I tried Persian food for the first time at The Pomegranate in Toronto. I was with Nash and my friend Karol so we ordered a couple of different things.
For my main I ordered the morasa polo (pictured above): jewelled rice – slivers of seville orange peel, almond and pistachio with diced carrots and barberries blended in saffron basmati rice served with a braised lamb shank. The lamb was heavenly and fall off the bone. The rice was very flavourful with all the berries, fruit and saffron.
Nash ordered baqali polo: dill and large green fava beans blended into saffron basmati rice, served with a braised lamb shank and persian pickles. His shank also easily fell off the bone. I thought that dill would be too heavy a flavour for rice but the amount they had seemed to work very well!
My friend Karol had one of the specials (can’t remember the name), but it was a tomato-based stew of yellow split peas, lamb chunks and dried lime topped with cinnamon. It was also supposed to have egg plant but we couldn’t find it. The most interesting part was this whole lime that was in the stew.
We also shared a few sides. They came with a delicious bread that we had 2 baskets of. The first was this maast-e saadeh which was a fresh creamy yogurt dusted with dried mint and rose petals.
The second was zeitoon parvardeh, a sort of vegetarian caviar made from a tapenade of green olives marinated in a pomegranate walnut sauce with a generous amount of fresh garlic. This was strange at first but super duper addictive!
I also had a refreshing (but salty!) carbonated Doogh.
We downed all the food. The aromas and tastes were awesome and the prices were very reasonable. We can’t wait to go back! A reservation is recommended.
Tiana Feng 
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