Knowing ahead of time that it’s a Turkish place run by Turks, my wife and I visited Vanila on a scorching hot late Sunday afternoon for a light dinner. And light it was but more on that later.

For those who know little about Turkish food aside from the ubiquitous Euro street-food known as Doner Kebab (vertically cooked lamb meat, thinly sliced and served in a pita or with rice), the cuisine is a fusion of culinary traditions from Central Asia, the Mediterranean and the Balkans. The cuisine is simple, so much emphasis is placed on making the “perfect” dish. It traditionally offers a wide variety of dishes abundant in vegetables, herbs, and spices. Lamb meat and veal are widely used as well as seafood from the Black Sea regions of the country that are fried, grilled, or steamed slowly using the bugulama method.

The place is new and advertises itself from a semi-underground, storefront cafe with a small staircase leading down, supported by an elaborate, ornamental wrought iron banister that extends to the interior of the cafe. The inside is sleek, almost too modern with many mirrors – a ploy designers use to give the optical illusion of space – and lined with vanilla-cream colored synthetic leather sofas along the walls. I counted eight tables during my visit with one occupied by a quartet of Turks chatting away while a plasma TV played Turkish music videos.

The menu offered traditional Dolma (literally means “to be stuffed”) dishes and my favorite are stuffed green peppers, grape vine leaves or egg plant. The stuffing usually is rice, other vegetables, and ground meat. Grilled kebabs were listed as well as other Turkish mainstays like rice pilaf dishes, minced meat (choose lamb or veal), and a variety of salads known to the country including the classic Mediterranean desert, Baklava.

The trouble is the menu’s main function was to peruse for our reading pleasure. To our disappointment, only three entrees (all starters), one garnish, and one dessert were available. They didn’t even make Turkish coffee. Was Sunday simply a “dead” day at Vanila, as they’ve ran out of their weekly supply of ingredients already or we had to know the right people at the cafe to get a proper meal, and we didn’t? Anyway, having such small a choice, I abstained from eating anything, and my wife ordered a plate of chicken wings and rice (Hr 30), which was quite all right, though there was nothing particularly Turkish about it. Also we each had a can of cold Cola-Turka (10 Hr) … and took off around the corner to a place that delivers on everything listed on its menu – Cili Pizza.

Vanila Cafe (30 Saksahanskoho, Lva Tolstoho Metro). Open 8 a.m. till midnight

English language menu: No

English-speaking staff: No

Average meal: Hr 100

Hot pizza and more

Offering over 40 different pizzas (including calzones), Cili Pizza was a smashing success given its hustle and bustle atmosphere that is equated with good pizzerias.

The place is expansive and has an outdoor patio (where we sat to avoid the heat from the pizza ovens), and two floors inside (all non-smoking). The ground floor has the central pizza making station for everybody to see – as a kid I think I would have marvelled at this process and see it through until my pizza gets placed into the oven.

I had the Mexicana pizza (Hr 42 for a 35 cm diameter pie) whose crust was thin, light, and crispy but not flaky and was constant to the center. It’s topped with spicy minced ground beef, red peppers, roasted onions, a garlic sauce that doesn’t overpower, oregano, and of course, a mystery cheese (not mozzarella). The pizza sauce lacked the zesty tinge known to North American pizzas yet, yet the overall taste was fine.

All in all, the pizzas offered are creatively crafted with toppings carefully chosen to blend and not cancel each other out – I was reminded of a California pizza chain from back home.

My wife had a strawberry fruit smoothie (Hr 15) that lacked enough crushed ice to cool her off (maybe they let it stand too long since it came with my pizza) and I opted for an ice cold Slavutych draft (Hr 13 for 0.5 liter).

Apart from pizza, Cili offers lasagne, eight salads from Greek, tuna fish, to a curious shrimp and almond salad. And their beer snacks are perfect: bread sticks with cheese sauce, foccacia bread with crispy fried flank and spicy chicken wings among others.

Cili is writ in the pizzeria’s name because many dishes and pizzas have jalapenos and they come in different sizes to satisfy a kid up to a party of four. The chain is Lithuanian in origin, established in 1997, and offers delivery service in the center, Podil, Pechersk, and Shevchenko region neighborhoods.

Cili Pizza (48 Chervonoarmiyska, 391-2233, Lva Tolstoho Metro). Open 10 a.m. till 10 p.m.

English menu: Yes

English-speaking staff: Yes

Average meal: Hr 100