Apadana Restaurant and bar takes its name from the Apadana Palace at Persepolis, an architectural marvel dating back to 515 BC and the time of the King Darius of Persia. While Apadana restaurant is hardly an architectural marvel, it is a very pleasant place to spend an evening. The decor is in keeping with a Persian theme, with carvings on the walls and Persian rugs on the floor and wooden benches. A warming fire crackled merrily in their central fireplace and was very welcome on this cold winter night. Apadana seems to be a popular place for medium to large groups out for a meal. On this Thursday night, three of the booths had reserved signs on them and a party was in full swing as we arrived. One of the booths were ours, and Eva and I were shown to our table by our hostess. Water was served promptly and menus delivered once we were seated and comfortable. Jorge was the next to arrive, followed soon after by Lorenzo.
While we were waiting for the rest of our party, we succumbed to our hunger pangs and ordered some starters. Jorge and Lorenzo opted for the Cajun Calamari, Eva for the Antipasto, and I for the garlic bread. These arrived quite quickly and were devoured with relish. The boys were making very approving noises about their calamari, so I felt compelled to sample some. Served with a capers mayonaisse, the golden crumbed rings were cooked well and were not too oily. Eva's antipasto was also quite good, especially the salmon crestini and the feta. Unfortunately, the antipasto plate also featured an odd sundried tomato pesto that was quite sour and had a very... odd... and strong flavour. My garlic bread was exceptional, as was the basil aioli that was served with it. We chatted happily as we ate swapping stories and food as we waited for the others. The waitress asked us a couple of times if we would like to order our mains, but was not intrusive at all.
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| Momtaz Kebab |
As we finished up our entrees, the others arrived and we ordered our mains from our friendly waitress who remarked excitedly that it was great to see that we had all ordered different items from the menu. Apparently the norm from the average customer was to order the same as the person before. The mains arrived after leaving us just the right amount of time between courses to chat and digest our starters. Everyone had opted for kebabs, with the exception of myself. Jorge and Lorenzo selected the Shish Kebab, Eva the Joojeh Kebab and Bruce the Momtaz Kebab. I forget what Catherine ordered, but as you can tell from the pictures , there really wasn't much difference apparent between any of the kebab dishes.
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| Shish Kebab |
I decided to be a bit more adventurous and opted for the Fesenjoon, which was a quarter chicken cooked on the bone with pommegranate paste and a walnut sauce. The chicke arrived swimming in a bowl of the sauce, with a side of saffron rice and shirazi salad. All in all, the Fesenjoon was quite nice. The flavours were quite bold, but very enjoyable. The sauce was rather oily, which resulted in a separation of the oil and sauce by the end of the meal. However this was somewhat mitigated by removing the chicken from the bowl of sauce and onto the plate of rice and salad.
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| Joojeh Kebab |
The saffron rice was agreed by all to be very well prepared and the perfect accompaniment to the kebabs. However some commented that they would have liked their kebabs to have a bit more flavour than they did. For my mind, I was a little disappointed by the lack of substantial difference between the various kebab dishes, although to be fair, how many variations can there be of a kebab? The portion sizes of each dish were large and represented good value for money as the kebabs ranged from $20 to $25.
As we were still not done chatting, we opted for dessert, with a Tiramisu apiece for Bruce and myself, Mudcake for Jorge and Baklava to share for the rest. While the Mudcake got a good review from Jorge, Bruce and I both agreed that the Tiramisu was very disappointing. It lacked any decent coffee flavour, and the marscapone seemed to be of a very poor quality. The Baklava, unlike the rest of the menu, was quite expensive at $1.00 per piece. Our waitress said this was due to the fact that Baklava was quite expensive to make. Those that tried it did not seem overly impressed, however not being a huge fan of Baklava, I did not sample any myself.
Despite stating that only one bill per table was allowed, our waitress was quite happy for us to split our bill 6 ways. The total amounted to under $35 per person, which is not bad at all for 5 entrees, 6 mains, 3 desserts plus Baklava, 3 soft drinks and 1 glass of wine.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening. The food, while not brilliant, was decent and plentiful and the service was good, especially from our original waitress (the second waitress who took over towards the end of the evening did not seem to be in the best of moods). Apadana will probably not be winning any culinary accolades, but as a cost effective place to meet up with a group of friends for a meal and a good chat, it does pretty well.
Vital Stats:
Address: 692 Dominion Road, Balmoral
Phone: (09) 631 0001
Website: http://www.apadana.co.nz/Default.aspx
Class of Restaurant: Casual
Parking: Customer parking is available behind the restaurant, and is accessible from Queen St. There is also loads of on-street parking available on Queen St, just around the corner from the restaurant.
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