The talk of the Persian community
Shiraz Cuisine is so empty that, while I wait for someone to join me, I try not to listen to the conversation between the man and woman at the only other table. From the way they're both leaning in, it seems intense. I wish there were more customers to provide background noise.
A few days later, the restaurant is full of families and children - and everyone is speaking at once, but no one is speaking English.
The Persian community has discovered Shiraz Cuisine. This month-old restaurant was opened by Moe and Parisa Anbardar, who used to own Cafe Habibi, an eight-seat spot in Allston. Now the couple, both from Tehran, are offering the dishes of their native Iran in a stylish spot with small blue pendants over sleek tables and white cloths forming waves against a back-lit blue ceiling. The location was Le Bocage for many years, then other restaurants gave the space a try before the Anbardars moved in.
Persian cuisine is one of the oldest in the world. Rice is the dominant grain. At Shiraz, you're served basmati that looks like hundreds of startlingly white snowflakes under a drizzle of golden saffron. Many meats are skewered onto kebabs and grilled, and vegetable dishes can be stewy.
In its geographical spot between the Far East and the Middle East, Iran seems to share tastes and flavors with many regions. Dark and aromatic eggplant, for instance, in a dish called kashk o bademjan ($5.99), is grilled and pureed, then mixed with fried onions and covered with a minty yogurt sauce. It has the smoky quality of other eggplant purees, but the sweetness of the vegetables is offset by slightly sour homemade yogurt. Another familiar dish is Olivieh salad ($5.99), made from diced chicken breast mixed with mayonnaise, chopped eggs, potatoes, and peas. Pickles add a piquant taste. A nearly identical dish, salat Olivier, has been made in Russia since the 19th century.
Other dishes have a little acidic bite. All entrees come with barley soup ($4.25 without entree), which includes lots of lemon juice and tomato paste simmered for many hours until the pot thickens from the grains. Torshii ($4.99) are very sour pickled vegetables with vinegar and spices, and without any sugar, the taste makes your mouth pucker. "House dough," an ancient drink of thick, carbonated lemony yogurt ($2.50), is also a sour slurp that's an acquired taste.
Kebabs such as boneless lamb ($14.99) or shish kebab with lamb ($15.99) are arranged with the meat on one side of the plate, a heap of rice beside it, along with lemon wedges and grilled vegetables. Boneless lamb is in a lightly spicy tomato-flavored sauce; shish kebab is simply tender chunks of leg meat with caramelized edges. The lamb standout is the shank ($13.99), made with beautiful long-simmered meat presented under a blanket of basmati. Joojeh kebab ($13.99) is a cut-up Cornish hen, grilled and reassembled on the plate with the legs in pairs, then the breasts, and then the wings. Poultry on the bone is always succulent, and this dish is exceptional.
Parisa Anbardar, who runs the front of the house, explains that her husband is cooking with his brother, Amir, who will eventually run a catering division for the restaurant. They brought a gas grill from home, along with a machine to make chicken kubideh ($9.99), a skewer of ground poultry flavored with saffron and grilled just to the point that it's quite moist. When a customer wants kubideh, they grind the meat to order.
Persian ice cream ($4.99) is homemade from cream, pistachios, saffron, and rose water, but other desserts come from Watertown's Tabrizi Bakery, which specializes in Persian confections, including large triangles of nutty bagh lava ($4.99) - say it fast and you'll recognize what it is - and roulette ($4.99), a kind of jelly roll with creamy filling. You should usually skip dessert at restaurants where they're not made on the premises, but the marriage of Shiraz and Tabrizi seems to be a particularly good one.
At least that's what one little girl is thinking. Dressed in her party clothes, she finishes dessert and presents her plate to Parisa Anbardar, who is waiting on tables, busing them, and occupied with many things. The girl has licked her plate clean of a drizzle of chocolate sauce and wants more. Anbardar promptly brings her another drizzle, then another, then another, until the little girl's hands are covered in chocolate and droplets spot her beautiful dress. But how happy she is!
If the intense couple returns, there's plenty of activity to deflect their conversation. 