<i> Polo </i> Lounge

Hey, man, it’s a Shish Kebab Party, a big table filled with people, carafes of yogurt drink and raw red wine, big chunks of protein threaded onto skewers and grilled over hot charcoal, crusted from the fire and dripping hot juice into gargantuan hillocks of rice. The rice is gilded with a splash of egg yolk; the kebabs might include bits of chicken, chunks of lamb, whole lamb chops, lengths of flat sausage as wide as your arm, even the odd skewer of shrimp or mahi mahi. The kebabs have been marinated with various things--turmeric, lemon, onion juice--and are occasionally tougher than they should be, but they are pretty much delicious and as uncomplicated as any food can be. Swirling Persian pop music pours from speakers overhead.

Sallar’s Brothers is a cool, somewhat elegant Persian restaurant at the rear of a pan-Middle Eastern Glendale shopping mall, all track-lighting and plush booths, high ceilings and mirrors, but it’s a pretty good place to come with a crowd: The sign above the door even says “Shish Kebab Party.” Strike up the ouds .

As soon as you sit down, a forest of dishes is brought to the table--a relish plate of radishes, watercress and quartered raw onion; a basket of warm pita bread; a selection of foil-wrapped butter--so that you can make yourself little tea sandwiches until the food comes. An order later, the free stuff will probably be joined by rich roasted-eggplant dip garnished with browned onions, squares of feta cheese and thickets of fresh herbs, the chopped tomato-cucumber salad that serves both as salsa and as appetizer. Watch out for the intense Persian vegetable pickle called torshi , which carries a vinegar wallop and a jolt of what tastes like Worcestershire sauce, and is more a strongly flavored relish than something to eat on its own.

Is it out of line to note that a charcoal-grill restaurant has a section on its menu called “ koresh “? Even if koresh (more correctly spelled khoresh ) is just the Farsi word for “stew”? Fesenjan , the popular Persian stew of chicken with a thick gravy of pomegranate and ground walnuts, is nicely balanced between the sweetness of the fruit and the bitter tang of the nuts, though the chicken is obviously precooked; a stew of green beans with tomatoes is fine.

And the polos , Persian pilafs, are both copious and terrific: sabzi-ye polo , a fragrant mountain of rice cooked with cilantro and dill, garnished with a half-dozen tasty cubes of grilled mahi mahi; the polo with bittersweet Persian barberries, which conceals a tender, meaty lamb shank; a decent polo made with sour cherries.

This is a lot of food: Dessert, as usual at Persian restaurants, will probably consist of a glass or two of strong, perfumed Persian tea.

Sallar’s Brothers 1240 S. Glendale Blvd., Glendale, (818) 500-8661. Open Sunday-Thursday 11:30 a.m to 10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Beer and wine. Lot parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $15-$25.