Persian food in Dubai — the oldest imported cuisine in the city

Where to eat it

Deira and Bur Dubai, and specifically the older commercial streets around the Creek and near the Iranian hospital area. These are unglamorous rooms with tiled walls, plastic-covered tables and a grill going at the back, and they have been in place for decades.

There are polished Persian restaurants in the newer districts and in hotels, and they are competent. The older places are better and cost half as much, which is the same pattern as Indian and Lebanese food in this city.

Understanding the rice

Persian rice is not a side. It is cooked long-grain, drained, then steamed with butter and saffron so the grains stay separate and a golden crust called tahdig forms at the bottom of the pot. The tahdig is the prize and it is worth asking for.

Chelo means the plain steamed version; polo means rice cooked with something folded through it: sour cherry, broad beans and dill, barberries. If a menu offers albaloo polo or baghali polo, order it instead of plain rice.

The bakeries

Sangak is a long, thin flatbread baked directly on a bed of hot stones, which leaves it dimpled and slightly scorched. The bakeries making it are small storefronts in Deira and Bur Dubai with the oven visible from the street, and the bread costs a few dirhams and is handed over hot.

Buying it straight from the bakery in the late afternoon, when a queue forms, is one of the better cheap experiences in the old city, and it is a five-minute walk from the Gold Souk end of Deira.

How to order for a table

One kabab dish and one stew between two people, with rice, plus bread and a plate of fresh herbs, radish and feta to start. Add doogh (a salty, minted yoghurt drink) if you want the full version; it divides opinion sharply and is worth trying once.

Do not order a main each. The portions are large, the rice arrives in quantity, and the standard mistake is a table covered in food nobody can finish.

Prices and practicalities

A full meal at an old Deira place runs AED 40 to 80 a head including bread and drinks, and the polished versions run two to three times that. Most of the neighbourhood places are unlicensed and serve doogh, tea and fresh juice.

Tea comes after the meal, black and in a glass, often with a sugar cube held in the teeth rather than stirred in. It is not optional in the sense that nobody will let you leave without it.

The kebabs, and what the names mean

The grilled meat is the backbone of the menu and the names are consistent enough to learn in a minute. Koobideh is minced meat pressed onto a flat skewer, the everyday one. Barg is a flattened fillet, plainer and more expensive. Joojeh is chicken, usually marinated in saffron and lemon, and is the one most people order twice.

Sultani means one of each of the first two on the same plate, which is the standard way to order for someone who cannot decide. Anything described as chenjeh is cubed rather than minced, and shishlik is lamb chops.

All of them arrive with rice and a grilled tomato, and the tomato is not garnish: it is crushed into the rice with butter and the saffron, which is how the dish is meant to be eaten. Sumac is on the table for the meat, not for the rice.

Portions are generous enough that two mains and a bread will feed three people comfortably.

Order less than you think and add to it.