Diba Persian Restaurant
When a small local restaurant is always busy, it's a pretty good signifier that the food is - at the very least - decent, if not something special. So it was that, after passing Diba a number of times to and from work, enticed as much by the bustle as one of the chefs working flatbread in the window, I decided to walk all of 5 minutes down the road as a means of taking a break from studying and try out some Iranian fare.
The menu is large (partly due to the ubiquitous focus on meze and sharing), and there is much here that I would have liked to try. Appetite what it is though, I elected for the traditional dishes - Ash-e Reshteh (a Persian noodle soup topped with lentils, herbs, beans and Kashk, a type of whey) to start, and a Vegetable Stew to follow.
Shortly before the starters arrived, I was offered dips of red chili sauce and Mayonnaise, alongside olives. I'm not really sure what the sauces were meant to complement, but the olives were nice enough. When the Ash-e Reshteh arrived, I immediately dug in. The noodles were toothsome, the soup not overly thick, but the real stars were the Kashk and - sitting just on top - the crispy onions and dried herbs. While the dish was generally good, it desperately needed more seasoning. Fortunately himalayan salt and pepper mills were at hand to rectify the situation.
I then had the Vegetable Stew, consisting of celery, potato, fried aubergine and green pepper, all cooked in a tomato sauce with various spices (notably saffron). This also came with something of a gargantuan plate of saffron steamed rice. Unlike the preceding Ash-e Reshteh, the stew was delicious. A warming, balanced stew for a December day.
While the food was - on balance - good, it didn't really transport me. It all seemed rather rote, a decent meal but not one that I am clamouring for again. Coupled with this, the restaurant didn't have any real vibrancy on my visit. Although I'm not a fan of music in restaurants generally, what they did have was turned way down. There was very little ambience. This, and the fact I had to ask for my bill twice, left me happy enough with the meal, but not looking to return to try out the other items on the menu.
Value for Money? £27 for two courses and a beverage, including service charge. Really not bad, and you can certainly do worse. But, I also feel you can do better. Aya, although slightly different cuisine, is just down the road, at a similar price point, and feels more real.
Would I return? It really was quite good, but not good enough to make me want to return. No.
