Although Londonist isn’t particularly carnivorous, we recognise the fact that there are times when only meat will do. And Iranians do meat better than most: meat on sticks cooked over fire (fire is big in Iran). They did after all invent the kebab.

We have ordered from Iran e Ma on a number of occasions, and whilst their food is not going to raise the game in the Iranian kitchen, they are consistently good. They are polite and clear on the phone, delightfully vague about their delivery radius (let’s just say we’ve not known them to turn anyone down yet), and even vaguer about delivery times (but it almost always takes them 40 minutes).

Last night, purely in the interests of culinary research for Londonist you understand, we asked some real Iranians round for dinner. We ordered ‘kashk-o-bademjan’ – spiced soft aubergine (sweetly translated as aborigine on their website) with walnuts and whey, and ‘mast-o-mosir’ – yoghurt with spring garlic up it. Our side order of tanoor baked bread to go with these ‘starters’ wasn’t half bad if a tad cool by the time it reached us.

Then we ordered a range of kebabs – chelow kebab-e-koobideh is the Iranian standard: seasoned minced lamb served with fluffy saffron rice (you can choose bread if you prefer) and a grilled tomato. We also ordered kebab-e-barg, which is lamb fillet served as above, and jojeh kebab – saffron and lemon marinated poussin. All of which were excellent, although they lost a mark on account of the lamb fillet being a tad tough.

If you don’t want to take it away, you can sit in – Iran-e-Ma has a chi-chi basement restaurant replete with fountain and live music, and offers a great night out. You can take your own wine.
Anyway, if you’re in their catchment area, we strongly recommend that you give them a ring – if for no other reason than to see that there’s more to kebabistan than doner.

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Photo by Ana. Sprig of mint model's own.