Long Island Restaurants

Ravagh Persian Grill

Iranian-Americans like to dine out en famille and, usually, on the late side. After 8 p.m., especially on weekends, the dining room of Ravagh Persian Grill fills up with multi-generational groups of six or more who gather around large round tables to share conversation and food. The restaurant (which has a Manhattan branch on East 30th Street) is a cultural hub of sorts, since it shares a parking lot with an international grocery specializing in Middle Eastern foods.

Once inside, you lose the impression that the building, which has a commanding view of the Long Island Expressway, was once a diner. The interior is attractively decorated with handsome pale wood furnishings. Oil paintings, by a London relative of the restaurant's owner, are striking and colorful. They're also for sale.

With a basket of warm pita bread (not house-made) comes butter. Be smart and immediately request a plate of the garlicky hummus, a mashed chick-pea dip, or lively babaganoush, baked mashed eggplant and tahini, as a spread.

Tabbouleh, a cold salad made with lots of parsley and onions and a little tomato and bulghur, which is similar to cracked wheat, is piquant stuff. I found the sambuseh, vegetable-stuffed fried dumplings, crisp and winning. Green is the predominant color of the mellifluously named coo coo sabzi, a kind of crustless quiche; the baked wedge proved a bit too bitter for my taste. But a simple stuffed pepper with tomato sauce was soothing and mellow. So was burani bademjan, fried slices of eggplant with tomato sauce and yogurt.

On an especially frigid night, a bowl of ash reshteh can be just the thing. The spirited thick green vegetable soup comes dolloped with yogurt. Ash mash, lentil and turnip soup, is another sturdy offering, but it lacks zip.

Long-cooked fare has winter appeal. Try the khoresh fesenjan, chicken cooked with crushed walnuts in pomegranate paste, a fruity, flowery stew with a somewhat mealy texture. A surfeit of bitter fried parsley mars the khoresh ghourmeh sabzi, beef and preserved lemon stew with red kidney beans, but baghali polo with mahicheh, stewed lamb shank with green rice, is an unalloyed delight.

So is the marvelous albaloo polo with juheh, boneless pieces of marinated grilled Cornish hens over rice served with sour cherries. Chicken shish kebab is tender and delicious, as is kebab barg, ultra-savory marinated slices of beef tenderloin. Another success off the grill is kebab kobideh, a mixture of ground beef and lamb. Salmon steak, grilled flawlessly, is generous in size, fresh and delicate. With every entree comes mountains of rice.

Conclude with an assortment of baklava of different shapes and sizes. They're sweet, nutty, flaky and go well with Persian tea.

Prices are more than reasonable, service friendly.

Come in from the cold.

Reviewed by Joan Reminick, 2/7/03.

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