I'll be honest, I don't know too much about food from the Middle East or Mediterranean part of the world. I frequent a Lebanese place in Long Beach called "Open Sesame," and to be quite frank, I don't know the specific, nitty gritty details between Persian food, Lebanese Food and Greek food. I mean, I like to eat it when I have it, but I don't know why I can get Tzatziki at Greek and Lebanese places, and saffron rice at Persian and Lebanese places, but I can't get Tzatziki at Persian places, but I can get dolmas and kabobs at all of the above.
This is probably how white people feel when it comes to Asian food... "What? Isn't it all rice?" I know it's pretty ignorant of me, but I'm slowly trying to learn and hoping that one day I'll be able to spout all kinds of good wisdom about foods from the former Ottoman Empire.
So, perhaps my review on Flame in West LA is not completely accurate, but I know one thing for sure, I've had better.
I think it is a sad thing when the best part of the meal is the bread and pre-packaged butter. That's pretty much how I felt about this place. Ang and I hit up Flame before catching the Tokyo Police Club at the Hammer last Thursday. She had a Chicken Kabob and I had the Lamb Kabob. We shared the sauteed eggplant appetizer. The Nan-e-Barbari came warm, it was delicious with the darigold unsalted butter. I ate probably 3/4 of the basket.
The appetizer was ok, it was not very appetizing to look at, it looked like a bowlful of dark brown mush with french's fried onions sprinkled on top, with some cream substance dumped over that. And there was a lot of it. (Probably about 3 cups of it for 2 of us). I had a little bit of it, it was very sweet, but at the same time bland. I had to, in Christin's style, dump a load of salt on it to give it any flavor. It felt really rich and heavy-- not two words that describe the types of food I like.
After, my lamb came out, which was basically some pieces of lamb and a load of rice, no vegetables. The option was either salad OR rice, which annoyed me, because I like having a balance in my meals. The lamb was ok, but again, bland as hell. The rice was decent, it tasted fresh and the saffron was certainly apparent.
The thing that bugged me about the meal was after an unsatisfying meal, the bill was about 60 bucks for the two of us. 30 bucks a person for mediocre persian food that we probably could have got at Charlie Kabob's for about 10. I mean, the ambiance is nice, if you like a lot of marble and gold, but I'd rather save my 20 bucks and go eat at the food court in the mall.
Oh yeah, and they don't have fountain drinks. Our diet cokes came in cans, so we couldn't even get refills. I wouldn't go back to this place.
Flame Persian Cuisine
1442 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 470-9131
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