Declan's Blog

Elaine and I tried out a new restaurant neighborhood tonight called Jasmine Cafe.  It’s a Persian and Mediterranean Cafe.  They were offering a Valentines Day special for two, charging $44.99 for a wide variety of their fare.  Bottom line, the food was excellent!

We started with a Lentil Soup, which was tasty.  Next came a dish of appetizers, including hummus, babaghanooj, cashk bedamjoon, musto khiyar, filafel, and dolma (Man, the spell checker HATES those words!).  These were all fantastic, especially the babaghanooj.  I really don’t like eggplant, so I wasn’t expecting to like it.  It was smoky, garlicky, and full of subtle flavors.  The dollop of olive oil on top didn’t hurt either.  The other spreads were great, as was the yogurt based dip in the middle.  The dolmas and filafels were nothing to blog about (did you catch that subtle modernization of “to write home about?”  Clever, eh?), but the high quality of the rest of the plate does more than forgive that.

The main dish was a selection of Shrimp Kabob, Chicken Kabob, and Beef/Lamb Shawerma.  Again, we loved all of them.  The shrimp was a little salty for Elaine, but I liked the way the flavor permeated the whole shrimp.  And anything that slows Elaine down around shrimp is a blessing.  I think I got 2.  That’s a record.  Yep, she likes shrimp.

The chicken was soft, moist and had a great lemony flavor.  The beef/lamb (I bet that’s a funny looking animal) was very nice.  I’m a big lamb fan, and I asked if they had just a lamb version, but no.  Anyway, it was still good and had a nice lamby flavor.

On the plate was a lump of white stuff.  We asked what it was – whipped garlic with lemon and olive oil.  Really neat mix of flavors and texture.  It went well with a fork full of their nice basmati rice.

We finished the meal with a nice baklava.  Not too sweet and garnished with pistachios.

I love it when I find a new place with good food, especially unique dishes.  I really recommend the place and hope it gets enough traffic to keep it around.

Their web site sucks, but shows the address:

13185-3 Black Mountain Road
San Diego, CA  92129

This is the Vons shopping center in Rancho Penasquitos.

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