I'm sitting in a not very crowded dining room at Royal Persis on a Sunday afternoon, and the only language I hear spoken is Farsi. Then, an array of huge platters are brought forth, one laden with lamb chops, broiled chicken, colorful rice pilafs and cooked tomato, another with cylinders of ground, spiced beef and white rice tinged yellow from saffron. It's almost like being on Westwood Boulevard, the center of LA's Persian community.
But not quite. The ancient cuisine of Persia, for whatever reason, has been a tough sell in Vegas. An authentic little place called Alborz on Valley View struggled for awhile and went belly up. Henderson's Shiraz Café, open only a few months, has slowly taken many of its authentic Persian dishes off its menu due to lack of interest.
Royal Persis should endure. I heard about it from my Persian friend in LA. He had eaten at Royal Persis on a recent visit, and said it was pretty much like a Persian restaurant in California. After a few meals there, I agree, although there are differences.
When you eat Persian in California, you normally start with square-cut pieces of pita bread, plus sliced onions, butter, and occasionally a side plate of mint or even cheese. Here, I got cold pita and even colder butter in foil to start, and an onion cut awkwardly into quarters when I requested one.
There are a few other discrepancies. Dolmehs, those delicious stuffed vine leaves that Persians fill with a mixture of meat and rice, are meatless here, which would be fine if the menu didn't advertise them as being filled with ground beef.
Adas polo, a delicious pilaf made with basmati rice, lentils, raisins, dates and saffron, concealing a huge piece of boiled chicken, comes with a nontraditional chicken kabob, even though the menu says the meat is boiled. When I asked the congenial owner the reason it wasn't, he said "customers complained that the chicken was boiled." Maybe a few of them couldn't read.
At any rate, these are minor issues; most of what you eat at Royal Persis is quite good. Right now, in fact, it's by far the best, and most authentic, Persian restaurant in town.
The last time I was here, this was a Brazilian restaurant, and some of the yellows and greens, colors of the Brazilian flag, are still in evidence. There are a few Persian posters and paintings now, plus rather grand Edwardian chairs in the spacious room. On the sound system: plangent Persian music. Come on Friday or Saturday evening for belly dancers. You won't get them in Tehran.
I like to start a meal here with kashk-e-bademjan, a smoky eggplant puree perfect for scooping onto pita bread. Kashk is thickened whey, and I wish the kitchen would use more of it; fried mint leaves and onions give the dip a nice complexity. There are two thickened-yogurt preparations to eat your kabobs with, mast-o-khiar, a cooling mix of yogurt, cucumber and mint, and mast-o-masier, a yogurt and shallot dip.
Shirazi salad is the Persian answer to a Greek salad. This one is chopped cucumber and tomato mingling with parsley, onions, olive oil and lemon juice. There is a nice but plain barley soup and a thick lentil soup, as well. Torshi, Persian pickled vegetables, are strong with vinegar, to my mind, a taste best suited to those who grew up with them.
Persian stews are delicious, like gheimeh, a tomato-based split yellow-pea stew with an abundance of diced beef; and ghormeh sabzi, sautéed fenugreek with kidney beans and seasonings, both of which are eaten over basmati rice.
But most of the Persians will be eating kabobs, since they can't get the flame on their home stove hot enough to make them restaurant-style. Chelo kabob is top notch, the long cylinders of meat spiced, tender and perfectly browned around the edges.
I'm sorry to say the restaurant no longer offers Lake Superior whitefish. Instead, there is an insipid Atlantic salmon, farmed and tasting it, taking its place for fish lovers. But if you do eat meat, the one dish not to miss here is a lamb chop kabob, at $24.95 the most expensive dish on the menu, but worth it.
On my last visit, the platter came with eight glorious chops, as good as any lamb dish I have had in Vegas, alongside perfectly cooked rice and a broiled whole tomato. Use that shaker of somagh, dried sumac leaves, sparingly. This lemony condiment is delicious on meat, but Royal Persis already seasons its chops liberally.
For dessert, there is a nice homemade walnut and pistachio baklava and Persian tea, in thimble-like ribbed glasses with little handles, so you won't burn your hands.