i Cook Persian Cuisine - Ottawa

The woman who greeted and served us was very nice and polite. The place was deserted but the food was really good. The bread is amazing and tasty. I was warned that the beef I was having was sweet (ground walnuts and pomegranate) and it was. The kabobs were quite good according to my husband. Would recommend it for sure!

I went to this place twice - once I dined in with my family and another time we ordered takeout. Overall, the food isn't bad but it is not great. I grew up eating Persian food so I think I can give a pretty objective review about this place.The interior is pretty nice and clean and the service is good too as the owners are friendly. However, I think this place is trying to do too much and should keep things simple for the average person who has no knowledge of Persian cuisine. One of the main issues is that there are too many items listed on the menu, which may be a bit intimidating for those not familiar with Persian food. However, that's just my opinion.I liked the flavour of the chicken kabob but not the beef (koobideh.) The koobideh is too greasy and it's not grilled but cooked in a pan or oven, it's hard to tell. The rice is okay but the portion size is a bit small compared to other Persian places I have been to. One thing I liked about the place is the Persian bread they serve while you're waiting for your food - it's not pita bread like you get at other places but much better. Relative to what you get, the price is mid-range. The second time I went there I ordered a couple Persian soups (ash reshte) for takeout to try something different. Again, it wasn't bad but not great compared to what I am used to. It would be good to have the option to order a slightly larger size of the soup, or get extra bread with it.Overall, the place is okay compared to the other places in the area. The location isn't the greatest and if you were to drive by you would never notice it, simply because of the way the plaza was built. Unless you just happen to be walking by, I'm not sure how many people go to this place as the parking lot is always empty whenever there are no events at Mooney's Bay. I live in a unit in the building that faces the plaza and very rarely are there many people even going to the grocery store there. Perhaps this place should relocate to get more customers?

We were sort of lost in an unfamiliar part of town, and we were hungry. We pulled up in a nondescript strip mall that had obviously seen better days. The mall had a grocery store and a restaurant with a kicked in window that looked dodgy. Outside, the lone tree in the whole asphalt desert was chopped down and a five-foot stump surrounded by caution tape greeted us at the entrance.We were there at a funny time, a little late for lunch and a little early for dinner, however we were hungry. The place was deserted. The place looked like a re-purposed rustic Italian restaurant, complete with arches and mortar oozing through the bricks on one wall. My partner took a quick look around. We were ready to bail, but were greeting warmly by a beautiful Persian woman. My partner ad-libbed and said we were just passing by, and could we please look at the menu. The woman sensed that we weren't committed for a meal, and showed us both the menu and the take-out menu. The food was so intriguing that we decided to stay, and we were incredibly glad that we did.You get jaded by pseudo-ethnic food, but this place is the real deal for Persian food. The table that we sat at had three seasoning shakers - salt, pepper and a sumac shaker. That was a good portent.I started with the Ash Reshteh, the Persian Noodle Soup. It came in a bowl, it was green and it had white, yogurt or kashk ring in the middle of it. I looked at it in askance, and took a small taste. There was an explosion of flavor. I could taste garlic, onion, chick peas, lentils, coriander, spinach and who knows what else, punctuated with thin noodles. It was one of the most flavorful soups that I have ever tasted. It came with Persian naan bread, a yellow flatbread that again was infused with turmeric and other herbs that the waitress didn't know the Western names for. Again, the naan was wonderful.I also had the mantu, which is a steamed ground beef dumpling covered with an amazing tomato sauce and a drizzle of kashk, the white yogurt stuff. The spice set in the ground beef was nothing like I had tasted before. It was a complex medley of flavor that made a party in your mouth. The acid tomato sauce was absolutely perfect complement, and of course, I sprinkled it liberally with sumac from the container on the table and mopped up the sauce with naan.We also had the Fesenjoon which was the walnut and pomegranate stew with chicken breast, served with saffron-covered rice. Once again the taste was indescribable, because I have never tasted anything like this before. It was amazingly delicious and filling.We were too full to have the Persian saffron ice cream, but we sat and enjoyed the Persian black tea with cardamon.When you peruse the menu of this place, two things pop out at you. The only way that you can get french fries, is to order a child's dish. The only other recognizable non-Persian food was butter chicken, but it looks like they have their own riff on that too. We were quite pleased with food, the portion and the service. As we leisurely ate, the place started to fill up. We will definitely go back again when we get the chance. This place is a great place to eat something completely different, and thoroughly enjoy it -- despite its surroundings.

This area has long suffered from the lack a good restaurant. ICookPersian is a very welcome addition. The food and service quality is very good and prices very reasonable. Good seldction of kebabs amd other Iranian food. If you are not familiar with Iranian dishes and are brave to try, order eggplant sides and ghorme sabzi. Kebabs are of course the first choices.

The quality of food was great in all our 3 visits. Nice staff and decoration. Comparable to good Persian restaurants in Toronto.