Telephone: 020-7275 8981.
Address: 10 Arcola Street, London E8.
Rating: 14/20

It's a long time since I was given the table next to the lavatories, but then, nowhere is all that far from them in Mangal Ocakbasi, just off Stoke Newington Road, that little part of London that is for ever a back street of Istanbul.

In case, like me, you are just catching up with the latest culinary cultural invasion from Turkey and thereabouts, mangal cooking is, as far as I can see, all about grilling. Indeed, mangal means brazier. It seems to be a subdivision of the long-established ocakbasi technique of open-cast barbecuing. In the case of this small, plain, bustling eatery, there is more space devoted to the long, rectangular charcoal grill than there is to the display cabinet, stuffed higgledy-piggledy with meats ready for the glowing coal treatment - or to the lavatories, for that matter.

There can be few more soothing ways of cooking than of mangaling meat. The chef sits beside his brazier. He takes the skewers brought to him and he lays them on the coals. They sizzle. He moves them up and down the grill, depending how much heat the meat in question needs. It's like watching someone play a giant, glowing xylophone with quiet, rhythmic precision. So stressed out is the mangal meister that he has time to chat to customers and friends, sip a drink, or read the newspaper if there is no one to talk to. Nevertheless, it is a highly skilled business, as every home-burned meat enthusiast will know. You can't grill bildircin (quail), say, in the same way that you would a pirzola (lamb chop) or bobrek (kidney). Or a uykuluk (sweetbread), beyti (minced lamb) or kop sis (kebab of small lamb cubes), come to that. Each needs expert attention if it is to be tender and tasty within a wonderful, mildly carbonised crust, rather than converted into a dog chew, which seems to be the fate of anything that I put near the glowing coal.

The soulful-eyed king of the range at Mangal was clearly a master of his craft. Tucker and I faced up to a meat lover's mixed grilled of most of those bits of lamb that are fit to eat - chops, kidneys, sweetbreads, mince, cubes of fillet, plus a brace of quails for good measure. It was a towering inferno of protein, and one which had Tucker on the ropes well before I popped the last kidney into my mouth.

Clearly, this is not a place for the faint-hearted or the vegetarian, or any but the most vigorous carnivore. (There may be more of these latter than is generally suspected, to judge by the numbers queueing up out of the door and down the street - and they weren't all homesick Kurds and Turks by any means: there were plenty of youthful Britons of both sexes to keep up a lively throng at the tables. That said, the blackboard by the door said they do fish on Tuesdays.) This may make Mangal Ocakbasi seem a bit limited in its range, but the hummous and ezme, a glop of grilled aubergine and garlic, were very superior examples, with a lively turn of spicing, which included chilli. The breads, too - fluffy pide and the thinner sac - were fresh, chewy and very fine.

There's no way even the most plangent poet of the plate can dress this up as a refined dining experience. It is basic eating, but basic eating at its best - fast, fun and filling, based on good ingredients simply cooked with the sure touch that comes from long practice. That's still rare enough, even in London, to be properly appreciated and treasured.

It's cheap, too. Our bill was £28. "How much?!" said Tucker, scandalised. "I've never managed to spend more than a tenner before." When I pointed out that we had eaten enough meat to keep the average household going for a week, he was mollified, slightly. Also, the bill did not cover the bottle of red and the brace of beers we drank, as Mangal doesn't have a licence; we'd taken the precaution of stocking up at a pretty fair off-licence around the corner.

There are other mangal restaurants that also go by the name of Mangal Ocakbasi, or something close to it. Individual branding has yet to make much of an impact in the mangal sector. My experience may be limited, but this one is worth searching out.

· Open All week, 12 noon-12 midnight. No credit cards.