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A Taste of Persia, Newcastle
May 9 2008 by Jane Hall, The Journal
PERSIA sounds so exotic to me. My boyhood notion of what it was like came from images from the Arabian Nights merged in a luscious blend with camel caravans, date palm oases and the mysteries of the harem, best viewed through a gauzy film.
All this, of course, is hopelessly inaccurate and a horrible mishmash of cultures, but I’m happy in my ignorance. I set aside the grim contemporary facts about life in Iran, the modern-day name for Persia, and hold on tenaciously to my blissfully naive notions in a glorious celebration of this ancient culture.
It was with those pictures in mind that we decided to go to A Taste of Persia in Newcastle. One of the first things that struck me as I sat down, was the tapestry of Persia’s version of the Girl with the Pearl Earring, only this lovely young woman had a rich Bedouin-style head wrap and two very ornate gold earrings. Her sultry eyes gazed down on the room and the floating background music created just the right feel for a person who wants to bathe in idealised imagery.
The menu confirmed my views about Persian cuisine with dishes whose names were so musical they could have been lifted from any of the 1001 nights. We made our choices, were complimented by the affable waitress on our pronunciation and settled back with a couple of very non-Eastern beers to wait for the delights to flow.
Although it is the custom in Persia to have only one course, the restaurant went with local expectations and offered three. Our first ones of dolmeh and salad-e shirazi got things going very well. The dolmeh were five, dark green, glossy vine leaf parcels of minty rice glazed with herby oil dressing. They were piping hot and deeply satisfying. The salad brought together fresh, finely-diced cucumber, tomato and gentle onion with a fragrant dressing. This refreshing combination of summery ingredients created a contrast with the rich dishes that followed.
First up was a huge crispy naan bread sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds. It was so huge and fresh you could almost hear the seeds still popping. Next to it sat a plate of pretty white and saffron yellow rice. Both the naan and the rice were there for one purpose, to manage the rich sauce in the gormeh sabzi and delicious juices that trickled out of the lamb fillet and chicken breast in the bakhtiari. The gormeh sabzi may have only been a small dish in size, but the intensity of the herb and dried lime sauce surrounding the lamb and black-eyed beans gave it giant-like dimensions.
The bakhtiari was a very different, kebab-style dish with chunks of buttery chicken and the softest imaginable lamb alternating across the plate. Two huge roasted tomatoes, a wedge of lemon and spray of flat leaf parsley offered other taste combinations. It was so simple and yet so effective.
Desserts are not a big part of Persian food but the fig delight was just that. A small pool of creamed rice flour supported three baby figs and a walnut with sugar syrup and crushed pistachios scattered around. The baclava was a delicious diamond of crunchy, honey-coated pastry filled to the gunwales with crushed nuts and spices.
The idea when eating in the Middle East is to have just enough and leave the table feeling replete but not overfull. We hit the mark squarely, felt very satisfied with what we’d had and knew that returning would be a good idea, so we could savour more Persian delights.
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