🚀 go-pugleaf

Last year when we were in Boston, we ate at a Persian restaurant called
Moby Dick and were very happy with the food both in quality and variety.

So, when we saw a review for a local restaurant by the same name, we went.
Turns out it is a small local chain, but we went to the McLean one.  The
food was very good (and I was extremely impressed with the bread, which was
really quite perfectly done), but the menu was very limited.  Really just
kebabs, no other Persian specialties.  I'd eat there quite happily, but
I wouldn't make a trip across town to do so.

Turns out that there was a famous sandwich shop in Teheran called "Moby
Dick" as a result there are a huge number of Persian places in the US
which have taken up the name.  This is in much the same way that Russian
restaurants always seem to be called "Metropole" and Cuban restaurants
always seem to be called "Morro Castle."  In fact, the local chain is in
no way associated with the restaurant in Boston.

I will say that one Persian kebab place that I am willing to drive across 
town for is the Yekta, up in Rockville, but they again still have a pretty
limited menu.  

We recently tried Maiwand Kebab, out in Burtonsville, which is owned by
an Afghan family and which has a very different style of kebab that is
worth eating if only for comparison purposes.  The spice seems very
different than the Persian and northern Indian kebab houses.

Which brings to mind that my favorite restaurant of all time, the 
Mandalay restaurant in Silver Spring, has a Burmese-style kebab that
is quite radically different than anything else I have ever eaten by
that name.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."