Negeen Restaurant (Campbell, CA)
Negeen is a Persian restaurant in Campbell...just 3 minutes away from where we live. There are, in fact, a couple of excellent Persian places nearby...
Negeen has the usual array of richly spiced vegetable dishes (mostly appetizers) and kabobs of all kinds of meat: chicken (ground and not), beef (ditto) and lamb. All of the kabobs are accompanied by more rice than humans are allowed to eat. A broiled whole (!) tomato is usually included....
...we ate this dinner with our friends Pat and Lizzie (who are also quite the foodie pair). They also live nearby and so we're forever trading tips about where we've eaten. We're resolved (for 2006) to have dinner every 2-3 weeks and Negeen was our first night out.
We chose apps of hummus and a bowl of eye-watering torshi. Torshi is firm vegetables marinated in vinegar and spices. It's not spicy, per se but it is very tart and goes well with flatbread (usually served with Persian food). You spread a small spoonful of the torshi onto the bread, wrap it up and nibble away. You pucker, gasp then say..."mmmmm...". Negeen's version is pretty good with lots of extra herbs floating about the bowl. The hummus is decent but nothing spectacular.
All of us chose kabobs. We had chicken (ground and whole), whole beef and lamb. The spices used for all of these is similar with the ground meats picking up much more flavor. The whole pieces of meat get a nice char because they're whole. So any way you go, you get ground meat - flavorful to the point of overload (not a bad thing....) and whole meat with more caramelization and a nice amount of flavor to compliment it. I prefer the ground chicken kabob as it has an amazing texture and picks up lots and lots of flavor.
Negeen's kabobs are among the best of the three Persian restaurants nearby. They're large and juicy and have a powerfully addictive aroma and flavor. The huge mound of rice serves to merely soak up their juices. The broiled tomato (once semifork mashed into the rice) also add a nice tartness to the party.
Food-wise, we were sated. However, it seemed like the waitstaff wanted to rush us along for some reason. We had to tell our server that we "needed a few more minutes" three separate times. We received menus and 30 seconds later were being asked for our orders...it was kind of ridiculous. Once we made ourselves clear, then things got a bit better but there was kind of a weird feeling to it all. But it didn't end there...
On Friday evenings, they have entertainment (this evening, it consisted of a keyboardist and hand drummer) and at one point we felt like we stepped into a Persian speakeasy. It was kind of interesting and annoying at the same time. As it got louder, it got more annoying from a sheer decibel standpoint although the music was real exotic and cool sounding.
All that aside, the food at Negeen is really good and worth returning to.