Meet and Eat

Meet and Eat sits on the busy East Hastings stretch near Boundary Road, a family-run halal Turkish restaurant that's become one of the more consistently praised Turkish spots in East Vancouver. The room is warm and straightforward — bare-wood tables, open kitchen, charcoal-grill smoke you can smell from the door — and the menu reads like a proper Anatolian ocakbaşı: flame-grilled kebabs front and centre (adana, şiş, mixed grill platters), a substantial meze section for sharing, and a handful of traditional home-cooked mains.

The kitchen describes itself as entirely halal, which makes it one of the more practical Turkish options in Vancouver for Muslim diners. Mezes lean traditional — hummus, haydari, şakşuka, ezme — and the rice pilaf that comes with kebab plates is the genuine buttery Turkish style rather than the generic rice of more tourist-oriented spots. For dessert, sütlaç (rice pudding) is on the menu, which is a positive signal of a kitchen rooted in Turkish home-cooking traditions rather than only restaurant greatest-hits.

Practical notes: open Wednesday through Sunday plus Monday for lunch through evening; Tuesday is dinner service only from 5 pm. Reservations are available through their website for larger tables, though walk-in during weekday evenings usually works without a wait. Google reviews sit above 4.7 stars with 170+ ratings, which for a Vancouver Turkish spot is strong traction. Transit: the #135 SFU bus along Hastings drops you at the door from Commercial-Broadway in about 20 minutes.