Near the corner of Cleveland Street and Elizabeth Street is the quiet oasis Din Din Persian Kitchen. There have always been restaurants around here, a cluster, mostly Lebanese with somewhere East Asian around the corner. Pub food and it looks like an Italian wine bar has opened on the other side of the street. But this was the one that appealed to us the most, wanting dinner before seeing the show Confessions of a Mormon Boy at the Giant Dwarf theatre.
I liked it. The food was simple and plain but tasty. There are no pretensions here (as the packet of butter that comes with the rice indicates). We started with a tasty Dolmades ($1.50 a serve, what can you get in a restaurant for that amount?!) and also had a simple salad (A shirazi salad $5), which was a nice contrast in flavours to the rich meat dishes.
Lamb shank for my husband (Baghali Polo Mahicheh, $16), and the light pilao rice is pretty marvelous: his was herbed, which I liked and thought it made it a bit more attractive than mine.
I had a meat skewer made of two different meats: the Kobideh matches lamb and beef ($13.50). It was BYO so we stuck with tea, an ornate pot with little cups of glass, too hot to hold. Probably the only thing I thought overpriced ($5) since $40 for the two of us for dinner is ridiculously cheap for Sydney.
