Back in college, my favorite local restaurant was Sorrento’s Persian and Italian Cuisine. Random, right? Totally random, but you can imagine the thought-process: Wow, I really want to open a restaurant that brings the food of my native country here to this sleepy college town. I don’t know if the kids will get it though. I know, let’s also just have a pot of spaghetti and marinara ready every night, just in case.

Fortunately, though, California tends to be a great part of this country for getting food from everyone else’s. In all my years here, though, I hadn’t found a good Persian place (kind of like I still haven’t found a good matzo ball soup source aside from my own stove top). Enter my roommate, herself an Iranian American with a love for home-country cooking, but with the local restaurant knowledge to back it up.

And so, last weekend, to Famous Kabob we went . . . .

Famous Kabob, in the grand tradition of truly spectacular non-American food restaurants, is located in an unassuming strip mall at the corner of Fulton and Hurley. It happens to be close to my favorite Sacto sushi, Mana, also in a strip mall (across from Target). When it comes to food, both restaurants prove that, unlike real estate, it’s not about location, location, location.

A non-Persian food-actic over at SNR dubbed the place “Almost Famous,” describing one signature dish thusly:

The kabob barg ($12.95), consists of skewered and grilled pieces of filet mignon, and as such was tasty and tender, with hints of lemon and garlic. This was served alongside a substantial mound of fragrant basmati rice. All in all, a good dish, though perhaps a little too simple, consisting only of meat and rice, with a grilled tomato on the side.

A little too simple? What are you talking about? That’s its beauty. This is quality meat, exquisite rice - cleanly presented perfection. Perhaps that reviewer would’ve preferred the kabob koobedeh (I’ve seen the American-ized spelling of that second word done 3 ways now, so I used the one I remembered, which of course, still might be wrong), a mouth-watering, please-don’t-stop-feeding-me-that-ever combination of ground beef, herbs, and spices.

Another on-line reviewer delved into the history of the restaurant’s lineage:

The owners, Roger Sanati and Gusem (Sam) Babaei, are Iranian immigrants. Roger has been in this country for about 30 years and is now a naturalized citizen. Sam has been in the US for about 15 years. The restaurant is a family operation. I met both owners and Sam’s beautiful wife Mina as well as their 4 year old daughter Keanna.

Sam arrived in the US with an MS degree in business administration from the Commerce School of Tehran, and he has clearly put his education to good use. On this day, though, I was much more interested in the MK (Master of the Kitchen) I’m sure he earned somewhere along the way, although he didn’t mention it. He has long experience in the business of feeding people, having been involved in an officer’s club as well as company dining room ventures in Iran. Since coming to Sacramento, he has owned or operated three other successful restaurants. One of Sam’s secrets is that he grew up knowing what makes a good Persian meal. A close family member was employed as a food taster for the Iranian royal family when Sam was a child, so he was able to sample traditional Persian dishes prepared without cost constraints. This gave him a high standard for food that he refers to as “royal taste” and he strives to meet that standard in every dish that goes out of the kitchen.

We ended our meal with two strong cups of black tea and the best damn baklava (Persian style, which is related to, but not the same as, its more widely recognized Greek cousin) I’ve ever eaten, period. The acidic tea cut the sweet pastry perfectly - the perfect topper to a gut-busting food bonanza.

Still not sold on Persian cuisine? I’ll answer some of your questions in one sentence: no it’s not necessarily spicy, no, you don’t sit on the floor, no, you don’t eat with your hands, no it isn’t the one with the curry, and no, it isn’t just like Greek food.

Go try it. You won’t be disappointed.

Famous Kebob: 1290 Fulton Ave at Hurley; 916-483-1700