Barberry lane

By Paul Reidinger

IF ANY NATION is more reviled in present American cosmology than Iran, I can't think of it. Iraq, maybe – but Iraq has only been acting up for the past decade or so, whereas Iran has been an issue since the late 1970s, with its religious revolution, its bilious imams, its embassy seizures, and on and on. Now Iran finds itself in George Jr.'s "axis of evil," so more bad press for the foreseeable future.

It is no wonder, in light of these bleak facts, that the menu at 18-month-old Alborz is described by its big street sign as offering "Persian" and not "Iranian" cuisine. Use of the latter word would probably result in bricks through windows, if not firebombings, such is the unsettled temper of our times. "Persian," on the other hand, is a word perfumed with romance. One thinks of elegant rugs and cats, of a mighty and enduring empire that drew Alexander the Great (who very much admired the capital, Persepolis, before laying waste to it) and checked the easterly ambitions of imperial Rome. Today's Iran might or might not be a rogue theocracy bent on geopolitical mischief, but Persian culture is certainly one of the great achievements of human civilization.

And the food? I don't know if one could go quite to that superlative in praise of it, at least in Alborz's rendition (I found myself thinking repeatedly of a description I'd read some time ago of Hungarian cooking as being among the best of the second-tier cuisines), but it does use unfamiliar ingredients to produce flavors quite unlike those of any other style of cooking. Perhaps the most recurrent of these ingredients on the menu at Alborz is the barberry, or, in Farsi, zereshk. (Farsi is, like Turkish and Hungarian, one of those consonant-heavy languages that look uncomfortable when clothed in the Roman alphabet.)

In action, barberries (the fruit of a bush native to the Middle East) are ruby-colored flecks that resemble pomegranate seeds. But they have their own flavor, sour and (yes) berryish, that adds a distinctive note to basmati rice, a staple of the menu. Without barberries, such dishes as zereshk polo with chicken kabob ($15.95) – a berm of rice, a parallel line of boneless grilled chicken chunks – might seem a bit dull. With them, you are reminded with each bite that the food is something a little more than "standard-issue Middle Eastern," as a skeptical friend put it.

Nonetheless it is Middle Eastern. You could, in fact, make a pretty good guess about where Iran might be found on a globe by weighing the basmati rice against the basket of lavash – with tomatoes, olives, and feta cheese – that's brought to your table ahead of the first courses. Clearly, you are somewhere between India and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Some dishes, such as the mast-o-khiar ($3.95), a blend of yogurt, cucumber, and dried mint, seem to be simultaneously eastern Mediterranean and subcontinental; it could be a version of tzatziki (the Greek dish) or raita (the Indian one).

We very much liked the kashk bodemjan ($6.50), a version of that ubiquitous Middle Eastern standard roasted eggplant, here given a strong and distinct identity of its own with fried onion and garlic. It's a kind of paste that would work brilliantly if swabbed on a pizza. (And maybe someday it will be, but Persian food has yet to enter the California fusion sweepstakes.) And the gheymeh bodemjan ($12.95), a kind of beef stew with lentils and of course basmati rice, took a strong and delicious – and unusual – flavor charge from dried limes.

As is the case with so many cuisines from less industrialized parts of the world, the vegetarian dishes are unheralded – they are just natural features of a culinary landscape in which meat is a luxury. The aash reshteh ($4.95) reminded me of pistou, the soupy, pesto-ish basil dish of Provence, except that here the herbs were cilantro and mint, ladled over substrata of noodles, bulgur wheat, and white beans. And fesenjoon ($12.95) – crushed walnuts cooked in pomegranate sauce and poured over basmati rice like a kind of ragout – had an attractive sweet-tart character that might have worked equally well as a dessert (if it were poured over, say, sugared meringue or brioche).

If there's one aspect of Alborz that doesn't seem remotely Persian, or even Iranian, it's the decor. The multilevel dining room is done up in tastefully unobtrusive beiges and sand tones; the most striking aspect of the physical setting is the view of the busy corner of Van Ness and Sutter through the large plate-glass windows. There is a slight touristy feel to the setting – a function, surely, of the large mid-range hotels nearby – and Alborz clearly means to strike that tricky balance between being attractive and not calling attention to itself. It helps, certainly, to be holding a bunch of barberries in one proverbial hand and a clutch of dried limes in the other – a kind of peace offering in a world that finds itself for the moment a little short on peace.