Lala Rokh

The correction at the end is that although the food is recognizably Persian (as we can know from the Pars Café and the lamented Saffron Grill), it is specifically Azerbaijani, with origins in the area where northwest Iran meets southeast Turkey and the formerly Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. There are no politics at Lala Rokh -- no Kurdish problem, no child labor, no Azeri-Armenian war, no fatwa against Salman Rushdie. There are family treasures of Persian miniatures and medieval calligraphy and antique maps on the walls; there are Art Moderne vases and pink Fiestaware in the rooms; and there is the most extraordinary food on the tables.

I urge you to start with the most familiar appetizer on the list: kashk-e-bademjan ($6) which is our old friend mashed roast eggplant. But what comes to the table is eggplant fit for -- well, a Persian princess imagined by a Victorian poet. It is richly flavored, meltingly tender, and subject to infinite variation by adding dabs of caramelized onions and minced beef from the center of the beautiful little platter, or swirls of goat yogurt.

Another little masterpiece is the abguir a ash ($3), described as a "tart semi-sweet soup of fresh herbs, dried plums, thickened with grains." Persian cooks have spent millennia collecting and developing sour flavors. Where Anglo-American cooking has vinegar, lemon juice, lime juice, and tomato, Persian cooking has powdered lime, sour cherries, sumac, sour plums, numerous varieties of yogurt, sour herbs, verjus from unripened grapes, barberries, a whole line of vinegar pickles called torshi, pomegranate molasses, tamarind, and a long list beyond. Nowhere is all this piquancy better used than in soups, of which Persian cooks have dozens. This particular one is intensely sour with plum and herbal notes, and some hot pepper as well, but the pucker is brilliantly set off by the filling of bulghur wheat and a periodic pillow of starch from a kidney bean.

Loubia sabz ($6) is a dandy plate of green beans in a dressing that manages to be both creamy and sour (limeish) at the same time, with a calculated burst of mild jalapeño. Kookoo sabzi ($5) is a flourless quiche of herbs, including bitter fenugreek and something sour as well. Despite detailed garnishes of barberries and walnut, I found this rather dull.

Entrees, once one gets through the foreign-sounding names, are stews, pilafs, and kebabs. They are meant to be eaten with torshi, those sharp-flavored condiments, but this is unfamiliar to many customers, so the kitchen adds tiny dabs of torshi to encourage us.

Thus baghla polo ($15), a lamb shank on pilaf, can seem rather bland, until one eats it with the dab of liteh ($2 for a larger serving), which is a very tart eggplant pickle. Sabzi khordan, which I have also seen as an appetizer, is even more useful as a side dish, offering mint leaves, basil, a strong feta cheese, scallions, and radishes to perk up the lamb.

The pilaf underneath needs nothing at all; it is one of the greatest rice dishes I have ever tasted. Somehow the clean fragrance of ultra-long-grain Persian rice is married with a complex, meaty-tasting mix of herbs. This is rice to savor.

Not that there was anything wrong with the plain Persian rice served alongside the slow-cooked stews (khoresht) that are the classics of this cuisine. A special on fesenjan ($16) was two duck legs in an unusually piquant version of this exotic pomegranate-walnut sauce. Bademjan ($15) is a beef stew in a kind of tomato sauce with some eggplant, for a complex yet subtle dish.

The most elaborate presentation of our meal was abgusht ($16), which cookbooks describe as a soup, but is here served as a stew, with a side bowl of cinnamon/tomato broth. The latter goes perfectly with some otherwise uninteresting white flatbread. The stew part is an enormous lamb shank, green beans, okra, tomato, green pepper, and eggplant.

It's not easy to match wines with such food, but the wine list is a special feature of Lala Rokh. The wines are very striking and not terribly expensive. By the glass, we had an Oregon white riesling ($5), a Black Opel shiraz ($5.50), a Chilean merlot ($4.75), and an outstanding California cabernet ($7.50). The reds are grouped on the list as "lighter style; tart and spice," "soft and mellow," and "full-bodied, tannic" -- which is much more helpful with food matchups than are the usual listings by region or grape variety.

Persian desserts are, on the whole, intensely sweet and highly perfumed. This is true even of the crème caramel ($4.50), which is carried over from the owners' other restaurant, Azita. My favorite was in some ways the sweetest and most perfumed, faloodeh, which is rubbery fine noodles in a slush loaded with rose water. Persian ice cream ($4.50) leans to cardamom and tends to be icy, although not so much as Indian ice cream. Your safe choice is Persian baklava ({$TK}). It's made here with almonds and sliced into small cubes, so it is very elegant and mild with Persian tea (which tastes like strong oolong), coffee, or espresso.

Service at Lala Rokh makes all the difference. Our waiter had not only mastered the pronunciations and contents of all the dishes, but quickly took in our party's semi-familiarity with the food and made excellent, connoisseur-level suggestions. There aren't that many native-born Americans familiar with this food, so it requires training -- or an understanding server. Lala Rokh is a memorable experience with being a challenging one.