Khatoon (Persian) – Harrow

Yes, there’s a lot of them about nowadays, particularly in and around Harrow; and yes, we recently published a less than flattering review of Persian Palace, but as Iranian restaurants go, this one is certainly endeavouring to make its mark.

Khatoon is essentially what Persian Palace used to be back in the day.

This Harrow-based restaurant has had a few facelifts during its decade long effort. After successfully running as a catering company for the first eight years, it transformed itself into a ‘Restaurant & Dessert Lounge” two years ago.

And its latest renovation only last month has seen it introduce more capacity indoors.

Orange & Carrot fresh juice

The drinks menu was somewhat limited with the most adventurous options being the freshly squeezed orange and carrot juices. They are what they are!

Kashk-E-Badenjan – Fried aubergine, garlic, whey & mint £3.50

So you might have had a version of this at other Persian restaurants, but you still haven’t had this particular one, have you? Tremendous hot starter! Not just was it value for money, but unique in taste too. The roasted garlic had sort of a nutty flavour to it, with the mint delivering a subtle aftertaste. But what effectively brought this entire dish together was the whey yoghurt.

We ordered a naan along with this which could comfortably satisfy two hungry Lions.

Ghafghazi – Grilled skewer of cubed lamb fillet, chicken fillet cube & peppers served with rice, grilled tomato & salad £10.50

Even the picture cannot hide the very first thing we noticed with this dish – how utterly juicy the meat looked!

This was swiftly confirmed with the eating – succulent, soft and tasty – all of which went superbly with the sweet, soft peppers.

Sadly, the thing that let this dish down a tad was the texture of the rice – slightly on the hard side.

One Lion would have liked the meat a little more charred with the charcoal grilled taste coming through. This, of course, is more down to personal taste than anything else.

Momtaz One skewer of marinated chicken fillet & one skewer of minced lamb kebab served with rice, grilled tomato & salad £9.50

The difference between this and the above was the replacement of the lamb fillet with the minced lamb.

Although it mild in taste, the sheer quality of the HMC-approved meat shone through.

As a side note, all their meat is rubbed in oil to keep it moist, which could account for the lack of said chargrilled taste.

Sticky toffee pudding £3.50

It’s also worth noting that Khatoon was, in a previous incarnation, a dessert parlour going by the exotic name Ice Fire. Having said that though, we were left disappointed by their desserts.

The puddings are pre-prepared, thus, not fresh, and therein lies the problem. At the same time though, not much was used by way of imagination to even try and elevate the simple into something more attention grabbing.

And the sticky toffee pud was a good example of this. We would liked to have seen, for instance, the banana slice grilled and caramelised, rather than simply being plonked on the plate as some useless garnish.

Cookie ice cream

The same is true of this Cookie ice cream. If you’re not willing to go the extra mile, then perhaps you might consider just an extra yard or two by having melted chocolate and not some cheap chocolate syrup poured over the top!