Restaurant Review: Golestan, Sheraton Hotel, Bahrain
- Lifestyles
- Travel & Leisure
- Restaurant Reviews
Author: Kyle Pakka
Released 11 September 2005
The night we ate at the Golestan Iranian restaurant in the Sheraton Hotel in Manama, a solo diner who had never before eaten Persian food sat nearby. He peppered the wait staff with a series of questions about what to expect and what would they recommend. Within minutes, he was snacking on a platter of vegetables and dips, accompanied by a basket of hot bread fresh from the restaurant’s clay tannur, or oven.
His main course – a platter of mixed kebabs – arrived and he devoured it with gusto. Meal over, he sat back with a glass of tea and engaged the maitre d’ in a lively discussion of the differences and similarities between Greek, Turkish and Persian food. He was obviously smitten after one meal, and who wouldn’t be? Persian food, with its piquant, robust flavors, bright colors, and balance of textures has been entrancing diners for centuries, and Golestan is a great place to fall in love with this classic cuisine.
The first thing you notice about Golestan, after the passageway lined with niches displaying Persian carpets, is the smell of baking bread. The clay tannur (originally a Hebrew word, the tannur is a traditional baking oven found throughout the Middle East) is located right inside the door to the restaurant, and attracts food lovers like a bee hive lures bears. The oven is dome-shaped and white, surmounted by a gleaming copper hood and flanked by flour-coated counters where fresh balls of dough await their fiery transformation in the oven.
The baker, dressed in traditional Persian garb, when he wasn’t tending the loaves, roamed the restaurant with fresh baskets of bread all night long. Several types of bread are on the menu, and we tried several, starting with the garlic-pepper-cheese bread.
It arrived piping hot from the tannur and our first bites sent us into a state of food ecstasy. The bread, redolent of garlic and covered in sesame seeds, was hot and supple. The black pepper zinged our tongues; the cheese was slightly salty and gooey – in short, the bread was better than most pizzas we’ve had. Like all the bread varieties we tried at Golestan, we could have made a meal of just this one item.
Our meal started out with a complimentary plate of vegetables – green onions, radishes, lettuce leaves, carrots, cucumber, feta cheese and walnuts – plus dishes of yogurt-mint-cucumber dip, one for each of us. The baker brought us our first basket of hot bread, and I immediately wrapped a bit of the salty white cheese in a hunk of hot bread, and then scooped up some of the thick, creamy yogurt dip with more hot bread. Fabulous.
The vegetables were crisp and fresh, especially the long thin leaves of lettuce. After nearly eight years in the Middle East, I’ve decided the people here have it right: the only way to eat lettuce is with the fingers.
As we work our way through the vegetables, bread and glasses of smooth arak, we take in the décor. Golestan (the name of one of the 30 provinces of Iran, in the northeast of the country) is intimate, rather than overwhelming in size or in the Bahraini version of Vegas-like grandeur. The ceiling, and the pointed archways, are imitation carved gypsum. Brass lamps, sconces shaped like ancient torches and miniature lamps impart a soft, golden glow on the faux stone walls. The tile floor is gorgeous, a mix of gray slate and terra cotta. There are several cozy private rooms, with elaborately carved wooden shutters on the windows.
The night we dined, our tablecloth was a high-quality Iranian patterned cloth, and our placemats were little Persian carpets. The wine and water glasses were hand-painted Persian rose glass – even the glass ashtray was hand painted. Oriental music played quietly overhead, and in a niche in one corner stood a gleaming, steaming samovar.
We looked over the appetizers and took the easy route: ghaza-e-makhsous, the mixed selection. We could have chosen from three kinds of caviar, or six soups, all for 2.2 Bahraini dinar (BD), including classic lentil soup and ash-e-jho, barley soup with vegetables. There were also a variety of salads from 1.2 to 3.6 BD, including koo koo yesabzi (herb quiche) and dorani-ye-Esfahan (spinach with fried onions and yoghurt).
We also ordered a bottle of the house wine, a red table wine from France, and it was fruity and robust, but not heavy-bodied and a perfect accompaniment to our meal.
Our mixed starter consisted of the dorani-ye-Esfahan and koo koo yesabzi, plus kashk bademjan (eggplant dip); fried baby marrow; and cucumber-onion-pepper salad. The food was attractively presented, as well as beautifully prepared. The eggplant was smoky, garlicky, and smooth while the marrow presented a nice contrast with its firmness and zucchini-like flavor. The spinach dish, topped with a dollop of cream, was cool and zesty; the cucumber salad was tangy and cleared the taste buds.
The revelation from the sampler was the herb quiche. The egg custard portion was dark from all the herbs, and very flavorful, as if the eggs came from some exotic bird. The custard was topped with a thick layer of cooked fresh spinach.
