Olive Branch Serves Up Homey Persian Cuisine

West of Montrose, Foothill Boulevard is dotted with small restaurants, mini-mall cafes and fast-food stands. Few of them are accomplished enough to draw serious attention. Olive Branch is an exception.

Friends in Montrose told me about the place, identifying their discovery only as a Middle Eastern restaurant. Beirut is famous for olive groves, so I drove out to La Crescenta psyched up for Lebanese food. Olive Branch turned out to be a homey Persian restaurant, though, run by a friendly man named Nosrat Alizadeh. No problem.

Unlike the boisterous Persian restaurants on the Westside, this is a quiet neighborhood place. Only the moss-green walls have what you’d call individual character; they’re decorated with olive branches painted in a dark shade of green.

The tables are set with red flowers in little pots, but the chairs are stiff and less than completely welcoming. Frilly flowered curtains obscure the traffic rushing by just beyond the restaurant’s glass front.

The appetizers are particularly good here, but you should proceed with caution if you aren’t familiar with Persian cuisine. Torshi, the mixture of pickled cauliflower, zucchini, celery and carrots you’ll see on your neighbors’ tables, is very vinegary. Some of the appetizers are pretty filling, too. Tah dig, kashk o bademjan and dolmeh could all be meals in themselves.

The meal begins with a basket filled with squares of the flat bread called lavash, several wrapped pats of butter . . . and an onion.

While you’re eating bread, butter and raw onion (Persians believe it’s good for the health), the perfect complement is the Persian green plate, a colorful and refreshing pile of mint, cilantro, sweet basil and fresh tarragon accompanied by two large chunks of creamy Bulgarian feta (surprisingly light in the salt department), a few raisins and a heap of shelled walnuts.

Borani is a light yogurt and spinach dip, also good with the lavash. Olive Branch’s best yogurt dish, though, is mast o musir. It’s an extra-creamy yogurt mixed with chopped shallots, and makes a good companion to either light appetizers or kebabs. (Order the delicious dolmeh, a grape leaf stuffed with rice and pine nuts, and the shallot yogurt comes along free, along with some pickled turnips.)

Kashk o bademjan is a hot appetizer of sauteed eggplant flavored with kashk, a creamy, slightly sour, dried dairy product, and a topping of fried onions.

I am always delighted to see tah dig on a menu. It’s golden brown squares of rice--the crust from the bottom of the pot (tah dig means “bottom of the pot”)--hacked into pieces and topped with a stew-like sauce.

In this case, the sauce is fesenjan, made from chicken stewed with ground walnuts and pomegranate juice. Fesenjan is also available as a main dish, a stewed half-chicken hiding in the rich, savory sauce.

Main dishes come with salad or a filling barley soup. The soup is your basic comfort food, a hearty potage of barley, vegetables and spice. True soup lovers should also consider ash-e reshteh, available a la carte.

Think of ash-e reshteh as Persian pasta e fagioli. It’s a veritable maelstrom of green, red, cream and brown; the main ingredients are pinto beans, spinach, kashk, onions, noodles and crushed herbs. It’s the best dish on the menu.

The featured kebobs are grilled beef, lamb or chicken, served on small mountains of fluffy basmati rice. These are mild versions, not nearly as spicy or garlicky as some Persian restaurants make them.

The best deal is the Olive Branch combo, with chicken, beef and lamb on the same plate. Cornish hen kebab is one more to try, sweet and tender, slightly blackened.

People who like sweet entrees will love two of the restaurant’s better pilafs. For albalu polo, the rice is cooked with sour black cherries. Adas polo includes yellow lentils, raisins, whole dates and saffron. Both come with tender, juicy pieces of stewed chicken.

The sensuousness of this cuisine extends to the dessert course, too. I don’t often feel like ordering the usual Persian sweets perfumed with rose water, but these are subtle and well made.

The one called bamya, which looks like one of Proust’s madeleines except for being sticky with honey, melts on the tongue. Zulbia, a coiled fritter positively drenched with honey, is what I imagine a mosquito coil would look like if you deep-fried it.

DETAILS

* WHAT: Olive Branch.

* WHERE: 3658 Foothill Blvd., La Crescenta.

* WHEN: Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily.

* SUGGESTED DISHES: ash-e reshteh, $3.50; dolmeh, $3.25; Olive Branch combo kebab, $9.95; adas polo, $8.25.

* PRICE: Dinner for two, $16-$28. Beer and wine. Street parking. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.

* CALL: (818) 248-9876.