Jane D.
Yelp
We've had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at this charming downtown Nantucket restaurant and although we love many things about the place, including the fact that it brings vastly underrepresented Persian flavors to this gringo island, the food is honestly just so-so by our standards.
Cold pressed juices and cocktails are of excellent quality. The mixologist, Jonathan, is IMHO a genius and designed all of the beautifully made cocktails on the menu. He makes the house bloody Mary mix from scratch and it's potent + delicious! Wow! The decor -- heavy on dried and fresh flora -- is also absolutely lovely, as are the kind wait staff.
As a few other Yelpers have noted, however, the food is generally just fine, not quite as good as one might expect for the pricing if one is a New Yorker:
- Acai bowls at breakfast ($15.60): standard issue. You get three toppings of your choice and our strawberries, blueberries and granola were well received by the primary consumers.
- Gyro with shaved lamb at lunch ($18.72): standard issue. This is the same processed meat you find at any street food stall in NYC, but it does come with some lovely hummus and veggies on a possibly house made pita.
- Shrimp lettuce wraps at lunch (with poke sauce, pickled onion, bibb lettuce, radish, fried shallots; $18.72) were overcooked and cloyingly sweet, with sauces overwhelming whatever intrinsic flavors the shrimp may once have had. They were quite oily, as well.
- Seared Scallops at dinner (red lentil, schug drizzle, sea beans; $29.64) did not come with any discernable sea beans, probably the ingredient I was most excited about having on the plate. I love and forage sea beans. Scallops were expertly prepared, seared brown on the outside, not overcooked on the inside. However, the red lentils (which seemed to me an odd addition to the plate and mainly present as an anchor for the scallops or additional roughage) were prepared in a very bland manner. I passionately love this ingredient when I use it as masoor dal, or when I incorporate it into Armenian dried apricot and red lentil stew. This was a preparation made without love. If we were just talking about schug and scallops, I'd be happy.
- Joojey Kabab (Marinated chicken skewers, house pita, cucumber laban, onion soubise; $22.36) was a modest portion of chicken that had perhaps been marinated in something akin to tabasco sauce (I detected vinegar and chili spice) and not the traditional yogurt and saffron. It was a wee bit tough. The cucumber laban was lovely, the soubise less sweet, creamy and flavorful than the preparations we usually make at home or have at restaurants in NYC. (I have to assume that the onions were not properly caramelized and that thickening agents were used that are not in the traditional preparation.)
- The chicken in the oven roasted chicken dish (za'atar and lemon on airline chicken breast, confit potatoes, charred broccolini, natural au jus; $46.80) was clearly of high quality: Textures and flavors indicated it was not factory farmed. Unfortunately, it was prepared in a very bland way, which did not do the animal justice. We do really enjoy airline chicken on the bone and think it retains its jus better than many other cuts, but one piece of chicken on the plate was quite pink and undercooked, a downside that is more likely with this cut. We did not send it back, knowing that we'd just reheat leftovers to the correct temperature the next day. (We're not the type to get freaked out by this kind of thing given that we enjoy torisashi in Japan.) Za'atar seasonings were only skin deep and everything on this plate was undersalted.
- I didn't personally try The Burger (beef and lamb burger, harissa yogurt, pickled shallots, za'atar fries; ; $27.04), but it appeared to be juicy and the primary consumer ate it all. I have to assume it was good and/or he was hungry! The fries I poached from his plate were excellent.
I'd go back for the inventive cocktails; the overpriced, but healthy, cucumber / ginger pressed juice drinks; and possibly the duck mezze for four. (I was mad at my family for refusing to go all in with me on the latter!) But for excellent Persian food, we are lucky to have our NYC standards and best of all, homemade dinners in a good friend's kitchen.
