Pasha Restaurant @ Arlington, MA

We went to Pasha, a new Turkish/Mediterranean restaurant in Arlington last month to celebrate Seyda’s birthday. I was waiting to see if the restaurant will have it’s website up and running or if I can find it’s menu somewhere in the WWW………… I gave up as I’ve yet to be able to find its menu online…. So, here are just pictures of our dining experience…which was overall good… I will try to explain and as much as I could here! It really kills me that I don’t remember the names of the stuff we ate…=(…The place apparently used to be a Japanese restaurant. And rumors were that the (Turkish/Mediterranean) guy who owned the new place now, used to own the Japanese restaurant! =P

The interior was simple and cozy with maybe 10-12 tables and a small bar area. Service was decent; the owner (I assumed) took care of us quite well. =). I forgot if the food were served promptly or not..lets just assume we did not have to wait extremely long! =P

We were started off with some complimentary (and refillable) bread with 3 different condiments to dip our bread with; seasoned olive oil, some kind of YUMMY salsa like sauce, and hummus I think. Seyda ordered us some appetizers to start with and both are very delicious!!One of them (left), if I’m not mistaken was some fried phyllo roll with feta cheese. The other one (right) was I think a Zuchinni cake with some yogurt sauce.

Lets start with my entree; Grilled Chicken Kebab (right). This was very yummy and chicken was surprisingly very flavorful and moist. It was served with rice, mash potatoes and my favorite salsa like sauce. It also came with a side of salad which I thought was dry or missing some dressing. Bobby ordered some lamb dish (left), I think. I did not try this as I dislike lamb. I forgot what he thought of his dish but I remembered that he too commented the salad was kind of dry.

Seyda, ordered a roasted stuffed eggplant dish (right) which she commented had quite a bit of cinnamon in it. It looked pretty good though. Hubby ordered some of marinated grounded beef/lamb kebab thingy. It looked pretty good, though the meat portion looked a bit small. I did not try both of these dishes as I was too busy filling up on mine. =)

Since it was a birthday celebration, the owner was kind and generous to give us two huge portions of Turkish dessert; Knafeh (I googled and I think I found the name for this dessert). It was a super sweet dessert that looked like thin vermicelli baked or fried and doused with tons of sweet syrup and topped with some grounded nut (pistachio?). Not too bad, somehow reminded me of Baklava but sweeter. Seyda commented that it wasn’t fresh….. I unfortunately wouldn’t know the difference! I bet it would taste better if it was fresher! =)This is the best I could come up with…Anyone who can give me a hand in naming all these dishes, please do so!! Thanks!! We enjoyed our meal and can’t wait to go back again!! This time, I’ll be sure to take a long a menu home!!! =)This is my first time really enjoying Mediterranean food! =)

Here’s the address & contact info if you’re interested in giving Pasha Restaurant a try:

669A Massachusetts Ave
Arlington, MA 02476
(781) 648-5888