Located near Boston College, the small Turkish restaurant Saray is cozy, reasonably priced and good enough to go back to.As part of a strip shopping center, Saray would be easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. It's surrounded by various trendy restaurants-shabu-shabu joints and classic bistros-so it's a little hard to spot its red awning. The inside of Saray is clean and comfortable, a modern take on Middle Eastern styling with a crisp but warm look to the blond wood and copper-painted walls. There isn't too much room inside, so if you're thinking of stopping in for an occasion or on a Saturday you might consider making a reservation.

If you're not feeling too ravenous, you could easily make a meal of the awesome appetizers. The hummus is a real treat, evenly textured and spiced with just enough garlic and tahini, with an almost light consistency. Also try the haydari-it's made of thickened Greek yogurt with plenty of dill and garlic as well as chunks of walnut. If you're with a group, try both of them-the cool taste of the haydari is a great complement to the warm spice of the hummus. Saray serves a traditional Turkish wheat bread with plenty of seeds and whole grains, which is quite a bit more substantial than the typical standby pita. With its array of appetizer offerings including baba ganoush and sigara borek-that is, fried filo dough with feta-a lunch on appetizers would be great.

Saray has an extensive kebab menu and features quite a few vegetarian dishes. For my entree, I chose the spinach Oe la Turca, a dish consisting of wilted spinach cooked with rice and onion and served with a garlic yogurt and neapolitan sauce. I had imagined that it would be something rather solid, with a nice balance between the spinach, rice and onion. A warning: This dish is rather like a soup served in a shallow bowl. Eaten with leftover bread, it was a pretty good dip, though the predominant flavors were certainly garlic and salt, leaving very little room for the more subtle flavors of spinach and cooked onion.

My regular dining partner (again my dad visiting from Dallas) chose the chargrilled chicken kebab. His report was that the chicken was spiced warmly, with red pepper and a hot marinade and was quite tender. The plate was very colorful-a circular arrangement of red cabbage, black olives and moist white rice. It seems that Saray mostly focuses its attention on its vast kebab menu, which seems to feature the greatest variety in meat, vegetables and flavors.

I think it's also appropriate to issue a warning on Saray's desserts. Though they may be made in house, they're certainly not fresh. As a dedicated rice pudding lover, I was disappointed to find that the pudding arrived in an aluminum container. It was cold, custard-like and quite eggy, featuring a once-hard sprinkled sugar crust that had long gone soggy.

Still, what Saray does, it does well, and at very reasonable prices. Its classic Turkish dishes, like the hummus, haydari and chicken kebab, were all very well done and presented. However, the dishes that most likely get very little play among the college crowd were a bit of a disappointment. Nonetheless, it is a cozy restaurant and a fine place for lunch or dinner with a group of friends, and in that sense, it's a real Turkish delight.