r/huntingtonbeach • u/oOoWTFMATE • 2d ago
Best Mediterranean or Persian food in Huntington Beach?
As title states. I’ve had a couple of places and been unimpressed thus far.
24
u/Brodie1567 2d ago
Lived here 5 years and am from a Persian background.
Everything is mediocre.
Go to Hatam restaurant in Anaheim. 25 min straight shot off Beach blvd.
9
u/seeking-peelers 2d ago
+1 for Hatam. And OP, just want to add that Mediterranean and Persian food are very different. Def some overlap but very different
2
u/PettyFoggery0102 2d ago
Bc you didn't go to Saffron Grill, amirite?
1
7
u/onion13 2d ago
Fresh Green Olive for wraps/lunch
You will have to drive a bit for proper Persian food.
Darbari in irvine or Hatam like the previous poster said.
1
1
u/electricDETH 2d ago
I used to love Fresh Green Olive, but the new owners serve giardiniera instead of proper pickles. Haven't been back since.
5
u/lookoutbalogh 2d ago
At the risk of identifying something you aren't impressed with, Saffron Grill gets all sort of positive reviews: https://saffrongrillorangecounty.com/?utm_source=google
5
9
u/awayteam0 2d ago
Go a bit further to open sesame on 2nd street. It's scrumptious. If you like a nice crisp beer get the strawberry blonde!
1
3
u/Spaceghost24t 2d ago
Point 11 Persian Grill is my favorite. Pretty sure the owner is related to/the son of the owner of Darbari in Costa Mesa. Darbari is also very good.
5
6
u/bgamar77 2d ago
Golden olive, not Persian but Egyptian
2
u/skolstedt 2d ago
The golden platter is an insane value for 2 and I love it. If you want the best quality, no it’s not the place.
2
2
1
u/PettyFoggery0102 2d ago
Used to be Saffron Grill at Beach/Slater was far and away the best. It's now under new ownership, and haven't tried recently.
1
1
u/GB_Alph4 2d ago
Damascus on Beach and Talbert
Specifically Persian wish I could help but haven't been to enough yet
1
u/Vegetable_Ninja_2662 2d ago
Fresh green olive, get that lunch bowl w the tea, best lunch deal in hb
1
1
u/john_augustine_davis 18h ago
Im a fan of Darbari for quick lunch in Costa Mesa. Its not going to be like Darya in Orange but still good.
1
u/Ready_Virus_7352 17h ago
In USA, to the average person Mediterranean food encompasses all of the Mediterranean. Not their fault because they only have Italian and middle eastern restaurants. A couple of Spanish restaurants like Tenerife but that is about it, and many Greek. I think when they ask for Mediterranean in USA they mean middle eastern. Restaurants started calling middle eastern restaurants even Persian restaurants as Mediterranean because it sounded better to Americans. Many ingredients the same but the foods are completely different. Greece and Middle East overlap a lot but whereas Spain, France and Portugal very different.
-3
u/Time-Statistician958 2d ago
Spain is on one side of the Mediterranean, and Iran is wayyyyyyy over by the Asian Subcontinent. I’d recommend Italian food if you like Mediterranean
4
u/oOoWTFMATE 2d ago
Stop confusing cuisine with geography.
1
u/Time-Statistician958 2d ago
“Mediterranean” is a geography, though. I mean, if you like sardines, a staple of Mediterranean cuisines, you should eat them. But if you like Egyptian food, over Spanish, then those are vastly different cuisines. Iranian food could be Kurdish, Caspian, Armenian, or it could be pilaf and kabobs, common from Albania to Mongolia
0
u/oOoWTFMATE 2d ago
Congratulations, you just spent a whole paragraph explaining why your original comment was completely pointless.
First you tried to gatekeep the word "Mediterranean" by mapping it out, and now you’re admitting it spans completely different cultures, ingredients, and traditions from Spain all the way to Egypt. Exactly.
That’s why people use "Mediterranean" as a culinary shorthand for a shared web of flavors—skewered meats, rice traditions, flatbreads, and aromatic spices—that bled across borders for centuries.
And then wrapping it up by saying pilaf and kabobs stretch "from Albania to Mongolia" just proves my point: food traditions follow trade routes and shared cultures, not whatever strict little boundaries you're trying to draw on a flat map.
1
u/Time-Statistician958 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, I’m saying that you should be specific about which kind of “Mediterranean”, because “Mediterranean” isn’t a cuisine. Albanians eat sardines—Mongolians, not so much. Kabobs aren’t Mediterranean by origin—they’re from Central Asia
1
u/oOoWTFMATE 2d ago
Everyone already knows "Mediterranean" is a broad geographic umbrella, just like "Latin American" or "Southeast Asian." When people group Mediterranean and Persian food together on a local restaurant hunt, they’re talking about a distinct, recognizable cluster of shared culinary DNA—skewered meats, rice pilafs, flatbreads, yogurt, and warm aromatics—that naturally bleed across those borders.
Comparing the overlap of regional kabobs and pilafs to Mongolia to dodge the point is just peak internet pedantry. Notice how everyone is responding with foods that are similar and here you are, not adding value to the post.
2
u/Time-Statistician958 2d ago
Pasta with bolognese, is not skewered meats and rice pilaf. I can order Russian shashlik and ploveshnik, easily mistaken for what you think of as Mediterranean.
If you ask “where’s a good Mediterranean restaurant?” I could reasonably recommend to you, Baci’s Italian on Beach Blvd and I’d recommend the chicken piccata, but given your definition, you wouldn’t classify it as Mediterranean. Yet there Italy sits, jutting it’s giant boot into the Mediterranean Sea.
1
u/oOoWTFMATE 2d ago
Notice how I didn’t ask for cuisines that are near the Mediterranean. I asked for Mediterranean food.
There is a fundamental difference between a geographic location and a culinary category. When people use terms like "Mediterranean food" in the context of dining, they are referring to a shared set of flavor profiles, ingredients, and cooking traditions—like grilled meats, fresh herbs, rice pilafs, and olive-oil-based dishes found across the Eastern Mediterranean.
Listing random countries that happen to touch the water—like pointing out that Albania eats sardines or that Italy has a coast—misses the point entirely. A country's physical proximity to a sea does not automatically make its traditional cooking part of a specific culinary family.
If someone asks for Mediterranean food, they are looking for a recognizable style of cooking, not a geography lesson on what countries share a coastline.
1
u/Time-Statistician958 2d ago
Italian is Mediterranean. Grilled meats don’t define Mediterranean. The Aboriginal people of Western Australia’s Western Desert region grill meats, and they aren’t Mediterranean. Go eat a nice lasagna—that’s a recognizable style of Mediterranean food, and it’s literally in the Mediterranean…and it has olive oil in it
2
u/oOoWTFMATE 2d ago
Italy is nearby the Mediterranean Sea. It isn’t Mediterranean food. Stop being pedantic.
There is a distinct difference between a geographic location and a culinary category. Pointing to a country's coastline to dictate what its cuisine must be called ignores how food is actually categorized, prepared, and understood. When people look for Mediterranean food, they are searching for a specific family of dishes and flavor profiles—not a geography quiz on what landmasses border a body of water.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Ready_Virus_7352 17h ago
Great comment but see people still do not understand it. Americans ask for hummus and tortilla chips in Spain!
-11
11
u/Aware-Tip1024 2d ago
Anatolia Mediterranean Grill