"This is a Five Star Review on a menu I normally hate.I absolutely adore Persian food.It is one of my favorite cuisines on the planet.But I am very fussy about my Persian food.I want genuine complicated exotic Persian dishes.I want Rice with a beautiful crust burned into the bottom.I want elaborate stews with tart berries mixed in with the meat.I want tea with sugar balls the size of an egg that you hold in your mouth.I want soup made with lamb tripe.Most of the famous Persian dishes have ingredients that you only get in the Middle East.In contrast Shandeez uses plain ordinary American ingredients.Much of the menu involves gyros and gyro meat.Nearly everything else uses items you could buy in an HEB.These are Persian recipes adapted for the American Restaurant Supply Industry.This normally puts me in a sour mood.But Shandeez is a five star place. Why does Shandeez get five stars?Because they somehow find remarkable versions of these simple raw ingredients.The ingredients may be obtainable in an HEB but THEIR versions of those ingredients are not.Their versions are better, much better.I was immediately and totally in love. Of special note:a) the best feta cheese in Austin that is not Phoenicia Deli's French feta cheese.b) the best pita bread that is not Phoenicia Deli's own pita bread ... and in the case of Phoenicia you sort of have to eat yours the same day.c) superior Gyro meatd) high quality olives.e) great great great raw onions They give you a free starter of pita bread, butter, their special deal feta cheese, raw onions and walnuts.Frankly, you don't need anything else.I could eat basket after basket after basket of that combo.I virtually never put butter on pita bread.James Beard claims the best sandwich he ever invented was white bread, butter and raw onion.You can make that sandwich yourself off the starter plate at Shandeez.It is just as good as James Beard says.But that feta cheese is going to be hard to ignore and the walnuts add all sorts of interest. Servings are huge here.One appetizer can easily be a meal for you.They have an appetizer of kalamata olives, feta cheese and the pita bread.I would look at that one very very seriously.But we did the smoked eggplant appetizer.It was utterly insane.I had a gyro salad That item is straight off of the American menu list here called Greek, rather than American.The salad looks small but isn't.The amount of gyro meat looks ungenerous but it isn't.It turns out that there is layer after layer after layer of gyro meat, with the greek dressing, lettuce and tomato cutting the gyro perfectly.I would have that dish again in a nanosecond.My vegetarian wife adored her grilled vegetables with hummus.The couple we were with got lamb and chicken kebabs respectively.Their plates were huge with vast amounts of rice, good grilled tomatoes and first rate kebabs. Simple grilled meats make up most of the menu although there are a teeny tiny number of stews.My gyros and my co diners kebabs suggest that grilled meat will do you just fine at Shandeez. So save your elaborate Persian dishes for great cities with large diaspora Persian populations.You can eat like a shah in Los Angeles or London.For the simple Persian pleasures of life, it is hard to beat Shandeez.Now lets have about ten more of those baskets of bread, butter, onion and feta cheese."
Sabzi
