Tom C.
Yelp
TLDR: we came to clay and fire for a special, unique dining experience. We expected to indulge our budgets but leave feeling like the experience validated the price. The food and service did not come close to validating the $200+ bill our table of four paid. The service was strange, with the waiter confusing us a few times about what the menu options were and refused to split our check except down-the-middle between our two parties. He seemed aloof. It took him 20+ minutes to bring me a canned beer on two occasions (the restaurant was not full). All of this added to a weirdness that made us wonder what we were paying for? We left with a super high price for small salads, bad cheesecake, a pitiful amount of dips, and a strange service staff. In the end, this turned into an expensive pizza night.
The food was mediocre for its high prices. The portions were small, which is not uncommon for places that lean into a boutique, unique experience. I wouldn't have been upset if everything had been really good. We got the appetizer sampler, which featured six of the appetizer dips. It was disappointing that it was $24 and each of the six dips was a literal dollop on a wood plate. The bread was tasty, but only two or three of the dips were really good. The others were fine. For this price, skip it.
I'm vegetarian, which limited my entree options. That's not unusual, and I won't complain if there are certain cultural touchstones that I can't enjoy simply because I don't eat meat. However, for the food we did order, I still expected it to be good. My partner and I split the salad sampler, which included three salads. Once again, two of these were remarkably okay. And all three were small. It was priced at $22, so I fully expected it to be the size of an entree OR taste exceptional. The couscous-based salad was the best of the three. The tomato/cucumber/onion salad seemed wholly un-spiced and tasted out-of-season. I am writing this the day after and I frankly cannot even recall the third.
The grandmas pizza was our entree, since the other vegetarian choice was a different pizza (the mushroom one, which our table mates ordered) and grilled vegetables (I'm a vegetarian and it needs to be understood on the whole that grilled veggies are not an entree. Just because you don't eat meat doesn't mean sides are now entrees, especially for $18). The pizza we had was good, but there was a weirdness to being at a Turkish/Iranian restaurant and the best experience I can get on the menu was a pizza. I think I expected something a little more unique, frankly. And even if you're not vegetarian, the pizzas still occupy a significant portion of the menu. Our table mates got the mushroom pizza, which I tried, and it was not as flavorful as the pizza my partner and I order. They also ordered the wings and a kebab, which seemed fine as well.
Our table mates got a dry piece of cheesecake for desert that tasted old and dry. We got flan that was good.
To summarize, we all left feeling like we'd been ripped off. We came in with high expectations, but the best food we ate was a pizza? We could have had that anywhere.