The signs weren't looking promising from the moment I opened my kebab from Darvish Restaurant.
The meat looked thoroughly unappetising. I was gazing down at big chunks of pink meat, it didn’t look particularly tender. I feared at any moment the slabs of lamb were going to start bleating at me.
I’d ordered the undesirable takeaway from Darvish Restaurant in Roundhay Road, Harehills.
To read more of our food reviews, click here
The authentic Persian restaurant came highly rated on JustEat and Google Reviews, beating out the competition to come out as the most highly recommended kebab takeaway in my delivery catch zone.
For my main dish, I’d ordered the Bakhtiyari Kebab (£14.50) – a high price to pay for a kebab so I was expecting quality and authenticity. I felt so much regret looking down at my meal.
Beside the lamb was a Koubideh, a Persian kebab dish which is made from ground meat, pepper and chopped onions – which looked just as off-putting and bland.
Wedged in between the kebab were grilled vegetables that looked sad, grey and charred. I didn’t particularly want to touch the sloppy looking tomato, juice squelching out of it. Neither did I want to have the burnt onions or the vomit-green peppers, but I had to go through with it for the purposes of this review.
It tasted almost as bad as it looked. The lamb was bland and not worth its staggering price tag.
The Koubideh was only slightly more bearable with a hint of flavour (Darvish restaurant sells these each separately for £3). The vegetables at least distracted from the awful meat and were so overcooked and soft, all the goodness had been exorcised out of them.
With this dish, you can either pick naan bread or rice to supplement it. I elected to have a naan bread so I could wrap the meat up. The bread again was disappointing, it was thin and flaky. It practically fell apart when I put the soggy contents of the kebab within it.
I’d ordered humous to put inside the kebab, which also came with naan. This similarly felt expensive (£4.50). For that money, I was hoping it would be homemade and would taste homemade. Perhaps there’d be some chunks of chickpea in there, giving it a rustic quality.
Even though it was a large packet of humous, it just tasted bland and shop-bought – nothing special. At least it distracted further from the bland meat flavours.
The chips (£2) were also poor – lukewarm and soft. A tiny smatter of either paprika or chilli powder had been sprinkled on top of the portion (what an exotic garnish).
Enter your postcode to check food hygiene ratings near you
At this point, I was thoroughly miserable.
But I had a slice of chocolate fudge cake (£3.50) to look forward to.
Again, I was faced with bitter regret. The slice of cake looked like the cake from the 1996 movie Matilda, the cake headmistress Agatha Trunchbull made with ‘blood, sweat and tears’ - a monstrosity.
It tasted like something out of a school cafeteria as well. Not very tasty. The harsh chocolate flavour left much to be desired.
Yuck.
To get the latest email updates from LeedsLive, click here.
