You can read part 1 of this here https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/foodschallenge.com/211
With a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and haranguing them outside their places of work, I managed to convince both Ms. V and The Prophet of Miltown to join me once again for more wacky adventures. They have both been big supporters of my Sisyphean task since the early days when my head had been sent West by my immediate boss at Unnecessary Targeting Ltd, and are in many ways perfect for this particular event.
Ms. V has Syrian heritage (albeit not a follower of Islam herself) and the Prophet, well… it’s his story to tell not mine, but The Prophet’s dad is/ was an Islamic convert of a sort. Both though, as has been demonstrated in earlier posts, have a keen eye for a good bit of cooking.
After the startling revelation last week that Michelin three starred restaurants serve good food (who knew?), it was always going to take some beating. This is not any kind of competition of course, so I don’t want to think in those terms, but while the differences between the décor and other things were worlds apart they were immensely enjoyable in their own right.
We were joined by the owner and his wife who up until now I hadn’t realized was Taiwanese, her face had been covered on all previous visits. I am very far from being a racist and as we do have many Malaysians and Indonesians who do wear the hijab, it is a fair assumption to make. Her accent too, when speaking English, didn’t give her away as Taiwanese either. Her husband is a native of Tehran, very friendly and talkative and willing to talk about the history of Iran after I had said I knew Iranians (who are Baha’i) and Muslims of various heritages back in the UK. He mentioned he has a cousin in Manchester though they do not speak, due to some class difference that I’m not schooled enough in, in Iranian tradition to understand though he was very keen to talk about it. He got a friendly poke from the missus asking him to shut up, as we were there to eat.
It was a massive spread. As you can see from the photos- I’m surprised we didn’t waddle home. It was a very rare honour to be able to eat it, and I’m going to be dreaming about the Tandoori style chicken for years to come.
First up was the Salad Shirazi which the owner said is pretty much the national dish or salad of Iran. Many Iranians are particularly proud of it and I can see why, very tasty and I’m not a salad guy. He remarked that even though his wife is not Iranian, he would put her up there with the best chefs in Iran for her salad- who are we to suggest otherwise?
The Ash-e Reshte that you see on the menu was soup; I don’t remember eating it, though Ms. V and TPoM both enjoyed it. It was full of lentils and it got two thumbs up.
The chicken, maaaaaan. It was spicy, but flavor-spicy and really tender. I think I had two legs and a breast, maybe more. I am still not up to my ideal weight yet after what I have started to dub “the fall”, and I have been advised to get more protein, so this and the Ghorme Sabzi (lamb stew) were just the thing. Both my companions were satisfied too, probably still talking about it.
The thing that looks like a cake, but wasn’t a cake was the Salad Oliviye. A potato salad, with peas, egg and some other stuff. There was a look of confusion on TPoM face as he encountered this, which is kind of unusual as he is among the more chatty of people. It takes something pretty crazy to stop him in his tracks, like a buffalo playing a tuba, that’d maybe work, but in this case it was the salad.
Last but certainly not least were the ferni and the halva. I enjoyed both, but the rose flavoring of the ferni wasn’t to the taste of Ms. V. The ferni is the white dish with the pistachios on the top and has the consistency of custard. The halva is more dense, but also had saffron and was pretty darned sweet. As with everything, I could have eaten them both all day. Throughout the meal we were drinking pomegranate juice with rose water- a nice change to my usual orange juice, tea or coke.
I guess we stayed around for about two hours, chatting about this that and the other. It had been a long week, for all of us for various reasons, not least because it was midterm week and the subsequent marking of papers for Ms. V, and I had some stuff happen that I won’t go into here. The mood was fun and our hosts were very generous, providing the hospitality I know well from Muslims across the world. All we need to do now is convince them to do this more often. I’ll be championing them everywhere I can. If I can do my small part in making them more famous or popular, they deserve all the custom that comes their way.
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/foroshgaheirani
Address: 60 Zhongyang 5th Street, Xindian, New Taipei City.( same building as the PX Mart) About a 5-10min walk from Xiaobitan MRT station
52 Cuisines? 