Persian restaurant offers unique dining opportunity

As a fan of foreign food, I always am delighted to come across a new restaurant. I recently had the pleasure of discovering one called Kabob.

The experience was a bit awkward at first. We walked into a large room that was mostly empty, with a small buffet along the back wall. After standing there for a minute or two, one of the patrons flagged us over and told us to just grab a plate and help ourselves, adding that he doesn’t actually work there but just dines there a lot. While we picked up our plates, a pleasant young lady came out, greeted us and took our drink orders.

The L-shaped buffet consisted of naan, six main entrees and rice lightly dusted with saffron. At the end was a salad/dessert bar.

The main entrees being served my first visit around were the chicken kabob, dal hyderabadi, kubedia kabob, chicken khorma, mixed vegetable khorma and khorma kofta. They continued to rotate dishes throughout the buffet hours.

I quickly filled the bottom of my plate with rice and then piled a little of the chicken kabob, dal hyderabadi, kubedia kabob and chicken khorma on top.

The dal hyderabadi is a yellow lentil that is pureed with tomatoes, cilantro, mint leaves and cumin, then cooked down. I am used to Indian dal, which is not pureed, so the texture was different from what I usually have. But the flavor was perfect.

Next I tried the kubedia kabob, which is ground beef filled with onions and spices. Compared to the other Persian food I have tried, it was cooked correctly and the flavor was nice, but it was a little tough for me, and I did not enjoy the unsuspecting crunch of onions, so I ended up pushing the beef aside.

Then I moved on to the chicken kabob, made of white meat and seeming to have a hint of lemon. The color suggested saffron. The chicken was cooked exactly to my liking. Last, I tried the chicken khorma. It is dark meat cooked in a sauce with garbanza beans and just a hint of heat. I am not a fan of dark meat, so I didn’t try the actual meat, but the mixture of garbanza beans with the sauce on top of my rice won a tie for my favorite, the other being the dal and rice. I was told the dark meat was delicious. The chicken kabob was my favorite meat; I just prefer to have curry sauces to put on my rice.

The naan, a flatbread cooked in a clay oven, was decent, but I have had better.

Both of the desserts offered interesting varieties of flavors. Sholeh zard was a gelatin like rice pudding with saffron and almonds. The flavor was good, but the texture was too much for me, kind of a mush-crunch-mush.

The other dessert was the rice pudding, which was an experience to eat. It had many interesting flavors. It first tasted like tapioca, then ended with an effect like that of smelling a nice perfume, but in your mouth.

I spoke with the waitress about the dessert, and it turns out that they put rose water in the pudding. The last bite of pudding left me with the perfect taste on my tongue to finish the meal.

If you are curious about trying foreign food but nervous what the dishes are going to be like, this is a great place to start. There were not any dishes that were too spicy, and you were able to tell what every meat was (I’ve been to a few Indian restaurants with mystery meats). They do a wonderful job of combining spices that make you slowly enjoy your food so you can savor each one.

Kabob has been open just over a month and still was going through the new restaurant phase, but even with how busy it was, the owner made an effort to go by and check on every table. After the initial awkwardness, the environment was surprisingly cozy.

Overall, the experience made my day, and I cannot wait to return again.

Kabob is located at 4925 S. Western St. It is open from noon to 8:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. It offers a full menu, take-out or dine-in, as well as a buffet from noon to 3 p.m. The buffet costs $8.99 per person, and the menu dishes run from $2.99 to $8.99 with all beverages costing less than $2. Kabob’s serves a couple of traditional drinks, but unfortunately I did not get to try them as I did not look at the menu until after.

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1 comments

Anonymous

Fri Mar 5 2010 12:49

I have had the opportunity to eat here also, and I LOVED IT! The staff treat you like family and the food was perfect. I had to remind myself not to eat too much as they are here locally and I can go back anytime. Can't wait to see what's on the buffet next time.

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