Prince of Persia

by Elisa Ludwig

Inside, the saffron and pistachio-painted walls surrounding the open kitchen and drink station give the room a cheerful glow, and the service is equally welcoming. But the best welcome of all is the lavash, flatbread that's slightly brittle and freckled brown from the oven. It's served from a basket in a stack of warm, overlapping squares. A dish of oil, flavored with garlic, vinegar and mashed anchovy, is a tangy, addictive dip that will make the stack of bread disappear rather quickly.

An appetizer, maust o khiar, is a close cousin of tzatziki or raita, a cool blend of cucumber, mint and creamy yogurt. Nargessy, sauteed spinach and onion topped with fluffy curds of scrambled egg, is as good a reason as any to reacquaint yourself with the recently maligned green.

The menu features an impressive kebab list with both ground and fully fleshed chunks of meat seasoned and grilled. These meaty flavors are further amplified with a sprinkling from a tabletop shaker of sumac, a purple-red Persian berry ground into a sweet-sour powder.

On the unskewered side is the bademjan koresht, and a lamb shank braised to fork-flaking tenderness paired with slices of tawny eggplant in tomato-onion sauce. With saffron-scented basmati rice threaded with the golden crusty grains from the bottom of the pot and a side of bright pickled vegetables, it's easy to understand why this dish had our server's recommendation. Another favorite is shirrin polo, one of a number of Cornish hen dishes on the menu. Here it's baked with a glaze and served with a pilaf sweet with orange peels, carrots and slivered almonds.

Dessert gets even sweeter with a wedge of honey-soaked baklava topped with ground pistachio nuts and served in a swirl of chocolate sauce. An upside-down apple cake is moist though oddly pink with an unnecessary smear of strawberry sauce. There's also a homemade Persian rosewater-and-saffron ice cream and nan e khamei, or cream puffs with pistachios.

The owners, Maurice and Martha Lavasani, have also set up shop next door where their market sells pantry staples like rosewater and olives, as well as some of the prepared foods on which they built the Shundeez name. It looks even better in bricks and mortar.

(e_ludwig@citypaper.net)