London - Hala

29 Green Lanes 

London N4 1LG

Pide: £6.50

Kebabs: £8-11

One of my favourite things about the Green Lanes' Turkish restaurants is the amount of extra food that you get without asking for it.  No matter that the portions are already big enough to put giants into food comas, the numerous plates piled with bread, sauces, salad and dessert will keep coming.  The bread - pillowy and basted in meaty flavours - is most likely unsuitable for vegetarians.  The sauces - sour yoghurt and cucumber and a fruity and fiery chilli - pep or or cool down dishes as required.  The salad, a barely surmountable hill of chopped, shredded, chiffonaded and sliced vegetables interspersed with olives and chunks of creamy feta, makes the meal feel healthier, which is important when the plates arrive heavy with grilled meats or pide.

My friend Claire's lamb kebab was a hefty portion of chargrilled lamb that retained its sweetness when it fell apart.  It came slathered in a stewey and well-herbed tomato sauce topped with Hala's homemade yoghurt (their churn is by the counter and accounts for how fresh and thick their yoghurt tastes).  My pide (Turkish pizza) was a thin base covered in tomato sauce and strips of grilled lamb and then half-folded over. Unfortunately, Hala's pide selection is more limited than many neighbouring restaurants', and many of them come with cheddar cheese rather than anything Turkish, which is disappointing.  The free dessert, semolina gulab jamuns, provided a welcomed break from all that savoury meat.

Hala is homey and well-priced, popular with Turks and non, locals and non-Haringeyites. Their hospitality is above and beyond even the usual friendliness of Green Lanes' eateries.  For under a tenner each on food, we got what amounted to three courses thanks to the extensive freebies.  Chinese restaurants give you prawn crackers, at Indian restaurants it's poppadoms and dips, but the Turkish restaurants on Green Lanes ply you with as many extras as can be fit on the table.

London - Yasar Halim

Green Lanes is becoming my go-to destination when I don't have anything in the fridge for lunch.  Partly because of its proximity to my front door and partly because of its plethora of good restaurants, cafes and grocers mean that I always have a choice.

Yasar Halim - a double-fronted, Turkish Cypriot grocers and bakery - is my current stop-off when I'm jonesing for something either stickily sweet or salty-savoury.  The bakery offers eight tulumba (crispy, oval gulab jamuns) for a quid, a price that I can't imagine being bettered.  The warm and gooey baklava leak sugar all over your fingers and face.  Similarly good value are the boreks (rectangles of puff pastry filled with feta, spinach or lamb), either the small for 55p or the large for £1.20.  The boreks' fillings, and I have tried all of them, are consistently good - the feta is partially melted and contains strands of herbs, the spinach seems almost healthy with hints of citrus, and the lamb is nicely spiced.  My favourite baked good, however, is a bun that contains layers of cooked black olives and slices of spring onions.  The bread is dense and yeasty, the olives salty, and the onions caramalised, making this one very reasonably priced bun a perfect meal.

Next door in the grocery side of the shop is every conceivable type of fruit and vegetable, along with a wide range of Turkish and Greek products, a thousand or so types of yoghurt, and a very cheap meat selection.  I regularly pop in to grab whatever's seasonal in Cyprus - figs (five for £1!) and giant pomegranates last month, juicy oranges at the moment.

Even without the rest of Green Lanes, including the Antepliler mini-empire, the local Turkish community would be well-served with just Yasar Halim.  I know that I need to break my habit and go elsewhere, but it's just so convenient and always delicious.