Stephanie B.
Yelp
The cafe portion of Saffron Food Mart was a little disappointing for me considering all of the glowing reviews. First, while the staff is friendly, they have no concept of how long an order will take. I hate being told 15 minutes when my order ends up taking 28 minutes - I would have gone some place else were it going take that long. Second, I am always disappointed when a restaurant (1) does not have menu items and (2) does not prepare items as requested.
So, I begin with the bad. They did not have trout, so I went with the grilled tilapia with salad. Alas, they fried the tilapia, and the tilapia was super fishy. It was also a teeny-tiny piece of fish. I would definitely NOT order the fish here. It's ridiculously overpriced and tastes awful.
It's a shame, because the chicken kebab was off the charts - well seasoned, moist and perfectly cooked. It was lovely that you get salad instead of rice, which is a classic crunchy Romaine salad with tomatoes and cucumbers and a yogurt-dill dressing that was also delicious. Similarly, the gormeh sabzi was up there with the best that I have had. They had onion, lime and sumac to-go, and each were great quality. The verdant stew had quite a bit of meat and kidney beans, and it tasted fresh. The herbed rice is worth the one dollar up charge IMHO because it has so much flavor. I just wish that also came with some tahdig...
I have to give them 4 stars because their kebab and stew were so delicious and perfectly prepared. However, you should be prepared to wait and AVOID THE FISH!!!