..thrive in Tabriz.
Yesterday, it was on
meatballs in the style of Tabriz: large balls of ground beef in a tomato
based sauce. The Tabriz surprise is a plum in the center. Eyes feasted, too: at the entrance to the
restaurant a man sat on pillows at a loom knotting wool onto silk threads to
create a carpet of a stupefyingly complex...and beautiful... pattern. It will
take 8 months at 8 hours a day to finish it. It's yours for $1700. Do the math.
Afterwards, all three congratulating ourselves for avoiding
the many pastry paradises seductively arranged about every ten meters (between
cell phone stores and fruit drink shops) on Iran's streets, we wandered
Tabriz's UNESCO World Heritage market
(the world's largest covered bazaar) and stocked Hossein's Grocery on
Wheels (aka the backseat) with more healthful munchies: fresh and dried dates,
pistachios in saffron, yellow raisins, almonds, and cashews in yet more
saffron. They will keep close company with our folds of fruit leather bought
two days ago. Here are Hossein and Den choosing dates.
On our walk back to the hotel, Hossein invited us for liquid
refreshment at a fruit drink shop. All 3 of us went for vanilla ice cream
floating in pulpy deep purplish/red blended fresh mulberry juice. The tart
mulberry and sweet ice cream make a luscious combo. Slight tartness is a
standard surprise in Iranian food.
Dinner much later on was a repeat of the previous night's
visit to the kebab shop near the hotel: slightly lemony (there's the tart/sour
surprise again), barley/potato/carrot soup as a prelude to beef kabobs, fluffy
white rice, and grilled tomatoes. The beef kabobs are not chunks of beef but a
long strip of ground meat and spices, sort of like a very thin, undulating,
linear meat loaf, threaded onto the skewer. (And, no, I have no idea how they
make that stay on the skewer.) Yogurt drink goes well.with kebabs of any shape.
We got one order of kebab for the two of us, dupes on everything else, and a
bottle of water, for $6.
Iran is a great place
for foodies.
Oh, yes, there was
also a trip to a medical clinic, a pharmacy, and a lady with a very large
hypodermic....but that's for another time.
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