Yogurtsoda Gratuitous food and travel.

I had no idea what to expect when I went to Rumi for a birthday celebration recently. Rumi is a Persian (or Iranian) restaurant in San Rafael, and to be honest, I usually prefer home-cooked Iranian food. Restaurants can be hit or miss, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised at Rumi. The North Bay officially has good Iranian cuisine.

The restaurant’s ambiance is your typical Iranian interior: Persian paintings and poetry, warm colors, and a dark lighting more appropriate for dining with a date than with twenty miscellaneous members of your family. While most of the staff was Iranian, our waitress was an American of European descent and she had the pronunciation of all the dishes down. Non-Iranians: Want to make me swoon? Speak to me in Farsi. Basically, she won me over.

But on to the food. It’s an unspoken rule of dining at a Persian restaurant that you go straight for the kabab selection. I went with the joojeh kabab.

Joojeh kabab is grilled chicken that has been marinated in saffron, onion and lemon juice. It’s one of the most popular Persian dishes and is traditionally served with buttered and saffron-flecked rice, a grilled tomato, and a plate of fresh herbs. An accompanying glass of doogh, or mint-flavored yogurt soda is de rigueur. My plate of joojeh kabab was succulent, juicy and flavorful. The basmati rice was cooked well too; fluffy and fragrant.

The portions are generous at Rumi and the service is friendly. If you’ve never had Persian food before, Rumi is a fantastic introduction.