Dining out

Mary Furr

It’s rare to find a restaurant on the main street of a resort town

that serves great Mediterranean food and rarer still, to find one that

has a belly dancer with Saturday night dinner. But this is Huntington

Beach, with a different take on resorts, and this is Coach’s, that serves

a spicy falafel as if it was a hamburger.

Six years ago it was the Sunset Grill, but chef/owner Murat Koc

(Coach) changed all that and now he has a menu of exotic Mideastern food

-- home-style and hard to resist. If you just want to check the place

out, try a “gyro” ($5.95) pita bread sandwich filled with thin inch-wide

meat slices carved from seasoned beef roasted on a vertical spit. It’s

stuffed with grilled onions, green peppers, cucumber and yogurt sauce

into a soft and spongy pita pocket. It’s a great hand-held lunch to take

to the pier a block away or eat at one of the outside tables.

But if you’re Downtown in the evening, the dinner for two ($39.95)

gives you a delicious sampling of appetizers and meat selections each

served on big plates -- what Murat calls “Mediterranean delights.”

Most familiar are the dark, fat grape leaves, or dolmades, filled with

seasoned rice. Then there’s hummus, a creamy dip of garbanzo beans,

garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and tahini (ground sesame seed) for

flavor. The tabouleh salad is cracked wheat with colorful chopped

cucumbers and tomatoes in olive oil and lemon juice. A side of Kalamata

olives have a good, strong taste, but watch the pits! The purity and dewy

freshness of the ingredients really make these appetizers. An order for

two would be a good lunch with the pita bread triangles served with on

the side.

The entree plate for this dinner feast has it all. A base of rice is

crossed with two skewers -- one of tender chicken, the other savory lamb.

A generous pile of gyro beef slices is surrounded with quarters of

grilled tomato and green peppers. There are four koftes, round lamb and

beef patties about the size of a silver dollar, thick with a crisp coat,

crunchy and delicious.

Chef Murat completes the feast with the horribly rich, honey-dripping

baklava -- ultra-thin layers of phyllo dough brushed with honey, butter

and chopped nuts and drenched with more honey and lemon juice.

A native of Turkey, Murat Koc is the youngest of five brothers and a

son of a baker. He came to the West Coast in 1988, working first at the

Gulan Restaurant in Fashion Island and then becoming chef and partner

with Erdam Denkias in Tosh’s on Beach Boulevard.

Expanding Coach’s from a deli to a full-service restaurant has added

an exciting dimension to dining Downtown. Thanks to Murat Koc the spicy

aroma of Middle Eastern food mixes well with the ocean breeze of Main

Street.

FYI

Coach’s Mediterranean CuisineWHERE: 200 Main St.

HOURS: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; open until 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday

PHONE: (714) 969-3884

* MARY FURR is the Independent restaurant critic. If you have comments

or suggestions, call (562) 493-5062 or e-mail o7 [email protected]