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Gohar
Persian Jewish Cuisine
26 Hataas, Kfar Saba
Telephone: 09-7664533
Kashrut: Rabanut Kfar Saba, Vegetable Gush Katif
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Open Sunday - Thursday: 11:00am - 4:30 pm.. Friday: 8:00 am. - One hour before Shabbat.
Closed Shabbat and Motzei Shabbat. |
Gohar
July 2016
I have never been to a Persian Restaurant before. Morroccan, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and of course Israeli, but not Persian. Gohar is a culinary adventure that serves good food with unusual flavors.
About The Gohar Menu
Yisrael, the owner, explained that the food at Gohar is Persian Jewish cooking, not ethnic Persian. (The Persians, he said, are just one tribe among many that live in Iran.) Many of the dishes, both meat and vegetarian are generally gluten free, and bread, although available, is not required and generally not served unless requested.
We began with stuffed grape leaves, cooked beets, potatoes and two kinds of rice, white rice and white rice with noodles and cinnamon. There are nine kinds of rice dish on the menu! The dishes all have names in Persian, but I will not try to reproduce those here. We were four diners, one of whom does not eat meat. The three meat eaters shared all of the meat dishes, which Yisrael chose for us and which were placed in the center of the table. This was a great way to try the dishes and learn about the restaurant.
The first meat course was Gondi, which is a generic name for the meatballs. The Gondi we had were baseball sized meatballs of ground chicken with humus (chickpea) powder (so they are gluten free) in a bowl of chicken soup. The gondi were very reminiscent of Ashkenazi knaidelach, but fluffy and tasty with unusual herbs that gave them a mild exotic flavor. I kept coming back to this dish as I really liked it, and one huge gondi lasted me throughout the meal as the other dishes came out.
Next we had some Dolme, stuffed vegetables. I already mentioned the grape leaves, which are stuffed with rice, but
now the table got crowded with a small plate of stuffed cabbage and stuffed pepper filled with beef and rice. What
made this dish special was the use of herbs. Then out came a beef stew in a slightly sour sauce flavored with Persian
lemon. This was a favorite of one of our group of four diners. Finally, we had a different kind of chicken meatball in a
leek sauce, also very pleasant. Green harif (spicy chopped peppers), cole slaw and pickled vegetables were available
throughout the meal.
Our vegetarian diner received a platter with a latke of quinoa vegetables, a pepper stuffed with rice and dried fruits
that had been slow cooked pomegranate juice and date honey for 20 hours until it turned dark, as well as sides of
rice, beets and other vegetables. I tried the stuffed pepper, and it was as sweet as the recipe sounds.
Desert was a lovely concoction of baked apple stuffed with dried fruits and nuts, which we all enjoyed.
Gohar is a small restaurant, and sometimes referred to as a luncheonette. It is open during the lunch period until 4
p.m. Sunday-Thursday, and for groups of 10 more in the evening, by arrangement in advance, when a pre-ordered
menu is served. On Friday it is open for Shabbat take away with a very large menu of choices. All the food is made on
the premises, even the Arak.
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 Click here for a 10% discount coupon on your next order at Gohar Print out this coupon and present it at the restaurant.
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