Abshar

A trip to Deira proves worth it for exceptional Persian kebabs and dips 1 Reviews

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I have a co-worker who’s obsessed with Persian food. He doesn’t dream in dreams, he dreams in mast; Forget sugar plum fairies – it’s mirza ghasemi that dances in his head. Impressing such a man with an Iranian restaurant is an intimidating task. Someone had told me that if it were to be done though, Abshar was the place to do it. So during a recent lunchtime we skipped breakfast, hopped in a taxi to Deira and prepared to gorge on chelo.

Though the restaurant had only just opened for lunch, the hugely expansive space had already seated a handful of locals, a good sign if ever there was one. Our table had a prime view of the central wood burning oven, out of which popped some of the flakiest flatbread I’d ever sunk my teeth into. As we arrived famished (we knew we were in for a hefty meal), we ordered a couple of dips as soon as we pulled up to the table. Doing so was no easy task. Servers had an aimless, zombie-like demeanour, and often it was difficult to tell the waiters apart from customers wandering around, blitzed-out in meat-induced comas.

After a couple of misses we finally found someone proficient in taking orders. Once he absent-mindedly clonked down a mizra ghasemi – Iran’s answer to baba ganoush – and a kashik bademjan – made from aubergine and whey – we set to work. Of course, the dips were similar, both topped with a generous mound of crispy, caramelised onions, but they were so elegant and smoky, and as addictive as nicotine, we weren’t bothered by the sheer quantity set before us. We couldn’t have foreseen that the dips, melting bread or tangy mast were all mere teasers, paving the way for a stunning main of meats.

It was only during this lunch that I realised how unfair is the perception of Persian food. There’s this idea – one that I’ve occasionally bought into – that a kebab’s a kebab. If anything was capable of breaking this stereotype, it was the kebab bakhtiari before me. Alternating layers of plump, drooling chicken, perfectly pink steak and drippy slices of green capsicum came basted in an intricate, garlicky marinade. I consumed the lot. Meanwhile, the minced lamb kebab in my date’s chelo loghm-e-zafarni was the essence of manliness. Its taste was deep and primordial. ‘What do you think?’ my date asked. I closed my eyes. Only one word came to mind. ‘Guttural,’ I said. He nodded.

‘Well guttural,’ he said. It was a beautiful dish, served atop a bed of steamed saffron rice, but it was so intense, so unbearably rich, that I could only suffer through a couple of bites.

The odd service – somehow both overly ceremonial and awkwardly gawky – somehow proved more endearing than frustrating, though it could just have been that the food allowed us to overlook it. After a laborious presentation of coffee and steamed milk (it almost seemed our waiter was nervous of putting the cups in the wrong spot), we split a faloodah, the ubiquitous Persian dessert made of iced vermicelli and different syrups. As faloodahs go, it was a winning rendition. Often, the syrups served atop a faloodah seem too processed and sickly, but these tasted fresh and reviving. Not a bad note to end on.

It’s never easy to convince people not living in Deira to trek there for a restaurant, but fans of Persian food should do just that. Whether this is the best Iranian restaurant in Dubai is debatable, but it’s certainly top tier.

The bill (for two)
1 x Large Masafi water Dhs5
1 x Mast Dhs8
1 x Kashik bademjan Dhs20
1 x Mirza Ghasemi Dhs20
1 x Chelo loghm Dhs45
1 x Kebab bakhtiari Dhs55
1 x Faloodah Dhs10
2 x Large coffee Dhs30
Service Dhs41
Total Dhs246

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