Review: House of Kebob (Persian Restaurant)

Perisan food... this kind of cuisine is still fairly new to Justyn and I, but dammit it's good. We've been to a couple kebob places and in order to expand on our experience, we decided to try House of Kebob. Actually, this was a last minute decision. My friend Yeorgios that works in one of the buildings near mine wanted to get lunch. I picked him and Justyn up and we were off to Downtown Sunnyvale to eat at Dish Dash. Yeorgios had never been there so I figured it'd be a good place to try. As we walked towards Murphy St. from the parking lot, Justyn told Yeorgios that he wanted to try House of Kebob. Yeorgios said "why not?" So instead of making a left to the deliciousness that is Dish Dash, we went to House of Kebob.

This restaurant is fairly new. I asked the chef how long they've been in business and he stated that they'd only been there for 5 months. OK, I'll give them that. I'm going in with no expectations. It's meat and rice, how hard is it to screw up? Well first of all, I know they're new to the business and that English is their second language but I had to repeat our order 3 times before he understood. I gave the order in numbers according to their menu! Anyway, I paid for lunch and we sat down with the number were given.

I ordered one koobideh that came with rice and a grilled tomato. As I stepped away from the cash register after paying, I noticed that the cook put on a cold already grilled tomato onto the grill to heat it up. Ugh... first bad sign. The meat was already formed onto the skewer which they threw over the grill, again to heat it up... second bad sign. It looked like the meat had already been partially cooked. Justyn ordered two koobideh that also came with rice and "grilled" tomato. We also ordered a salad that said it had kalamata olives. Justyn's favorite olive. Yeorgios ordered soup and lamb kebob lunch.

OK, our food arrived fairly quickly. First good sign. We dove into our food and none of spoke. Why? Cuz it was terrible. At least I thought so. Justyn silently ate his koobidehs as did Yeorgios. I whispered to Justyn that my koobideh tasted like rotten meat. He tasted it and swapped with me. His koobideh tasted better, but I was still disappointed. The rice was bland so I had to sprinkle on tons of that red seasoning stuff (I dunno what it's called). The kebobs were small compared to what I've had at Rose Market... fourth disappointment. Yeorgios' soup tasted bland as hell and I could swear that it wasn't homemade, but instead from a can. Oh, and the salad? I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but those are not kalamata olives. They were pre-sliced black olives. WTF? The dressing? It was like bottled ranch dressing. Whatever happened to the nice tart vinagrette that I so enjoy? Not here apparently.

*sigh* I feel bad for slamming a restaurant that's only been open for 5 months, but come on... the food's gotta be on point. You don't pre-grill tomatoes and then use the grill to heat it up. Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone unless you feel like eating sub-par kebobs.

I can't even find their address on yahoo anyway.