Patogh

This review was first published in July 2000

The food at Patogh is cheap and good. Patogh is a small Persian restaurant just off the Edgware Road which seems to have been designed to look like a cave. And that is not just the downstairs but even the small upstairs dining room as well. It is a cramped and dark place but a welcoming one, with large, solid, wood tables and an open kitchen. The food comes on stainless steel serving salvers, and is simple. Start with the great classic: panir, sabzi and bread.

The bread is terrific: enormous, crispy and chewy by turn, hot, fresh, very good. The panir part of the triumvirate is cheese - snow white, gentle in taste, like a more refined and less salty feta. The sabzi bit is the epitome of health - there are crisp radishes, spring onions, a posy of fresh mint, a bunch of fresh tarragon. You simply tear off a piece of bread and roll up some delicious fresh green stuff in it. As you eat you will feel all those healthy antioxidants doing you good. This is so tasty that the other starters tend to come off second best. But the masto moosir is very good - a "dip" made from yoghurt so thick as to be almost solid, mixed with finely chopped shallots. Very rich.

The same sort of thing, but made with cucumber, is called masto khiar. If you like your vegetables crisp, salty and with attitude, you should order the mixed pickles.

The main dishes are good and simple too. Grilled meats come with a choice of bread, rice or salad. There are minced lamb kebabs; kebabs made with whole chunks of marinated lamb; with chicken; or with minced chicken. There is also the option of chicken wings or a whole baby chicken. Plus various combinations of the above. As always, the key to good grilled meats is an astute cook and eating them as soon as they are ready, long before they have had a chance to toughen up.

The drinks options are fruit juice, soft drinks, tea or the innocuous-sounding "yoghurt drink". This drinking yoghurt is de rigueur in Persian restaurants, but the one served at Patogh is different from all the others - it doesn't taste horrid.

Patogh
8 Crawford Place, W1H 1JD