Nawroz

Naroz is a very relaxed place for lunch with a really good lunch deal of £7 for two courses or £10 for three, Monday to Friday.
For starter you have the choice of different dips including hummus, baba ganoush with bread, or falafel or fattoush. For mains the options that we tried were shawarmas (chicken and lamb were on the menu), kebab (again both chicken and lab were options) and a falafel wrap. All the food that we had was freshly prepared and tasted great.
Our accompanying 18 month old tried pretty much everything and other than rejecting tzatziki enjoyed most of it. One minor thing is that the child seats don’t have seat belts or other ways of making sure that the small person couldn’t stand up.
The service wasn’t excellent but for a relaxed not too rushed lunch it was perfect. We still managed two courses well within an hour and probably could have managed coffee too if we’d wanted to.
We didn’t try it but they do shisha in a variety of flavours including Irn Bru Flavoured.

This is actually my 3^rd visit here.
The first was for a surprise birthday party and the food was OK. Not great. Service was slow. The 2^nd was on a girls’ night out. The food was again OK — kebabs were a bit dry and the fish smelt so fishy we had to send it back and they kindly brought us something else.
This visit, i went on a lunch date with my husband who has coeliacs — gluten allergy — I had a KGBDeals voucher for a 3 course meal for 2. The waitress either didn’t understand or didn’t care when i pointed out my husband’s allergy and brought us a pre-​decided platter of starters — no explanation as to what was what — along with bread that touched the food. When I mentioned the gluten/​wheat problem, the waitress said «well you can eat the bread, he doesn’t have to». My husband asked for rice instead and got a perfunctory «there will be rice on the platter». We weren’t told what we were going to get in our meal or given a menu of the meal. Nothing.
After the starters, the main meal came and as the waitress cleared the starter dishes, i again said, please don’t bring anything with wheat, my husband is allergic — to emphasise the importance of there being no wheat/​gluten. The main platter was kebabs, lamb and chicken grill and chicken wings. All covered in cooked thin noodles!!!
At this point I just gave up.
The kebabs were moist. The chicken was great.
The baklava and turkish delight were spot on. The potato and tomato curry sauce was fantastic.
But if you have a food allergy, don’t go here.

Set the wayback machine to November of 2013. I am on a two-​week journey in Edinburgh for reasons unrelated to food. However, being a food blogger, I made a point to have at least one restaurant experience each day for the purposes of my reviews. I figured that considering the amount of walking I’d been doing, I shouldn’t have had any problem keeping my weight down. By the end of the two weeks, I had gained ten pounds. I blame restaurants like Nawroz for that.
Is this a critical review? Not in the slightest. I’m only saying that with nearly every restaurant I’ve been in, I’ve never seen more generosity in service and portions than businesses specializing in Middle Eastern cuisine. Okay, perhaps I would put them on a tie with the Greeks, but I would much prefer large portions of Middle Eastern cuisine than of Greek.
Yeah, I know, I’m going to get murdered for that one.
I’m not saying that Middle Eastern cuisine is better than Greek cuisine. I’m saying that Middle Eastern cuisine is… clearly better, how can anyone argue with that? I’ve said that certain cuisines become gateways to other cuisines; they stimulate your culinary curiosity while others are gastronomic thunderdomes. Which would I put in the latter category? Obviously American and westernized Chinese. Even sushi is starting to fall into that category. But gateway cuisines? Indian definitely, French and maybe Dutch to lesser degrees, they all open our minds to new ideas, leading to other possibilities. From Indian, you may try Nepalese, Persian, or Moroccan. Of course, if one is talking technicalities, these countries are only lines on a map, and when addressing nutritional anthropology, what you get are hundreds of tribes migrating through history across Africa and Asia, sharing their ideas and techniques.
Comprehending that, suddenly calling a certain cuisine Indian makes no sense, as what classifies as Indian food is actually several different culinary methods which happen to occupy that region. What classifies as Indian changes depending on where in India you are? In fact, naming a cuisine not after a country but a people should be more appropriate. Kurdish cuisine encompasses Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. With that, there are quite a few foods which the average curioso will recognize. You’ll find falafels, humus, flatbreads, baklava, and shawarma. So what should you do when given such variety? You order it all.
Wait, what?
Nawroz offers various dishes but one is a mixed collection of various starters. So the five of us ended up getting large mixed plates of starters with only two mains, allowing us to share in the traditional Middle Eastern fashion. You don’t order a main and lift from it selfishly. You order a mountainous bowl of food and open the plates of the table to share. This is what you do. Nawroz should be experienced each time as a gathering of friends and family. Invent a celebration if you have to. Someone’s birthday? A wedding? Christmas (which they celebrate at Nawroz ironically), or how about the traditional Iranian new year… which is actually called Nawroz. So the restaurant is named after one of the most boisterous events in all the Middle East; why wouldn’t you take that opportunity? It’s like a restaurant that celebrates Christmas all year round.
The décor is perfect with what it attempts to convey: culture and tradition with mild compromises to operate as a functional restaurant. Red and black chairs over a tiled floor, raw brick on the walls with hanging rugs, tapestries, and paintings. Various regional iconographies rest upon the bar. I can feel the pride of the owners in their culture by the décor of the restaurant and the quality of their food. Even the hummus is molded into a fan, topped with olives. The flatbread is fried, a new first and favorite. The mixed starters ranged from contemporary to intimidating and I devoured each and every one. Even though we had ordered mixed starters for five with only two mains, we couldn’t squeeze another plate of food onto our table. Everything was good and we still had dessert waiting for us – three types of baklava with Turkish delight.
I’ll reiterate my previous point. The various cultures of the Middle East know how to make people welcome and this is reflected in their restaurants. Their food is munificent, huge portions at reasonable prices. With Shezan and Nawroz being so close to each other (walking distance) I know that any future domiciles in Edinburgh would have to be in close proximity to this region so when I entertain visitors, I always have a place to go. I am happy that my small home town has a Persian restaurant – so at least my absence from this cuisine would be short.
DECOR: 9
PLATING: 8
SERVICE: 8
FOOD: 9
VALUE: 10
OVERALL: 8.8 out of 10

