RESTAURANT REVIEW - Alborz Persian Cuisine, Austin, TX

Alborz Persian Cuisine
3300 W Anderson Lane #303
Austin, Texas 78757
(512) 420-2222
Sun-Thurs 11:30AM - 9:30PM
Fri-Sat 11:30AM - 10:30PM
Belly dancing Fridays and Saturdays 8PM-10PM

The vegan options on the menu are similar to any Greek place in town - pretty much all of the vegan appetizers are available as the "Vegetarian Delights" plate - hummus, tabouli, baba ghannooj, and dolmeh. There's also a "Combination Plate" - skewers of mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, squash, zucchini, and tomatoes served on a bed of basmati rice. Other than that, I was intrigued that the "Alborz House Stews" (all of which contain either chicken or beef) were starred to indicate "also available as vegetarian entrees". Just going off the menu, once you take the animal out of these dishes there ought not to be much left (herbs, kidney beans, and dried lemon on the "Khoresh Gormeh Sabzi", onions and yellow split peas in a saffron-tomato sauce on the "Khoresh Gheymeh", eggplant and tomato sauce on the "Khoresh Bademjan", and puree of walnuts and pomegranate sauce on the "Khoresh Fesenjan" - all served over basmati rice), but I figured I'd ask. Well, the waiter informed me that there was no substitution process; they simply left off the meat. I figured it wouldn't be so bad if one could combine some ingredients (split peas and eggplant, for example), but the non-meat items are all already combined and baked (they constitute the "stew"). Personally, I think that $11.95 is too much to pay for walnuts and pomegranate sauce over rice.

I ended up going with the "Vegetarian Delights" plate. It was good, and a decent amount of food, but nothing out of the ordinary for your basic Mediterranean/Greek standards.

Overall, unless you're really craving veggie skewers or baba ghannooj, I'd suggest going across the parking lot to Satay, which has a much greater variety of choices.