By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 9, 2001

The food trend of the moment has more to do with portions than with flavor. Have you noticed? "Appetizers" are becoming harder and harder to spot. Pick up the menu in a lot of new restaurants and instead you'll see "small plates," "little dishes to share" or "tapas," regardless of the restaurant's ethnic persuasion.

Rather than one or two big courses, chefs are encouraging us to try a bunch of smaller ones -- playing up to both our American appetite for exploration and our wariness to commit.

Meze, named for the snack-size savories (often spelled mezze) popular throughout the Middle East, feeds into that philosophy by devoting three-quarters of its menu to hot and cold hors d'oeuvres. The format allows diners to "try many tastes at one experience," says Omer Buyukbayrak, one of four Turks (two sets of brothers) who own and run the multi-level space, which includes a sidewalk patio and a second-floor lounge with a postcard view of 18th Street.

The first time I tried Meze, Enya was singing in the background and almost every seat was spoken for. The noise of a Saturday night crowd was tossed around by the restaurant's pressed tin ceiling and bare tile floors, but the narrow main dining room still made an attractive impression. Hazy yellow paintings of ancient goddesses punctuate the gray-blue walls. And the banquette that runs down one side of the room is comfortable -- unlike the tables, which are parked so close together, you might well learn that the guy attempting to squeeze in next to you has a 40-inch waist (this, according to the label on the jeans in your face). The tables also are too small to accommodate a meal composed of many plates; when the first three mezze showed up at a table for two, my friend and I had to surrender the bread basket and even our water glasses to fit in the arrivals.

We should have kept the house-baked bread -- Meze serves sesame-sprinkled, pillowy rounds -- and sent back the pale, ordinary fried calamari that took its place. A salad of white beans, tomato and olives needed a squirt of lemon juice to wake it up, but the steamed mussels in lemony broth and the juicy lamb kebabs (more like patties), nicely seasoned with paprika and cumin, sustained our interest. "Eat these first," a waiter advised as he set down crisp, hot rounds of mashed potato wrapped around ground lamb and crushed walnuts. "They change flavor when they cool down." The servers here do a respectable job of watching over their clientele, even as the owners' pals saunter through for a look-see and a kiss-hug.

"Is everything to your taste?" I'm asked at dinner a week later. For the most part, yes. An order of skewered mussels, dipped in a subtle almond batter and fried to a gentle crispness, is very satisfying, as are the cubes of sauteed liver. The latter, called arnavut cigeri, are garnished with red onions dusted with sumac, a slightly sour spice. Both dishes pair nicely with a Turkish beer.

The kitchen treats vegetarians like first-class citizens, offering more than a dozen mezze without meat, chicken or seafood. The more interesting choices include lentil kofta, which is chunky fingers of red lentil, bulgur, onion and parsley; moist grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts and raisins; baby eggplant stuffed with a sweet filling of tomatoes, peppers and onions; and a skewer of nicely charred and perfectly seasoned onion, zucchini, mushrooms and bell pepper flanked by fluffy basmati rice and a little dish of thick, garlicky hummus.

The chances of success with the five main courses are roughly 50-50, but better if there's meat involved. The strip steak is a fine, juicy piece of meat, scattered with sauteed mushrooms and buttressed with grill-singed vegetables. Some thick mashed potatoes fill the rest of the plate. Even better are manti, tiny dumplings filled with ground beef and blanketed with tangy yogurt. But apricot-stuffed chicken is most interesting for its fruit filling (the chicken is a yawn), and the salmon patted with basil-flecked crumbs arrived DOD -- dry on delivery -- thanks to overcooking.

For brunch, the kitchen whips up the usual waffles and eggs Benedict, but as at dinner, I'm drawn to the menu's Turkish accents. The best eye-opener is the Bosporus breakfast, a single white plate decked out with red coins of smoky beef sausage, crackling filo "cigars" filled with feta cheese and dill, baconlike strips of Turkish pastrami, and three different kinds of cheese, plus cucumbers, tomato and olives. It's a fine tour of Turkey for $10. A bland shrimp cake and a good hamburger, redolent of cumin and garlic and tucked inside a thick, saucer-shaped bun, are among the handful of sandwiches that round out the daytime selections.

I'd trade in any of the desserts for an extra order of the lentil kofta or fried mussels. Meze's creme caramel is too dense, its baklava damp and cloying. Served in a little crock with a blistered skin, the rice pudding looks exactly like a bowl of French onion soup. It is also bland.

Still, this newcomer offers a lot of variety and plenty of panache. Meze is as good for a bite at the bar by yourself as it is for a twosome or a group (ask to be seated upstairs if you're looking for a little privacy). The restaurant cares about night owls, too, offering a menu of 10 small plates well after midnight -- a stylish response to "Where can we eat?"