Takeaway review: Totto's, Preston

Tucked away on a quiet corner of Fleet Street, it’s somewhere I’ve visited occasionally since I moved to Preston many moons ago, mostly to take advantage of its early evening dinner offer.

However, I only recently realised the Meditereanean and Turkish restaurant does a takeaway service so decided it was time to give it a go.

How would two of our old, in-house favourites translate to takeaway?

I ordered via Just Eat (handy when you have no cash to hand at home).

The delivery arrived in 30 minutes, a pleasant surprise as it was half the hour-long time promised on the website.

The delivery driver was friendly and cheerful despite it being a bitterly cold night and the food arrived suitably hot.

The takeaway menu didn’t seem to offer a discount on the restaurant prices, so we swerved starters because of that and went straight to main courses.

My dolmades (£9.90) were delicious.

The stuffed red pepper came with plenty of hearty minced beef and rice stuffing, topped off with a skim of cheese and were soon polished off.

However, I wasn’t keen on the doughy, huge chunk of bread that came with them to mop up the juices; it felt like the peppers would have gone better with pitta as this bread was a bit stodgy and lacked much flavour.

Not to worry as we’d ordered more bread as a side, and our thin and crispy garlic bread (£4) cut the mustard and went well with our food.

The generous portion meant there were a couple of slices left over.

My dining partner went for his Mediterranean standard, beef lasagne (a reasonably priced £5.95).

This proved too messy to remove from its foil carton (perhaps not the best item to have as a takeaway!) but still tasted good.

There was ample juicy beef filling with plenty of cheesy, rich sauce on the top and it made quite a filling option.

The total bill came to just under £20.

I probably still prefer to dine in at Totto’s as its food is more suited to a restaurant environment, but its takeaway option is worth a look if you are bored of the usual curry or Chinese take-out.

7/10