A lot of kebab is made somewhere you never see it. A finished shape shows up, goes on the grill, and that's the whole story. At Aladdin Grill in Santa Rosa you can still catch the beginning: a steel tray of seasoned beef and lamb, a flat skewer, and a pair of black gloves doing the work.
That's the Adana. It is named after the city of Adana in southern Turkey, and the idea is simple: ground meat, red pepper, a wide skewer, a hot grill. The simple version is the hardest one to fake, because there's nothing to hide behind. Aladdin makes theirs from scratch, by hand, so what you taste is the meat, the seasoning and how long it spent on the grill.
By hand. From scratch.
It shows on the skewer.
Adana is a thin kebab, so it takes color fast. A row of them came off the grill onto a sheet of lavash, edges dark, juices already soaking into the bread. You can have it on a plate with rice, tomato, jalapeño, salad, bread and garlic sauce, or as a wrap.
I took the wrap first, to see how it holds up in the hand. The lavash is thin, the kebab runs through the middle, and around it go lettuce, tomato, red onion, hummus and garlic sauce. It comes in foil, and when you cut it open it's mostly kebab and greens, not filler.
Pick how toasted you want your lavash
This is the part I didn't expect from a fast casual place. When you eat in at Santa Rosa, they ask how you want your lavash. For now that's a dine-in thing.
Soft is where it starts: tender, warm, no grill. From there you have two steps up. Lightly grilled gets a quick press on the grill and comes back with golden stripes. Toasted goes all the way, grilled across the whole surface until it's golden and crisp at the edges, with a few darker blisters where the grill hit hardest.
If you've never done this before, start with lightly grilled. You keep the softness of the bread and get a little structure and a bit of toast flavor. If you like crunch, go toasted and don't look back.
And then there is the garlic butter
On top of any of those you can add a garlic butter finish. It's an extra, not part of any level, so you ask for it on purpose. You can add it when you eat in, or choose it when you order from the Santa Rosa menu online. Melted garlic butter goes over the wrap while it's on the grill.
My plan for next time is toasted lavash with the garlic butter. Which tells you how the first visit went.
Turkish breakfast, from eight in the morning
Santa Rosa opens at 8 AM, and breakfast is a real part of the menu, not an afterthought. Turkish breakfast is less a dish than a table: eggs in the middle, and around them a lot of small things to pick at. Olives, cheese, nuts, jam, something thick and red, a little za'atar. You tear bread, build your own bites, and nobody's in a hurry.
On the menu, look for menemen, Turkish scrambled eggs cooked with tomato, pepper and spices. Gözleme is a thin flatbread folded over a savory filling. Lahmacun is flatbread topped with spiced minced meat and fresh herbs, the three cheese börek is flaky layered pastry, and there's a tantuni wrap if you want breakfast you can carry.
And it's not breakfast without tea. It comes black in that small tulip-shaped glass, and you can order a whole pot for the table, which is the right call if more than one person is eating. Turkish coffee is there too, if you want it stronger.
Where to find it
Aladdin Grill Santa Rosa is in College Plaza at 2101 W College Ave, on the west side of town, open every day from 8 AM to 8 PM. If you want the wider picture, I wrote about the shawarma, the skewer plates and the falafel when it first opened.
Come for the Adana. Come back for breakfast.