Restaurants Isfahan: Shahrzad Restaurant

A colorful and busy restaurant, the Shahrzad is over the beautiful Si-o-Seh bridge. I had the chicken with walnut sauce and burberry rice, it was sweet and sour and very good. The portions were very generous and one portion could easily have fed three people. As appetizers we ordered salad and olives. The salad was the same lettuce, tomato and cucumber in cling wrap accompanied by salad cream that we were given in every restaurant in Iran. There must be a factory somewhere which manufactures them. The olives on the other hand were very unique. On seeing them, our friend said they looked "recycled". And indeed they did look like they had passed through someone's digestive tract before arriving at our table. I was too squeamish to try any but the others did and said they tasted as if they had been covered in hoisin sauce.

Isfahan Restaurants: Khan Golstar Restaurant

All of the restaurants our five year old guide book said were located in the Armenian district of Jolfa seem to have disappeared.  So we stopped strangers on the streets of Jolfa and asked them to recommend a restaurant in the area.  All of them told us two things: one, the Khan Golstar was the best restaurant in Isfahan; and two, that it was also the most expensive restaurant in Isfahan. 

It certainly didn't look like the best and most expensive restaurant in Isfahan.  What ever it was you are paying all that money for it wasn't for the decor.  Maybe you are paying for the budding novelist who wrote the menu.  This was floweriest menu I've ever seen with such descriptions as: The Exceptional Salad Bar, The Barg: Thin, Flat and Tasty, The Extraordinary Steak and our favorite the 50cm Romantic Kebab!  The other thing you pay for is the size of the portions - they were huge.  One order could have fed the four of us.  I had the chicken with fried rice cakes and burberry rice (and butter).  While it was delicious sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.  

Isfahan Restaurants: Traditional Sofreh Khaneh

a.k.a Traditional Banquet Hall, a.k.a Restaurant this way upstairs is a popular restaurant just off Imam Square.  It opens for lunch at 12:30 and there was a line up to get in when we arrived at 12:27.  The restaurant is spacious with lots of room inside and outside (on a terrace) so getting a table was no problem.  The restaurant is decorated with frescoes, mirrored ceilings and stained glass windows. Instead of tables people are seated on raised platforms.  

The menu selection is limited but all of the dishes we tried were very good.  I especially liked the Obergon Stew - puree of aubergine with cream and spices.  We also liked the Dizi, a.k.a. Deeze, a.k.a Dizee although we never discovered the proper way of eating this dish.  Dizi is a chickpea and meat stew that comes in a flaming hotpot and is accompanied by one metal bowl, one spoon, one metal pestle and one piece of bread.  Our observation of Iranians that ordered this dish yielded no results.  The waiter with his back turned towards us, arms flailing performed the magical task of turning the ingredients into a finished meal for them.  When we asked the waiter to do the same for us he looked upset and started calling for his boss.  Other diners were starting to stare so we excused the waiter.  We used all of the implements in all of the different ways we could think of.  The result was delicious if probably not very authentic.  

Isfahan Hotels: Dibai House

The Dibai House is one of the prettiest hotels I've ever stayed at.  Sufi and her daughter Alale have refurbished two ancient houses.  The result is an oasis of tranquility and beauty.   

The entrance to the hotel is situated in a narrow high walled alleyway next to the Ail Mosque just off a busy road in the middle of the Bazar-e Bozorg.  Once behind the thick wood doors the noise of the Bazar fades into silence.  I've never experienced silence like that in any city.  

The rooms are furnished in Persian style with carpets, textiles and ceramics.  Sufi and Alale have kept the original layout of the house so the rooms are accessible through central courtyards.  They are high-ceilinged, bright and airy.  

The rooms we had did not have en-suite bathrooms although I understand that some rooms do.  I've never been in a hotel where I've had to share a bathroom but I've found sharing a bathroom at this hotel to be a minor inconvenience at best.  Breakfast was included in the room price and Alale was extremely helpful and friendly.  The Dibai House would be my first choice if I return to Isfahan.

Shiraz Restaurants: Shater Abbas Restaurant

Located at Azadi Blvd. and Khakshenasi St. the Shater Abbas is the only restaurant in Shiraz that we really liked.  Not that we had a lot of choice:

• Restaurant on the top floor of the Pars International Hotel: Tourist buffet a la mayonnaise; 
  
• African Restaurant (also at Pars): my Dad stopped looking at the menu after he saw "Monkey Gland" in the entree section - he said he was afraid that "Red Assed Baboon Anus" would be the next main on the menu; and
• Yord Restaurant: a highly recommended restaurant run by the Qashqa'i nomads next to a bubbling brook, set in a large yord (tent) where you eat cheap and amazing food accompanied by live traditional music.  Perhaps a restaurant imagined by travel guide writers - no one we asked in Shiraz had ever heard of it.

The Shater Abbas is a great restaurant run by a large friendly man with one cauliflower ear (pretend you don't notice). The bread is baked on site and is amazing.  The kebabs are generous and delicious.