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Laleh's Goes Persian

By Anne Gelhaus

For eight years, owner Majid Jalali has served hamburgers and falafels at Laleh's Burger & Grill, but it wasn't until last month that he realized his goal to put Persian food on the menu.

"I always planned on it," Jalali says, "but I didn't have a chef. Then my old friend Behrooz Askarian moved from Germany, where he was in the business for 17 years."

With Askarian on board to prepare the food, Jalali created a separate menu of Persian dishes. The appetizers include kashk-e-budemejan (eggplant in a yogurt-based sauce served with lavosh bread) and salad Shirazy (tomato, onion and cucumber mixed with lemon juice and Persian herbs).

For entrées, Jalali decided to focus exclusively on kebabs.

"There's a huge variety of Persian food," he explains. "I had to narrow it down to make it manageable."

Be they lamb, chicken, ground beef or filet mignon, all kebabs are served on a bed of long-grain basmati rice. The meat is often marinated in sauces that have lemon juice, olive oil, saffron and Persian spices as their base. Jalali says Persian spices tend to be sweet and temper the tang of the lemon juice.

Although he still serves his original bill of fare in addition to the Persian dishes, Laleh's new menu offers Jalali a welcome change from eight years of flipping burgers and making deli sandwiches.

Laleh's Burger & Grill is located at 551 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos (408/354-4545). Open daily, 11am-9pm.

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