Shamshiry

Shamshiry is one of those restaurants that you don't just stumble into.  It's hidden on the side of a building down a side-street off of an access road.  So you know it's something really special when every seat is taken at 3 p.m. on a Sunday.  It's delicious and inexpensive.  It's also the only Iranian restaurant I know of in this part of NoVA.

I ordered the Chelo Kebab Kubideh:

The meat tastes like beef or lamb.  It's minced into a texture and flavor that resembles gyro meat.  And ta da: Tah Digue!  (Iranian humor).  Tah Digue is the brown crispy layer of rice from the bottom of the  rice pot, and it's super-prized.  I tried to make jasmine rice once with a crisp bottom, and suffice it to say it's difficult to achieve golden brown like this.  Blackness, much easier. 

Because I'm not risk averse, I ordered an egg yolk, which gets stirred into the rice.  I ensivioned fried rice-like egg strips developing, but they didnt.  Instead, I stirred the egg in, and the whole mixture got super creamy and buttery eggy rich.  There's a little bottle of powdered sumac on the table, but I forgot to try it.  It's supposed to make it "tangy."  Next time.  This dish is under $7.50, can you believe it??

E. went for the chicken kabob:

Juicy and wonderful and why is there a pickle there?  M.'s dish looks like it's a nervous first-time criminal in a film noir interrogation scene. 

Can't you imagine the wild-eyed rice protesting, "YOU TELL THAT COPPER I DIDN'T HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT."  And yes, I imagine the rice speaks in double negatives.  She had the Chelo Barg, a steak kabob.  Wonderful like mine; but she's risk-averse, so no egg in the rice for her.

E. and I had the Persian ice cream with Paludeh:

Mmm: order this.  The paludeh is like a snow cone but not; it's starch noodles and ice, and it's served with little bottles of lemon and cherry syrup.  The Persian ice cream tastes like saffron and roses.  Eating a bit of both at once gives you an initial sweet-citrus HIT with the flavored syrups, then creamy rosiness.  It's a dessert that features flavors that just aren't on the palette of American dessert tastes.

Shamshiry
8607 Westwood Center Drive
Tyson's Corner, VA 22182
(703) 448-8883