Shiraz is a location I have often driven past but never remember about when thinking of where to have dinner. Shame on me and lesson learned! Went with a group of friends and glad we did as there were so many tasty dishes to try we ended up sharing everything.
Went for Yelp International Supper Club and were privileged to have Mehdi, the owner, chat with and gave us some great advise for choosing the dishes we ended up having. So glad he did as it was a taste sensation!
Note that even though we went for Yelp International Super Club, all the dishes we tried are standard on their menu.
Loved that he took the time to check the table for any allergies to nuts or gluten before bringing anything out. We had one vegetarian in the group and he let her know he would do a separate dish for her - veggie pizza - and when it came out he made sure to let her know exactly what was on the pizza. That is caring for your guests. He also let us know they have 3 separate stations when preparing their pizza and one is dedicated to celiac so they can make sure that nothing contaminates the food. Kitchens are always so careful about allergies but this is going the extra mile to make sure no cross contamination happens. 5 stars just on that.
Started with delightful eggplant dip and Kashik-e-bademjon (eggplant) pizza. The dip was fantastic and the pizza had the best crunchy crust. The boy isn't into eggplant at all and le enjoyed the dip and loved the pizza.
Mains were a Shiraz Special platter made up of lamb, ground beef kabob and chicken kabob with basmati rice - all deliciously flavoured and cooked to perfection with the lamb nice and tender. We also got to try 2 Persian stews. A beef + bean stew (Ghormeh Sabzy or Persian Green Herb Stew) and chicken pomegranate walnut stew (Fesenjoon stew) - both great but the chicken pomegranate stew made me want to lick the bowl clean it was so tasty. The portion sizes were great too, was so full at this stage I though there was no room for dessert. I was wrong.
For dessert we had rose water + cashew ice-cream. Just wow! Creamy and sweet but not too much. The boy actually did lick his bowl clean on this one... then licked my bowl clean. Think he liked it.
Throughout Mehdi told us about the persian cuisine, where they source their ingredients from, how it is prepared, and how they got started at their restaurant. Love that we got to hear all about what we were eating and made me appreciate it that much more.
I loved the food so much and we will definitely be back with another group to try as many other dishes as our stomachs can handle. Alternatively I have a couple of friends who live close by and when I am over at their place I am absolutely suggesting we get some pizza to go from Shiraz!