving tortillas (not something good like pitas but legitimate tortillas that you'd make a sandwich wrap out of) instead. So that was super disappointing because we LOVE the bread with all the appetizers to dip in!
We had 3 different waiters/waitresses over the course of our meal, none of which paid attention to us. But whatever, we came for the bread… I mean the food! We ordered our appetizers anyway (which are still amazing) the tortillas were okay, the fries were great, the meals were just okay.
Some of our food was spicy and so when we ran out of water, we asked if we could please have some more. Our third waitress of the night snapped angrily at us saying "the thing is we ran out of water sooooo…". I'm sorry…. is there not a tap in Rumi? Do they rely on a well that randomly dried up? Do they not have a Brita somewhere? She told us that if we wanted water we would have to purchase water bottles. It became comedic.
The table next to us got very irritated and just got up and left.
Obviously this is some serious growing pains so we will come back once the dust settles and they are not out of bread and water… and will just be ordering fries and the appetizer sampler!