I want the businesses on either side of Istanbul Cafe, and the building above it, to disappear. I bear no malice toward them; it's simply that by sharing walls and a floor, they keep Istanbul Cafe from being what it truly wants to be—a shack. If you think I mean this derogatorily then you hate shacks, and you should stop reading.

Under new ownership for the past few months, the Istanbul Cafe sports a little import store in the back that is full of Turkish delicacies, mismatched chairs, and cute little hand-sewn tablecloths. In the kitchen, there's... well, there's a microwave, and an electric oven, and I think I saw a sink. There basically is no kitchen, because all of Istanbul Cafe's food is created off-site in home kitchens and kept warm or cold in the restaurant's stripped-down catering kitchen.

Unfortunately, you can tell. The room-temperature shakshuka, a casual mix of cauliflower, carrots, eggplant, zucchini, and friends, had been macerating in olive oil for too long and seemed wilted and lifeless. The refrigerated rus salata, a kind of mashed-potato appetizer, needed time to warm up on the table to get some of its flavor back. The tavuk, a chopped sautéed chicken breast over rice, was dry and too far from the skillet that sautéed it.

That being said, it was actually an enjoyable meal. There were dishes that were dead-on. The "famous" lentil soup with lemon was sharp and blunt at the same time; the lentils provided a homey, cuddly base for some aggressive spicing and the tang of the lemon juice (although, again, it was served at too low a temperature). Imam bayildi, a roasted stuffed eggplant served over rice, was similarly engaging. Nothing too intricate going on in terms of flavor harmonies or juxtapositions, but good solid spicing—the type of play on the tongue that makes you look back down to the dish, trying to see how the chef did it. There are a few surprises, like the unexpected (and off-menu) chunks of sweet pineapple and papaya hiding with the savory peas and carrots in the mashed potatoes. And of course the Turkish tea (finally, something served at the correct temperature) with which we both started and ended the meal was transporting, its heady, musty, steamy, woodsy nose immediately placing you in some imaginary bazaar. Disneyland should serve more teas.

As a geographic crossroads between Central Asia and Eastern Europe, Turkey is uniquely situated to exploit its natural culinary abundance through its choice of neighboring international cuisines. When Istanbul Cafe promises "authentic Turkish food" (it's their tag line) they do deliver—the meal isn't overly complex or inventive, but it's full of spices and combinations that do transport the palate to a culinarily foreign land. It is, as promised, "Turkish food" and not "Turkish cuisine." It's an amateur meal (from the Latin amator or "lover"—an amateur does what they do for love and not for money) and it's lovingly domestic.

But always we were reminded of the fact that our meal preexisted our even looking at the menu—no matter our order. There would be no sizzle and sear from the kitchen, no chop and dice, no fire and no quench. We wouldn't smell it or hear it; it was the tree that fell in the forest hours ago and miles from our ears.

It's this literal distance from chef and kitchen that's most frustrating about the experience at Istanbul Cafe. The most "authentic" foreign meals I've had have always been home cooked by friends or friends of friends, stripped of the theatricality and pressure to innovate that permeate the world of restauranting. So imagine you've got a Turkish friend who's going to make you an authentic casual Turkish dinner. But your imaginary Turkish friend lives in northern California, and she's driving it over to your place in Seattle wrapped in tinfoil on the back seat of her Buick. There is, potentially, a gap of up to... what, eight hours? ten hours?... between the time the meal leaves her pots and pans and the time it lands on your table. And food is a time-based art form.

It's unfortunate, because it would be worth it to drive to northern California to eat the meal at her place. It's especially unfortunate because in driving to Wallingford, parking, and going to Istanbul Cafe, that's what we thought we were doing.