Day 10 - Iran - World Cup Eating Challenge

Growing up, my family didn't go out to eat a lot. My mom is a great cook and we regularly had home cooked dinners, but when we did go out, we often went out for Persian food. It was pretty interesting when I got to college and wasn't familiar with Thai or Indian food like my friends. Persian restaurants weren't too common around Berkeley so it really faded from memory... until I was looking up Iranian recipes. It completely skipped my mind that Iran is Persia and that these would be the same cuisine. I decided to take a trip back in time and go out to dinner at a Persian restaurant.

I was really happy to find one that was nearby my apartment - Anar Restaurant. I was going to an event in that area that day anyways so it all worked out perfectly.

One of my favorite dishes of all time, is really well made tatziki. While I know this is Greek, I was really excited to see a similar yogurt dish on their menu. I ordered it as a starter and my friend Scott got a roasted eggplant dish. They were both really good on the flat bread and the yogurt went really well with my main dish too.

I decided to keep it really basic and get a chicken and lamb kebab plate. It was so good and I loved the Persian rice. It was something I remembered a lot from my childhood trips to Persian restaurants and I was happy it still tasted great. The only thing I would change would be to put a little less rice and a few more vegetables. This might not be too authentic but even one more tomato would have been really appreciated. Scott and Dan ordered a pomegranate chicken that I stole a couple of bites of and it as really good as well. The servers even gave us a bottle of the pomegranate sauce to take home.

I was a little shocked at how empty the restaurant was. We did go right when it opened  but we didn't see anyone aside from the servers. Apparently it's only been open a few weeks and  there are definitely some opening pains. The don't have any sort of alcohol permits yet and obviously they haven't gotten the word out. I'm hoping some more people stumble upon this place though as it does have great Persian food.