Go West Silverlakers, Go West!  Middle East on the West side.  They lost our reservation for 25 people…oops!  12 of us milled around eyeing the complimentary flat bread, fresh onions, and butter, while the rest of us chowed down like greedy pigs (trying to ignore the piteous plight of our compatriots).  In fact, it must be said that the bread and onions, accompanied by an unidentifiable spice, was highly popular--almost becoming a sort of obsession with a certain few who shall remain unnamed. The interminable wait for water ended at some point on the edge of terminal dehydration.  But once the nectar of the Gods started flowing, gawddamn, was it great!

Another interesting obsession was the Javan’s Dough Drink: Gruvlicius says beware of the strange yogurt drink, it tasted like nectar of cum! Even so, Bazz liked it wid a lil lemon in it...and ChrisLove says it needs to be sampled in small doses only. Big Dan said the Dough drink tasted like feta cheese to him—it was good and he was in ecstasy from just a trace amount.  But Meit/huus (formerly referred to as Meathouse and pronounced in a similar fashion) said it was more like creamy FEETcheese with dill. Cthulhu personally felt that the dough drink was tart n’ tasty, but a little like drinking salad dressing. Obviously this is one complex and interesting drink! This is no boring drink! This is not the kind of drink that leaves people shrugging there shoulders in an I-don’t-care-about-this-drink-fashion! We were affected, we CARED! And you gotta love that.

“A Persian palace of highly polished granite and etched glass with nice big booths”, definitely NOT womb-like (once we got into them).  Tommy2tongue says the tablecloths were the color of vomit, and ChrisLove had a bad physical reaction to the seat covers. Gruvlicius says it woulda been fancy—in Kansas. The Silverlake Dinner Club hopes that no restaurant that we review ever sees this site, because we’ll surely be assassinated one by one…verrrry slowly.  But Tommy2tongue does think they could benefit from our advice.  Fool, that ye do not value your own life.  Liz and Deb felt that the lighting was too bright, making the energy too intense.  We all agreed that dark and romantic is always better when eating and plus you don’t notice the food in your neighbor’s teeth.  And ChrisLove would like to mention that there was a lot of spice-like stuff in people’s teeth afterwards. She says not to forget the studiedly casual toothpick-moment where you act like you really don’t have any food between your teeth, you just like chewing on toothpicks and pretendin’ like yer a cowboye!   Ivan says the Boneless Chicken breast Kaboob was lightly anodized with saffron and very authentic and yummy (he’s been to Persia in his dreams).  Howard says the boneless chicken kaboob was heavenly...perfect meat. He wanted to try the boneless leg with yogurt (yuuuuuum) but they were out. Maybe next time.

“I tell you, the soup that I had was really good, it seemed to be like a lentil soup flavored with spearmint that came through the strongest...it was a wonderful soup,” says Meit/huus who also shared the Combination Platter with Big Dan, Kate and Vroooomm!: “The thing that was amazing about the grape leaves was the uBusual combination of lentils, lamb, mint and pine nuts—absolutely wonderful.  On the same platter is a chunky tabouli, with no couscous or mint, also excellente...” “The lamb was so tender and flavorful that it was amazing (bites knuckle).” (Squid Vishus sez that two hours later, the lamb was still kickin’.) The Adas Polo, with chicken, basmati rice, lentils, raisins and dates was very flavorful and made Meit/huus feel sad that he couldn’t concentrate on it more.  Usually he will spend hours in there savoring the food, but the noisy company made him feel hurried and he was unable to thoroughly enjoy the culinary pleasure.  Damn Silverlakers! ChrisLove feels that maybe some of this had to do with the Cheesecake Drama: where were we gonna eat Meit/huus’ cheesecake, damnit? In the future, anyone who volunteers to have the after-dinner review party should not change their mind at the last minute. If they do ChrisLove will devise some evil plan of revenge that will involve something really AWful, perhaps something to do with a dough drink.

Big Dan Harf ate tender chunks of lamb, laaarge hearty grains of basmaati, some with saffron.  Watch out for pomegranate seeds, cause they’re in there!   ”The kabobs tasted as they should” said Gary and Gruvlicius.  Liz, of cream of wheat and applesauce fame, ordered homemade pickles, because she had eaten a whole pumpkin pie at work.  It was hard to get her pickles though since we grubbed em, mistaking them for an appetizer (what were we thinking?) whilst poor Liz was outside doing something or other.

Cthulhu loved his Shirin Polo (seasoned chicken with saffron orange peel rice), and Deb said her chicken “sandwich” was to die for (a series of flatbread “rolls” wrapped around seasoned chicken. Also, her grilled or BBQ tomato, or whatever, was amazing! Michael loved his vegetarian eggplant dish. Ryan the soft porn guy thought his lamb eggplant stew was pretty rockin’ though he wasn’t sure what it was at first. Gary’s companion said her chicken with cherry rice wasn’t all that. She felt that rice isn’t supposed to be pink and would have preferred it to be perhaps LESS interesting. ChrisLove thought her Adas Polo was good--the chicken was great and the nummy sugary dates went well with the rice/lentil/raisin mixture...but where was the goopy sauce? The rice mixture was served separately from the chicken and seemed a bit lonely or dry or something. Next time she might order a stew because they looked to be plenty goopy. A few other people mentioned some confusion about what they were eating. Whether they simply forgot what they ordered, or received something else will remain a mystery. Amen.

Elton Kriste’s weekly assessment of Chicken Salad: the Caesar chicken salad (marinated of course), was “quite tasty, delicious, and invigorating.” It was so nummy, he even blushed when hugged by his fellow diners. Aww Elton, love is good!

Elton said it all when he mentioned that “outside of the first hour the service was great”. “Very agreeable people” who never got frustrated, even when they ran into each other and spilled ice water down [Ramine’s] pants. BRRRR! Perhaps I shouldn’t mention that one of our lovely ladies acquired Ramine’s phone number--once he had warmed up? (Call me we will go aout sometime...) The nice man in the garage gave us a little bow as we drove off. Hoo HAA! we lUv nice people!  

Meit/huus had tempted us to the West side, promising great Persian food and his famous delicious cheesecake*.  He was right about both.  We dined on white chocolate cheesecake with blueberries at FrancisX’s cool studio. St. FrancisX would be a more apropos title however since he saved our asses and not only made sure that we had a safe cozy space in which to eat cheesecake and drink beer, but he also provided us with crisp, white lab coats to wear!!! OH MY GOD, we couldn’t belEEve our luck! We all looked so COOL!

Of note: each glass of iced tea came with a whole goblet of sugar cubes and these little caramelized sugar tablets that were lovely all on their own.   

(CL)

*”David Weidman did for cheesecake what Sergeant Pepper did for the Sixties”.

Words that rhyme with Pickle: Prickle—who didn’t show up luvs Annie Sprinkle who luvs Don Rickle[s] who licks an icicle and says “wanna see my winkle, only for a nickel, or are ya fickle?” Tickle tickle tickle!