Until I wrote this blog post, I had no idea what Persian meant. I always thought it was a blanket term for anyone from that part of the world. Nope. The word describes the ethnic group of people and their language who come from ancient or modern Iran. That’s all. I drive through this section of Westwood Boulevard quite often on the way to Nana’s when I go to parks like Gandara and Clover. Located between Wilshire and Pico, the area is known as Persian Square. It’s a vibrant area full of unique restaurants, a little slice of the old country here in LA.

I first heard about this place from an Iranian friend who I train jiu jitsu with on occasion. We started crossing paths randomly in the early mornings at Bluey’s coffee shop in Santa Monica. Koz and I are around the same age and in the same situation. Both fathers with boys a month apart. Our son’s names even use the exact same letters, albeit in a different way.

Over the course of a few months he told me some crazy stories about his life growing up. He came here, to LA, very young. with just his mother and his brother and grew up middle class in Beverly Hills. As a teenager they all moved back to Iran to live with his father. Now, they lived a modest life here in LA. Two bedroom apartment, etc. Seeing and taking in all the crazy things a kid could. Upon moving back to Iran, however, all those things were taken away. His father was ultra wealthy, but in terms of actual human freedom, he had nothing. A crazy switch of situations. Back then, in Iran, if you were caught with an American VHS tape you had two choices: 99 lashes of the cane or a fine dependent upon the measured length of the tape itself. Suffice to say, most people took the lashes, he told me, and in order not to kill people they would dole this form of corporeal punishment out in many sessions over the course of weeks or months.

He shared many of these stories and more with me as we drank our coffee. We also spoke of our families, wives, and of course, our favorite chosen pastime, “the gentle art” Brazilian jiu jitsu. When I asked him where a good place was to eat good Persian food, he told me to go to Taste of Tehran. Ah, ok.

It just so happened I was driving by here this past Sunday with takeout on my mind. After a long day of helping someone clean out an apartment, it was decided cooking would be too much work for dinner. My parking karma remained in full effect. As the thought crossed my mind and I drove down Westwood, I noticed a spot right in front of Taste of Tehran and swerved in.

I’d forgotten how much I like this part of myself, how I’m very comfortable in these types of situations where I walk into a place and everyone turns around for a moment to see the bleary eyed gringo standing there. The place is like many others of it’s kind. Small with just a few tables, a big chalk board describing all the dishes. The cooks and the range right behind the counter, smoke pluming up into the hoods. The smell of the meat and the spices inescapable in the tight space.

It brought me back to a time so long ago it seems like another life. When I lived in Astoria Queens, on Steinway Street and often walked south, across Astoria Boulevard to a muslim neighborhood dubbed, “Little Egypt.” As soon as I stepped foot in Taste of Tehran, this memory hit me. Obviously two different countries and cultures separated geographically by several others but in this instance, the same smoke, the same smell of the lamb and the spices permeating the air.

Unemployed, I had a lot of time to explore the various delis and restaurants of Little Egypt. My favorite being Chef Ali El Sayid’s Kebab Cafe, a tiny place with no menu or waiters. The chef himself greeted you, told you what he had in stock and then proceeded to cook, to chop and prepare everything right then and there. His best dishes were all offal. I dove into his lamb cheeks, calf’s balls, and goat brains, totally trusting him whenever he had something out of the ordinary to serve, all of it accompanied at the very end by a hot hibiscus tea.

I brought the food home, ate, reminisced, and kicked myself a bit for sliding into the gringo items a little too easily. I had ordered the grilled chicken and ground beef, then asked the guy working about any “no miss items.” “The eggplant dip,” he said. “Ok,” I said. It ended up being absolutely delicious and as I shoveled it down, wished I had ordered the other smaller plates that had caught my eye, especially the baghali polo, a dish I have a particular fondness for but for some reason didn’t order.

Yes, I slipped into gringo mode. I didn’t even ask if they had any of that good hot sauce.