Spice of life

Saffron is—by weight—the world’s most expensive spice. Threads of the blossoming saffron crocus have been delicately hand-collected and traded across the Old World for at least four millennia. Years ago, my first encounter was a baked saffron rice cake prepared by an Iranian friend. You can find a similar dish, along with other Persian delights, at Saffron Restaurant in Carson City.

My friends and I started with an order of dolma ($7.99, four pieces), grape leaves stuffed with a mix of ground beef and lamb, rice, onion, pomegranate paste, honey, ground walnut, herbs, saffron and other spices. I’ve long been a fan of the Mediterranean dolma you find served with gyro and shawarma, but these were quite different. The leaves were a lot tougher with a lot more chew, and the combined ingredients were overall quite sweet. Adding a bit of the provided yogurt herb dip helped mellow the sweetness.

Next we dug into a serving of tahchin ($8.99), the crispy saffron rice cake with chicken, pistachio, almond and honey glazed barberries, the dried fruit of the berberis shrub. It was accompanied by yogurt dip and sliced, pickled cucumber. And it was exactly what I’d been hoping for. The tart, dried fruit complemented the other flavors, and the contrast between crispy outside and inner fluffiness of rice was great.

Doubling down on rice, we ordered a giant meatball known as koofteh ($11.99), a softball-sized mix of rice, ground beef and lamb, egg, onion, herbs, spices, dried fruit, and walnut, topped with a tomato beef consomme and served with flatbread and yogurt dip. The mix of rice-to-meat was about 50/50, and a taste of cinnamon was at the forefront. Something about the flavor seemed oddly familiar, and I realized it was triggering a memory of my mom’s rice and raisin pudding. It was essentially fragrant rice pudding meatloaf, which tasted a lot better than that description sounds.

A serving of “special eggplant’ ($5.99) turned out to be a variation on kashke bademjan, a popular Persian dip eaten with flatbread and yogurt. The sauteed mash of eggplant, onion, garlic, mint and roasted walnut was interesting and hard to describe. There aren’t many eggplant dishes I want to try again, but this one made the list. It was great loaded onto the bread, which itself was something between Middle Eastern lavash and Indian naan.

Finally, a family-size kebab plate ($59.99) featured skewers of barg (beef tenderloin marinated in saffron onion juice), bonab (ground beef and lamb with chopped serrano chile, bell pepper, tarragon and onion-infused parsley), koobideh (ground beef and lamb with onion-infused tarragon) and chicken breast marinated in saffron lemon juice. The meats were centered on the platter, surrounded by roasted tomato halves, whole serrano peppers and sliced squash, carrot, onion and pickle. The veggies were great, with surprisingly good flavor from the tomatoes and a lot of punch from the peppers. The acid on the chicken made our faces pucker. The koobideh was a bit sweet, and the bonab was spicy and piquant. Perhaps best, the barg was like a perfectly done steak, tender and savory in the best way.

We were so full and satisfied we didn’t have room for Persian ice cream or saffron baklava, but the variety of other menu items makes a return visit inevitable.