I have a short review on this because it concurs with the other reviews. I was very happy to went trying Kurdish Cuisine at Nawroz. The menu has many options to choose from and have a special charcoal grilled menu which at around 13pounds you get a big nam, rice (or salad); a good portion of meat and a free additional side plate. Since I am fan of Okra, I took that as a side portion and they were cooked in really good slightly spice sauce, which you can add onto the rice. The main point I wanted to put forward is that the food is cooked and spiced quite different from the ‘European way’ so you get a real experience that you are eating something different.
On the other hand, I have to say that the place do not sell any alcoholic drinks, but it did not effect me as I often taken water. However I made an exception and took Mango juice and was a very good. Between 4 and 5 stars I am giving 5 becasue the place is large, clean and the staff very friendly. We were served by a tall Czech waiter who was chatty and took good care of us.

I must admit, I wasn’t too sure about Nawroz at first, it just looked too big to really be that good. I know, really poor reasoning, eh, but that’s how I roll. On the positive side, the idea of checking out Kurdish and Afghani cuisine was always going to win out over my initial misgivings, and indeed, it was a definite winner.
The service was lovely and polite, the food outstandingly delicious. The sea bass, bar the bones acting like a jailer to the delicious fish flesh below, was just phenomenal. I had some mighty tasting courgettes (kulakeh) and lucky for me, the silent reviewer had lamb skewers which allowed him a vegetable side, which he picked to be tapsi, the other option I swithered about. The lamb was proclaimed to be tender and melting, the tapsi (aubergine dish) was perfect, and the naan light and crispy. Couldn’t ask for anything more. I heart Nawroz, and will definitely return, hopefully soon, perhaps tonight if I can swing it :)

This place which is BYOB has a deal for a set menu for £32 for two. You get masses of food and the ice cream is amazing. Definitely worth a visit!

Nawroz is definitely worth a visit, particularly at lunchtime with their excellent £7 for two course, £10 for three courses deal.
Overall, we said: «I was impressed by Nawroz. It offered accurately prepared, well presented dishes, with good quality ingredients, for an extremely reasonable price. In fact, it was exactly what I expected I’d get from Illegal Jack’s, the other day. Funnily enough, my bill in Jack’s and the bill for the two of us, today, were almost exactly the same amount. I think we’ll be back to visit Nawroz again soon, particularly as it fits the profile for one of our Sunday refuelling stops, very nicely.»

This new Kurdish and Middle Eastern Restaurant is lovely and staff really make it extra special. My wife and I were served very well and enjoyed great Kurdish food. We ordered Kubba Kurdy and Mix Dolma starter, Fasolya Ba Gosht and Kofta Kebab with Rice main course, Bakhlawa Mix as dessert. I thoroughly recommend Nawroz to all middle eastern’s food lovers.