The mixed platter demonstrated the delightful mélange of textures and flavors of Persian food. The ingredients were fresh, and prepared simply, with a minimum of fuss. This is not to say the dishes were uninspiring or insipid – far from it – but Persian cuisine, like French provincial cooking, is based on local ingredients and prepared with love and attention, and has its roots in rustic preparations that have been refined over generations.
Persian food is also quite healthy, with its use of olive oil and reliance on vegetables and rice – just watch the bread intake, and we did: we watched as the baker plopped down a basket of dill bread, green as St. Patrick’s Day with fresh dill and delicious as well.
Our waiter came by and asked if we were ready for our main course – a nice touch we’ve noticed in several restaurants, where the kitchen doesn’t start cooking your meal until you are ready.
The menu is extensive and naturally focuses on kebabs. The choices include chicken, lamb and seafood and range from 4.2 to 7.9 BD. The chicken and lamb come prepared in whole bits or minced versions, and the lamb also comes in chops and as kebab-e-elogmeh, stuffed lamb fillet with fresh coriander, parsley and butter.
There are also hammour, shrimp and lobster, all marinated and charcoal grilled, plus fried baby hammour. Special dishes range in price from 5.2 BD to the “Persian Selection” for two, at 14.5 BD. The choices include various kebab combinations, served with the traditional three rice dishes: zereshk (rice with red sour berries), baghali (dill rice) and saffron rice.
Main courses are mainly stews and casseroles, and include khoresht aaloo (chicken, plums and spinach stew); khoresht badenjan (lamb stew with eggplant and lentils); khoresht-e-eghormeh sabzi (casserole of baby lamb with red kidney beans and herbs); and khoresht-e-bamieh (casserole of okra, tomatoes and lamb). Prices range from 3.9 to 5.4 BD.
In addition to the numerous vegetarian appetizers, non-meat eaters are well-served with three dishes, all for 3.5 BD: khoresht sabzi, or mixed vegetable stew; khoresht esfenaj, a spinach dish; and kalam polo, a rice dish with saffron flavored cabbage.
We stuck with the mixed sampler theme and ordered the mixed grill: shrimp, hammour, chicken, lamb chops, minced lamb, and the three rice dishes, plus grilled tomatoes and onions. Small bowls of red, mildly spicy sumar and torshi, or pickled vegetables, were set on the table, along with a sizzling platter of kebabs and yes, more hot bread.
The shrimp and hammour were fantastic, their outsides seared from the fire, the insides tender. The hammour was sweet and flaky – the best hammour we’ve had anywhere. The chicken pieces were crisp on the outside, moist inside, with a pleasing sour taste from the marinade. The lamb chops, just kissed by the fire, were succulent, but the minced lamb was even better: herby and juicy, with a hearty sprinkling of the sour, spicy sumar on top.
In-between bites of the grilled meats, dollops of the yogurt-mint sauce refreshed the mouth, and the wine held its own against the barrage of flavors, not too heavy, but not insubstantial either.
There is a generous dessert list, ranging from ice creams and puddings to fruit and pastry. Prices range from 1.9 to 2.6 BD. Choices include sheerinie-makhsoos-rafsanjan (warm pistachio pudding with sehlab and vanilla sauce); feerini (rice, raisins and cashew nuts); karem-e-ezaferan (saffron and date flan served with different flavored syrups); bastani (Iranian ice cream with saffron and pistachio); and the classic makhloot (frozen vermicelli noodles with rose water, lemon and syrups).
Before we could make our choice, our waiter set down a dish of Saudi export quality dates, packed in Lebanon. The dates, a dark root beer color, were dense and sweet, but not cloyingly so. My wife and I couldn’t recall ever eating this variety, and when we told this to the waiter, he brought us a big bag to take home – home to Saudi Arabia.
Our waiter brought over the tea pot from the samovar and a little brass tray with fluted, painted glasses and a brass dish of sugar cubes. Dessert followed shortly after, saffron and pistachio ice cream in a big glass bowl. The ice cream looked like coffee ice cream, but tasted unlike any we’ve ever had. The initial saffron taste was superseded by a rich pistachio flavor, with hints of rosewater.
It was getting late, nearly three hours after we started, and throughout the restaurant came one of the happiest sounds in the world: the tinkling of little spoons inside glasses of tea. We knew we would be back, for the bread if nothing else. Of course, we couldn’t just eat the bread: we would have to order the lamb stew to soak the bread in, and maybe the stuffed lamb fillet, and some appetizers as well, and for dessert, the feerini….
So we left the restaurant, passing by the glowing tannur once again, already planning our next meal at Golestan.