Şiş Kebab at Hawaii Restaurant & Bar, Side: Our Beef in Cream Sauce

Şiş kebab at Hawaii Restaurant & Bar in Side old town is our own comfort-food version of the Turkish classic: beef with mushroom and garlic in a cream sauce, served with rice and chips. You'll find it under Turkish Specialities on our menu, and today's price is always listed on the live menu.

An honest word first: ours is not the skewer

Order şiş kebab almost anywhere else in Turkey and you'll get cubes of meat on a skewer, grilled over coals. Ours is different — deliberately — and we'd rather tell you before you order than surprise you at the table. At Hawaii, şiş kebab means beef cooked with mushroom and garlic in a cream sauce, served with rice and chips. It sits in our Turkish Specialities section, and the menu description is the promise: what it says is exactly what arrives.

It's not that we can't grill, either. A real wood fire and charcoal grill runs in this kitchen every day of the week. This dish simply isn't about smoke. It's about the sauce.

What's actually on the plate

The menu says it plainly: beef, mushroom and garlic in cream sauce, served with rice and chips. The garlic and mushroom are in the sauce itself, not sitting on the side as a garnish, so the beef comes coated rather than bare. The rice is there to soak up the sauce. The chips are there because, honestly, dragging a chip through a garlic cream sauce is one of life's smaller victories.

We buy fresh ingredients daily, we've been cooking in Side old town since 2000, and the restaurant is open every day from 10:00 in the morning until 02:00 at night — so this works as a late-night plate just as well as a dinner one.

Who should order it, and when

This is the dish for the cautious eater in your group — the one who eyes the more adventurous Turkish dishes with suspicion. Nothing to negotiate here: the menu lists beef, mushroom, garlic and cream sauce, and that's the whole story. It's also an easy pick for families; we run a kids menu and alcohol-free kids cocktails, so the whole table gets sorted in one go.

When to order it? After a long beach day, when you want something soothing rather than challenging. On a cooler evening. Or late — we're open until 02:00, and a plate of beef in cream sauce at midnight, with a match playing on the live sport screens, is a very specific kind of happiness.

What to drink with it

A cream-sauce dish is friendly company for almost anything from the bar, so treat this as an excuse to browse rather than a plate that demands one perfect pairing. If you're in full holiday mode, start with our signature cocktails — the Blue Hawaii among them — or go cold with a frozen cocktail. Wine drinkers can get their bearings with our Turkish wine guide. Come between 19:00 and 20:00 and the daily Happy Hour makes the decision easier — and the kids get their own cocktails, minus the alcohol, so nobody at the table is left out.

Where it sits on our menu

Şiş kebab lives in our Turkish Specialities section, alongside testi kebab and our clay pot and casserole dishes. If you want to understand how the different kebab styles relate to each other before choosing, our Turkish kebab atlas lays out the map, and our Turkish food guide for tourists is a good first read if this is your first trip. And if you're weighing us against the other options in town, here's the honest case for Hawaii as the best Turkish restaurant in Side.

Price, booking and getting here

We don't print prices on these pages because they'd go stale; today's price is always on the live menu. To be sure of a table — old town evenings fill up — book online or WhatsApp us on +90 533 930 12 83. We offer free hotel pickup (round trip) from selected hotels, and an affordable two-way transfer if you're staying further out. Prefer to stay in? Takeaway and nearby delivery are both available. You'll find us at 512. Sk. in Side old town, Manavgat/Antalya, open every day from 10:00 to 02:00.