Persian Sweets and Couzin’s Cafe

We went into a newly opened Persian market in my neighborhood.

My Dad and I loved checking out ethnic grocery stores.

It was so much fun to see foods that were exotic, ask questions and learn along the way the different ingredients we normally did not use, nor exposed to in a regular basis.

Adventurous and exciting!

Some goods were familiar as they were goods from Bulgaria or Armenia — olives, tomatoes, vegetable spreads (similar to Zacuscă from Romania), different kinds of jams (notably young walnut jam and rose jam).

There were also others that were unfamiliar, e.g. bags of dried whole lemon and whole lime.

The shopkeeper told me they were for boiling teas or soup making.

We also found these desserts that were completely foreign.

The more different they were, the more I wanted to try!

We got Faloudeh to try.

Upon reading online, we found out that Faloudeh was a traditional Iranian dessert.

Unfortunately, we were trying it un-authentically.

Shopkeeper said that I should let it semi-melt, then add lemon juice and chopped pistachio.

I had neither at home so we tried Faloudeh straight, still semi-melted at least!

It was a lovely light dessert made with simple ingredients of water, sugar, rose water and starch.

The starch was made into vermicelli like noodle, and frozen with sweetened rose water.

In the past, I had dessert made with rose water and I was not a fan.

I found them too fragrant, too floral in a way that it felt not meant for eating.

The amount of rose flavor in this Faloudeh was just right, slightly floral, light hint of rose and very pleasing.

The dessert was refreshing and thirst-quenching.

I could see myself buying this a lot (or try to make this myself!) when our temperature gets hot here in the Northwest!

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There was not really any good breakfast places on the eastside.

Found Couzin’s Café in Kirkland that was rated pretty high, decided to bring my folks to give it a try.

We went on a Sunday and there was definitely a line out the door to this tiny spot.

We were lucky that space opened up for us in about half and hour and service was pretty quick!

I rarely had American full breakfast and decided to go all out with country fried steak.

Crisp English muffin (with loads of butter), crisp hash brown and runny sunny side up — checked.

Not wow but tasty.

The beef was thin, tender and crisp, with great flavors in the breading.

I only wish the gravy was not as starchy; it was a little sticky to the teeth and palate.

Flavor of the gravy was good — nice peppery chicken flavor, what I would expect in a good diner.

My Dad had the pigs in the blanket.

He did not like the apple sausages.

I believe because he was not used to sage — sage was not used in Chinese cooking.

I quite enjoyed the apple compote and caramel sauce; it had nice brown spice flavors.

The pancake batter had very good flavor, but it was a little dense.

My mom had the blueberry crepe.

Same story as the pancake, the crepe batter flavor was good and with strong vanilla, but it was soggy in texture and thick.

I will return when I have a serious country/chicken fried steak craving and want to stay on the eastside.