Last night I went out for dine out Vancouver with a few ladies from the office. We went to Darchin. Its a Persian restaurant in downtown near the Burrard bridge. I've never had Persian food and to be honest never had much desire to try it. But I do love trying new things so off we went.
I'd like to say first that I did enjoy the food. It was like a cross of Indian and Greek cuisine. Lots of kebobs and similar ingredients, just cooked differently. I really enjoyed my main dish. The only complaint on the food front would be that there is too much oil. Like a lot.
I started with a salad. The Darchin salad. It had lettuce, beets, cucumber, tomato and beans. The dressing was some sort of dairy one so I asked for balsamic vinegar. I didn't end up using it because they also poured oil in it. I don't use a lot of oil in my cooking and try to limit my oil consumption. But I know when I eat out that there's a ton. Especially with ethnic cooking. So opting out of dressing was totally OK for me. Plus, beets are full of flavour. And being vegan, I've eaten my fair share of dressing-less salads. Lol
The next pic is not of the dish I had but of my friends. It was an eggplant dish with a yogurt dressing. I didn't try it but it looked interesting. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Sorry, there was less light where she was sitting. LOL
Next up is my main dish. I liked it quite a bit. Super tasty. And the rice pyramid was cool looking. I had the dish called Gheimeh which is a vegetarian stew with split yellow peas and dried Persian limes and cinnamon.
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| Topped with saffron rice |
My other friend Kiran had the other vegetarian dish. This one was good but much more of an acquired taste. It also looks not that great, but its just cuz of all the greens. Looks like Saag, an Indian dish, but does not taste like it. This wasn't my fave but I enjoyed it.
Kiran's dish was called Ghormeh Sabzi which is a vegetarian stew with greens, red beans and dried Persian limes. She also got the cool pyramid rice. The first bit of it was weird. It is quite vinegary or something. But the second taste was good and the ones after it. I thought it was a very interesting dish. Apparently there's pomegranate juice in it.
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| DESSERT!!! |
Dessert was good! And so original. I normally won't get dessert because well, I just don't want to eat those extra calories when there's no nutritional value. And I usually like to save it for special occasions. But this sounded so cool. I got the Darchin special Faloodeh Persian sorbet made of thin vermicelli noodles frozen with corn starch, rose water, and lime juice. It tasted more like lemon but whatevs. I liked it a lot actually. It was so interesting looking and I love citrus. The rose water was not over powering at all. In fact I could barely notice it.
I do have one MAJAH complaint. The service was abysmal. Like bad. Nobody was rude or anything but it took forever. We had to clear our own plates, ask for water, ask for my salad, ask for my meal, ask for my dessert. It was brutes. They would bring every plate except one every time. The appy course was the worst. Everyone was almost done theirs before I even got my salad. What are you doing? Growing the freaking lettuce in the back garden? All courses were like this. When I go out to eat, I'm not only paying for the meal but also so that I don't have to do anything. Like I shouldn't have to clear my own plates and/or pass them to you. The servers also passed plates across the table over top of other people. Sigh.
It was really rather unfortunate. Because the restaurant is nice and the food is good but I wouldn't go back. It wasn't even that busy in there. It was like 6pm. No one even apologized. I did kinda feel bad for the 2 servers that were there because they had to do everything. There were 2 men working behind the bar but I didn't see them do one thing. Not even seating people. Maybe if the owners were to participate in there business a little more the reviews would be better. Oh well. They will learn. Repeat business is how you survive. But that being said we still had a great time. :)
Peace
xoxo
K
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