The Persian Peacock

 29 June 2022

 

The Persian Peacock

176 Upper Buitenkant Street, Gardens, Cape Town.

 

On reflection, the wife and I have mixed feelings about The Persian Peacock. The chef cooks meat perfectly but the value for money wasn’t quite on point. It’s expensive yet there seems to be mystifying stinting on portions.

 

Picture six adults, a mezze selection in seven small bowls and two half-grown pita breads. We were all frantically doing fractions in our heads to calculate our respective share of pita. Hey, you know what they say: small bowl, small pita.

 

Now that I have your attention …

 

The Persian Peacock's been on the list for a while and tonight was the opportune time to invite the goddaughters and significant other to join the wife and me.

 

We haven’t been on the site since the demise of Marika’s and was intrigued to see whether it had been transformed from a simple Greek ambience to Persian opulence.  The space is still the same, with a large balcony, sheltered against the wind but with no overhead covering, and the rather small interior. The Greek island look and décor are gone, replaced by an odd mixture of, presumably, Persian decorations, such as the sumptuous table coverings under glass and a mixed assortment of geegaws on shelves, and the incongruous print of a famous Rembrandt self-portrait.  The room is cosy and, I thought, quite welcoming.

 

The hostess was quick to inform me that the restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol, as if I were the chief drinker among the crew, but I’d expected that this wouldn’t be a boozy dinner. No matter, we had delicious, refreshing Persian style non-alcoholic beverages and the wife had a superb banana milkshake made with actual banana.

 

The six of us shared a large mixed mezze platter to start (R170), and this is where one’s doubts start creeping in. The platter was ostensibly suitable for 4 people yet the mezze portions barely seemed enough for that number but the real issue was that the platter was served with two small flatbreads. How they could be enough for four people is already open to debate but, surely, if you know there are two more people, you could add one measly flatbread? If not more. 

The only way to deal with this challenge  was to quarter the flatbreads so that five people could have a miniscule section. I didn’t have any bread at all and ate my share of the mezze with a fork.

 

 To me, the bread component is a cheap element and it's truly mystifying that a restaurant serving a cuisine in which flatbread is quite important, skimps on the bread. 

 

Also, even for mezze, I thought the portions were a tad dietary, even for only four people and much too insubstantial for six.  

 

The mezze were okay but there was nothing I’d rush back for and it’s not worth the price. For our palates, the challenge is, I suppose, that Persian spicing and flavours are different to what we know and very subtle too, making for a somewhat underwhelming  experience. 

 

The menu features various grilled meats and a good variety of vegetarian platters. You can also order a Tomahawk sirloin steak at R335,00 a kilogram; the menu is mute on gold foil.

 

For mains, one man had the Bakhtiari kebab (lamb and chicken, rice, grilled tomato and herbs (R150),

the younger goddaughter ordered the tah-chin rice dish with chicken (R150) and the older goddaughter and one significant other ordered the same dish but with lamb (R220), that’s described as “rice, saffron, yolks, barberries, pistachio flakes and etc.” It’s the only dish on the menu with a photograph and it looked amazing.  

 

The wife and I shared a so-called mini combo of various kebabs and lamb chops (R350.)

 

Mr Lamb and Chicken enjoyed his meal. The tah-chin looked stupendous when served and made me salivate. The three tah-chinas complained that it lacked seasoning, i.e. salt, and at least one wasn’t overjoyed by the taste of saffron.  The flavours were incredibly subtle and out of our comfort zone yet intriguing,  the rice was the right texture of al dente and the combination of meat and flavours was quite luxurious and, to me, yummy.  I didn’t think the tah-chins needed salt but, maybe that‘s just me.  

 

The mixed combo had the best, most succulent grilled chicken the wife and I’d ever eaten, the lamb mince was flavourful and the steak was cooked perfectly medium rare as requested and was as tender and succulent as one can dream of. The humongous lamb chops were well grilled yet also lusciously tender.  The meat on the platter was from carnivore heaven.

 

The dish was served with one large flat bread, and seeing as how I suppose one eats the meat with the bread, it was rather a poor show to offer one bread for two people especially when the bread was so delicious one simply wanted more for the hell of it. 

 

We could have either chips or salad with the  mini combo. I wanted salad, as there would be bread, and the wife wanted chips.  We couldn’t have half and half, so the wife ordered a separate portion of fries (R35.) The immediate comment from the table was that the fries could’ve come from McDonalds. I wouldn’t know about that, but they did look suspiciously non-hand cut but were good.

 

The thing is this: I’m no  expert on Persian cuisine and not a betting man either but I’d be willing to wager a substantial amount on the proposition that the French fry is not a traditional element of Persian cuisine and that  it’s offered to the kind of diners who eat at a Persian restaurant, yet aren’t prepared to embrace the cuisine fully. I would’ve thought the mini combo shouldn’t deign to offer fries but  simply serve more bread.

 

The salad, of shredded lettuce, slices of cucumber and tomato and grated carrot, may be traditional but isn’t visually appealing and not exactly exciting on the palate.

 

One can build a platter of an assortment of the grilled meats, plus different types of bread, salad, fries, etc but, having regard to the individual prices, that could end up massively expensive. 

 

There were two types of dessert between the four of us: the baklava and a saffron rice pudding.  Apparently, the former was good. I don’t particularly care for baklava and didn’t taste any, but the phyllo pastry looked thin and crisp and a hot syrup was poured over each when served, as a bit of theatre.

 

The rice pudding was a severe disappointment. I dote on rice pudding, especially sutlaç, and this is nothing like the rice pudding I know and love. The texture lies between curdled milk and a liquid porridge and it’s only sweet with a hint of saffron, which, in these quantities is definitely an acquired taste. Safe to say, I’ll never eat Persian rice pudding again. 

 

It struck me later, that it might be a pudding made with rice flour and that would explain the look and texture.

 

Oh, and saffron tea ain’t for me, either.

 

The bill came to R2260,00 before tip, and this amount doesn’t even include alcohol, often a substantial component of a restaurant bill.

 

Okay, we can agree that the wife and I ate well, main course-wise, and must praise the chef for that. I don’t rate the mezze much and the general lack of sufficient bread, with the mezze and our mini combo, is  a disappointment.  I’d like to return to try the lamb tah-chin, but other than that, I agree with the wife that the balance of items on the menu don’t quite appeal to me.

 

We are glad that  we satisfied our curiosity. That’s about it.  Neither the ambience nor the cuisine is going to give us the craving to return. Value for money is often indefinable and for us,  it’s a combination of factors, and feel, and our feel is that The Persian Peacock doesn’t offer value for money in the way we see it.