Alborz Restaurant

Rating: 6.5/10
Date Visited: July 18, 2009
Party of Two
Dinner

We were craving for Persian food, and it turns out that there are not too many Persian restaurants in San Diego. I had lived in Irvine, which by comparison, is Persian food heaven (of course, outside Persia!). We have not been to Iran (yet), so my taste for Persian food has been honed only by the superb immigrant Persian food in Orange County, at restaurants like Caspian, Darya, Bahar, and many others.

We usually do not do this, but this evening for a change, we had actually called ahead and reserved a table for 7 PM. It turned out that this restaurant was at a strip mall and next door to a coin laundry - seemed a bit weird to me. The dining area was huge and not very busy, there was a bar and even a stage for live music. Their website proclaims that there is belly dancing on weekends, but we did not see any - may be one had to wait till late for live entertainment, or may be they did not have any dancing that night. Instead they were playing instrumental music, really loud for comfort, and theme songs from Love Story, Godfather, etc. What about Persian music?

When we walked in, we were seated right on the passageway. What good is a reservation if we get the 'worst seat of the house' - our table often bumped by waiters and waitresses running to and from the kitchen and precariously balancing the dishes too close to our comfort. Next, our table had one napkin, my husband's napkin was not there and we had to ask for it when the food arrived. The waiter gave us the napkin with an exasperated look on his face, as if we had asked for the moon!

Service was terrible at this place. Our waiter had absolutely no training on decorum - he was consistently abrupt and impolite. I will list all his inappropriate behavior in the rest of the blog and you can judge for yourself.

They served warm flat bread and butter to begin with - complimentary. We ordered a glass of the house Shiraz, and for dinner it was Fasenjon (chicken) for me, and the Koobideh Combination for my husband. The dinner dishes came with either a soup or salad. I got the soup and my husband got the salad.

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House Shiraz
The house Shiraz was listed as Australian on the menu. We have been living in Australia for the last two years and Shiraz is our favorite wine. We have had many varieties from different regions in Australia, and we know the wine well. So we ordered the Shiraz - to honor our Aussie memories. Also, Shiraz usually pairs well with Persian food, it compliments the spices and the aroma of the food.

The glass served to us did not make the cut in aroma, flavor, or body. We were very disappointed - it did not even taste like any of the really bad Aussie Shiraz we have had - there were actually no elements of Shiraz in the wine - it was flat, no discernable taste of the fruit or the peppery finish. I could not imagine that some distributor could take the pain of importing Aussie Shiraz of this poor quality!

Towards the end of the meal, after complaining to each other several times, I thought that I may as well ask the waiter as to which vineyard this was from. We should warn our good Aussie friends not to ever waste their dollars on this vineyard! Guess what? We were not served the Aussie Shiraz at all! It seems that they had run out of the Aussie Shiraz and they served us a South African wine instead. The waiter was not sure if it was Shiraz or not, and did not want to go check either. He did not bother to inform us of this switch and made the statement in a very condescending manner, as if telling us - who are you to know the difference? No, no, no - you NEVER do that to a customer, even if they are complete idiots! The first tenet of quality service - never snub a customer, especially if you know less about the matter in hand than the customer.

Also, when the waiter served the wine at our table, he literally banged the glass on the table, the wine was almost spilling!!

Flat Bread
It was warm all right, but a bit too crispy. Seemed that it was kept in the oven / warmer for a little too long. Few pieces were burnt too.

Soup
It was a lentil-chicken-lime soup and delicious! I could feel the lovely layered texture of the lentils, bulgur wheat, and minced chicken - not too 'grainy' and not too 'brothy'. The hint of coriander gave it a sensuous aroma and the lime gave it the kick at the very end - well balanced - just perfect!

Salad
This was a disappointing classic Greek salad - cold iceberg lettuce with broken feta and slathered with typical tangy Greek salad dressing. Unimpressive. The tomato and sliced cucumber looked dry - as it they were cut long ago and left in the fridge to shrivel. There is room for improvement here.

Fesenjon
This dish is among their 'Specials'. Fesenjon is a typical Persian dish made of pomegranate juice, walnut paste, and butter. Very heavy, but very tasty. It is on the sweeter side, because of the pomegranate juice. The consistency and recipe of a Fesenjon varies with the chef. I first had fasenjon as a very thick sauce at a restaurant in Chapel Hill (Sage), and that too with pseudo-chicken, since the restaurant was strictly vegetarian. That version had a hint of coconut, and I was so impressed by the taste that I made it at home too. The version at Alborz, did not have the coconut layer, but the dish had more generous gravy and real chicken. It tasted good, very good, actually. Of course, as usual, the portion size was a lot for me, and I had to take more than half the plate home to relish later.

Koobideh Combination
This is a dish that we always order at every Persian restaurant we have ever been to thus far. We judge a Persian restaurant by how well they can make their koobideh. This may not be the right measure of excellence, but we love the koobideh too much to not order when we go out for Persian food. The verdict here is - excellent. There were two koobideh skewers - one ground beef and other ground chicken - all marinated with the right spices, succulent, and charbroiled to perfection. It was served with two grilled whole tomatoes, white and saffron rice, and a wedge of lime. Now, the use of lime did not sit well with us. We are used to half a lemon, lovingly wrapped in a small muslin bag (to prevent the seeds getting into the food). A wedge of dry lime did not cut it for us. But since the rest of the food was delicious, we will let this issue slide. (Note - If the management of this restaurant wants to improve service, this little bag can win them few brownie points.)

Rice
The rice was soft and fluffy white Basmati rice with some saffron rice on the top for the effect. It had a smell of butter but the taste of butter did not overwhelm the rice - very well done! I give a compliment here because there has been cases where the butter overpowers the rice and hence dominates the flavor of the dish it accompanies. Rice on such occasions should be a 'true' side - that enhances the flavor of the main dish and gives it an underlying texture, and nothing more.
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I think I need to say a bit more on the dismal level of service. It was very rushed. The rest of the restaurant was quite empty, but it seemed to us that the staff wanted us to get on with our meal and move on quickly. They took away our appetizer plates when bread was still on them without asking if we were finished. During our meal, our 'lovely' waiter asked me twice if I would like my meal boxed. The second time, he did not even ask actually, he just came over and barked - 'Let me know when you want a box for it.' - giving me an order rather than making a request. We finally got our food boxed by another member of the staff - again quite rushed.

We will probably visit this restaurant again - but only if we do not find any other Persian restaurant that has as good a food as this one and offers better service. May be it is wise to do take-home from here - we may be spared from the bad service that way.

There are many dishes I would like to try, e.g. Borani, Tadig, the different kinds of Polo, and the other kebabs. I wonder how the lamb shank is? The food here was pretty good, the low score is only because of the terrible service.


Address: 2672 Del Mar Heights Road, Del Mar, CA 92014
Website: http://www.alborzinc.com
Ph: 858 792 2233
Timing: Tues - Thurs (11AM - 9PM), Fri - Sat (11AM - 9:30PM), Sun (11AM - 8PM) Mon - Closed
Liquor served