Recommeded Eats: Mehmet Kitchen

Transcript

00:00are and where we are. Hello, my name is Nicola Yulican. I'm Mehmet Yulican's wife.

00:07Hello, my name is Yusuf. I'm Mehmet's son.

00:13Hi, finally it's me, it's Mehmet and we are here in Mehmet's kitchen, Kopna. Yeah, first of all,

00:18because I'm a Syrizan, I'm in this business because it's me when I come in here 20 years

00:24ago as a refugee. I met my wife, I just want to put that in the thing as well because

00:29and one of them as well, I come in here and met my wife and we used to travel London to have a

00:35nice Kurdish, Turkish or Mediterranean food and that's why we travel London quite often

00:41and then I said to myself, this is need to be stopped. I had a friend in that time as well.

00:46We decided to open a restaurant in Portsmouth and we did actually around 20-22 years ago and since

00:52that I'm in the business. I'm in this part of the Portsmouth since probably 17-18 years now.

01:00Yeah, I can say I am the one first with my partner. We opened the first Turkish and Kurdish

01:06restaurant in Portsmouth. Yeah, since that day I'm here and then after Corona, I found like this

01:13place and I had the takeaways and cafes before as well and this coming out and just we start

01:20this in Corona time and the worst time probably but it's turned up is one of the best things we've

01:26done as well. Yeah. Yes, so when we first opened our doors it was after the second lockdown. Yeah.

01:32Yeah, so we only opened as a takeaway first of all and then with our customers was word of mouth

01:40and then since then we've got busier and busier and because of Mehmet knows a lot of people in

01:46Portsmouth, they supported us. They came and tried our food and spread the word about us and

01:52just we've been really lucky and we love all our customers. They're really good to us and we're

01:57good to them and hopefully we'll carry on succeeding like that. That's why we call this place Mehmet as

02:02well. People's coming up like from other side of Chichester, from Arundel, Petersville, Chelsea.

02:09We have people's coming from Southampton and far as honestly from Winchester, they're regularly here

02:15to have our food and honestly people here surrounding us in Glenfield, Kalkine, everywhere

02:21in the heavens. We've got all our regulars everywhere just knowing Portsmouth as well.

02:25Yeah and they've always been very supportive and they know who I am and honestly I know my customers

02:30well. We know each other and honestly our priority is always I want to be treated how

02:38other people like honestly treat me and that's why we always do our best and we don't see

02:45people as customers we see them