Yaprak Döner, Weidengasse, Cologne

COLOGNE. Greetings, Döner Fans. Faithful readers will recall my waxing lyrical about Mangal Gemüse Kebap in Cologne. Well, now that enough time has passed and the horror has diminished in potency, let me speak of ‘the other kebab’ that I ate in Cologne – the kebab I did not enjoy.

To every Yin there is a Yang; for every star there is a black hole. And so it should be. For without darkness, the light would not shine so brightly. And so, illuminating Mangal with its stygian gloom, there is Yaprak Döner, which lurks a few doors further down the Weidengasse.

‘The other kebab’ – the black hole to Mangal’s shining star.

‘Yaprak’ is the Turkish word for ‘leaf’, and that is what I wish that we had done: leave. But instead, at the end of our first night in Cologne, awash with Kölsch and Papa Rhein, we stumbled onto its spacious premises, startling the two remaining staff who were still working at 3 am.

On first glance there was nothing untoward about Yaprak Döner. Its interior was bright and clean, and its salads and meats looked palatable. However, it was not until we had gone outside and peeled back the tinfoil and started munching, that we realised our error. There was something grievously wrong with our kebabs. The meat was dark, dense and tasted faintly of offal. And the whole thing was terribly, terribly salty. In taste and texture it reminded me of the strange and troubling meat I once consumed at a kebab shop on Kottbusser Straße in Berlin, many long years ago.

Strange and troubling meat – salty with a hint of offal.

I can leave no more damning remark than that I did not finish my meal. About a third of my Yaprak kebab was left to congeal on the kitchen counter overnight, only to be nibbled warily the next morning and then chucked in the bin. I will not mince my words: it was not nice.

I don’t know if the food is always that bad at Yaprak Döner, or whether the kebab artisans just flog their worst meat to drunken tourists when the opportunity arises. In any case, I will not be rushing back. Not while Mangal Gemüse Kebap is only a few paces away. Now that was a good meal… I’ll stop now before I start waxing lyrical again.

Results

Service: 2/5 (slow)

Atmosphere: 4/5 (spacious and clean)

Price: 2/5 (overpriced)

Taste: 1/5 (salty with a hint of offal)

Photographs by YMB