This ‘Alley’ Leads to Paradise of Persian Delicacies

K oucheh , the word, is Farsi for “alley,” apparently a reference to homey restaurants once prevalent in Tehran and other Iranian cities. Kou-Che, the Laguna Hills restaurant, is one of the most intimate and engaging Persian places around, a cool stucco courtyard highlighted by white walls and protruding bricks. A gently gurgling fountain stuck smack in the middle makes the place feel positively bucolic. Overhead, a trellis of verdant plants runs the entire perimeter of the ceiling, and has an extraordinarily relaxing effect when you dine.

OK, so these plants are artificial (only a long-armed 6-footer can tell for sure), and OK, the blue and green tile patio tables have rough, unfinished bottoms (ladies, leave your silk stockings at home). This is the price to pay if you’re looking for ethnic cuisine (apart from Chinese or Mexican) in South County.

The menu goes beyond the usual Iranian litany of kebabs and rice. After a page telling you all about pomegranates, pistachios, barberries and fenugreek (a few of the distinguishing ingredients of this colorful cuisine), comes a page full of hot appetizers and salads, including pungent torshi, the sharp pickled winter vegetables that Persians eat with everything. Torshi gets star billing in this place. Those giant glass jars in the middle of this room are filled with them.

Everyone starts a meal here with a stack of pita bread cut into flat squares, a dish of butter and a whole raw onion. Then most people order a refreshing yogurt-flavored preparation, such as mast-o-khiyar (cucumber and mint) or spinach borani (steamed spinach), to eat with the bread.

My favorite way to start at Kou-Che has to be with an order of panir-o-sabzi and walnut. It’s a platter of mint leaves, green onion, feta cheese and an enormous mound of blanched walnuts, slightly plumped from having been boiled. Eaten in combination, it is one of the most cooling and refreshing appetizers in the world--paradise, if you will (a Persian word, as the menu tells you).

I would only consider the hot appetizers if I were in the mood for a real feast. There are four, and they can be ordered separately or, for a bargain price, on a combination platter.

Dolmeh is the clear first choice. These are the densest stuffed grape leaves I’ve ever tasted--a meaty rice filling sees to that. Kuku is a muffin-shaped spinach frittata, no surprises here, and kashk bademjan is an oily eggplant puree with a thickened yogurt topping.

The last one, lamb’s tongue, is a surprise, if only for the elegant egg-lemon sauce the tender tongue is blanketed with. By the way, definitely pass on the restaurant’s sup-e-jou. It’s a soup of barley, carrots and cream, as bland as baby food.

All the major Persian kebabs are served here: barg, kubideh, chupani, chicken and the rest, flanked by a mountain of fluffy basmati rice with a yellow saffron topping. The kebab chupani, or lamb kebab, has to be the star of the broiler. Imagine a skewer full of perfectly trimmed baby lamb chops, with a little T-bone in the middle, redolent of an exquisite marinade and browned around the edges.

Kebab barg , made from filet mignon, is the beef equivalent of chupani, although not nearly as tender or tasty. (The pieces are smaller, too.) The chicken kebab is just fine, crispy on the outside, well done (as this cooking style demands) and slightly less intense in flavor than these red meats.

As for kubideh, I wouldn’t bother. At $4 less than kebab barg, this tubular hamburger is nothing more than poor man’s barg, and seems to be lacking altogether in the spice department. Sprinkle it up with dried sumac, the piquant dried leaf sitting in cerulean shakers on every table, and it becomes tolerable.

House specials provide relief from the kebab syndrome, or at least an option. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to get an off-menu sour cherry pilaf (albalu polo), a red and yellow flurry of interesting flavors and textures. Gheimeh bademjan is eggplant braised with saffron, tomatoes, yellow split peas, dried lime and veal, a strongly flavored stew that arouses mixed reactions from non-Persians.

The most interesting of these dishes is probably tah-chin, which looks like some sort of golden meat loaf. It’s actually a rice casserole made from yogurt, saffron and eggplant, and the name refers to the hard outer crust, which results from prolonged contact with the pan it is baked in. Here it is topped with zereshk (barberry), a tart fruit in the currant family, and served with a chicken kebab. Hmm, maybe you can’t get away from these kebabs as easily as I thought.

I’ve never been a fan of Persian desserts, because I don’t care for rose water or cardamom, which pretty much sum them up. The house baklava, for example, is dry and spicy, overwhelmed by cardamom, and bastani, a homemade Persian ice cream, is loaded with rose water.

Zulbiya is the one dessert here that isn’t rose watered or cardamomed to death. It’s a squiggly, oily fritter, served with syrup. Some would call it insipid.

Instead, try one of the Persian soft drinks made from sticky-sweet imported syrups. Quince-lemon is probably the most interesting, and I’m almost an aficionado of the punchy sour cherry, um, punch. Just stay away from pussywillow (spelled bussywillow), which is like drinking perfume straight while standing in a rose garden.

Kou-Che is inexpensively to moderately priced. Appetizers are $2 to $6.95. Broiler items are $2.95 to $14.95. House specials are $7.50 to $9.95. Desserts are $1 to $2.50.

* KOU-CHE

* 25381 Alicia Parkway, F, Laguna Hills.

* (714) 588-8999.

* Lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, till 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

* American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.