Downtown Toronto has no shortage of vaguely Mediterranean/Middle Eastern restaurants, each selling a variety of shawarma, kebob, or gyro, with sides of rice, salad, or potato. Most will also have a few vegetarian option, such as hommus and falafel. I would classify this type of cuisine as "generic Mediterranean/Middle Eastern," tasty and filling, but with no real clue as to the geographic origin of the dishes.
This is why I was pleasantly surprised to find a Middle Eastern restaurant on one of my walks that didn't offer a shawarma wrap prominently on their menu. Instead, this restaurant had a menu featuring various polo's, or rice dishes (linguistically similar to a palau in Pakistani or Afghani cuisine I presume).
One of my favorite restaurants in Irvine, CA is called Caspian, where they serve Albaloo polo, or rice with sour cherries and chicken (one of my favorite dishes), Adas polo (rice with lentils), and a variety of quintessentially Persian foods. Thus, I jumped at the chance to eat at Tempus.
From the street, this place is easy to miss (I know this from experience, having walked past it twice without finding it on a separate occasion). The sign that says "Tempus" is rather dark and hard to see, so it is much easier to look for the sign written in prominent Farsi. It looks similar to Arabic, which people might be more familiar with.
Unfortunately, they did not have Albaloo polo on the menu (and I asked as well, to the surprise of the waitress). So I settled on their Shirazi salad ($5), and the Fesenjoon ($13). Service was started with hot crusty flatbread with butter (but no raw onions, as I've seen in other places). The salad came with the main course, and was a medley of cucumber, tomato, and onion, in a vinegary dressing - nothing inspired, but a good counterpoint to the main dish. Fesenjoon is a stew made with walnuts and pomegrantes and chicken, which is served with rice. It is a dark reddish brown color, almost black with a slightly grainy texture. The flavor was wonderfully tangy and savory, with a hint of sweetness, perfect with the simply prepared chicken breast meat.
To finish the meal, I had some Persian tea- a black tea with a hint of cardamon, which gives it a flowery aroma not dissimilar to Earl Grey. It is typically taken with sugar cubes (granulated in this case) and is a wonderful coda to the richness of the dinner.
In total, the dinner came out to $19 plus tax, with enough food for 1.5 me's (though I practically licked my plate clean as I was extra hungry). The service was wonderful. Most of all, I'm happy to find an oasis of Persian food in a expanse of shawarma sandwich joints.
Darvish Restaurant Tempus
508 Yonge St.
http://www.google.ca/maps/place?cid=3640603321731904266&q=tempus+toronto&gl=ca
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