Message: | Elena's is packed, with no parking on surrounding streets on Sat nights. So I combed the sidestreets
and lurked for departing folk with large parking
spaces (I'm hopeless at parallel parking). Patience
paid off eventually.
Since the only table left was a table for six and
a very friendly Armenian family walked in with me,
I had a lovely dinner with them, teasing the kids,
chatting with the wife, and watching Forrest Gump
in subtitled English on the TV. You can grab your
own drink from the frig in front for a dollar,
and with the combo plate comes pita bread, pickled
cabbage (vibrantly pink) and either a large dinner
salad or the forgettable lentil soup people keep
mentioning. Naturally, I avoid the soup and find
the salad is refreshing with the kebab.
For $7 I got a combo plate with lulu kebab and
a chicken kebab. Try the lulu kebab: tender, juicy
and spiced, however I should've avoided the chicken
one: it was three large chunks of chicken on a kebab,
totally different from the ground beef version in the
lulu ( different texture). And the dolmas are, as
advertised, worth ordering if you have at least 3-4
people, since the combo plate with the accompaniments
is a helluva a lot of food!
For chicken kebabs I think I'll stick to Mediterranean
Cafe in Pasadena for restaurant versions. But that's
still a poor substitute compared to a Persian chicken
barq, an intense saffron-flavored chicken kebab, that
friends of mine make.
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