Reza's




Awesome bread served throughout meal

We went out to dinner at Reza's in Oak Brook (there are also 3 locations in Chicago) for a bit of Middle Eastern food with a Persian flare. We didn't know too much about the restaurant except we pass it a lot when driving around Oak Brook.



Vegetarian Combo Entree

We just ordered entrees but they were really large and came with a lot so we still had food to take home.  We ordered a vegetarian combo and a kabob dish.  The vegetarian combo is an entree but because you get to create your own combo from lots of choices we chose items that would typically be appetizers on their own. We were able to choose 5 items for the combo and it came with rice.

The combo included:

1. Falafel (balls of ground chickpeas and herbs) - we wish we had a few more of these; they were not "mealy" or too hard

2. Hummus (mashed chickpeas with tahini) - this wasn't that exciting but a good standard

3. Baba Ghannouj (mashed roasted eggplant with tahini) - this was tasty but we had better baba ghannouj at Al Bawadi in Bridgeview

Feta cheese and radishes

4. Dohmeh (grape leaves stuffed with rice, yellow peas, caramelized onions and raisins in a tomato sauce) - this was tasty and they were warm grape leaves - which Nick prefers

5. Kashkeh Bodemjan (a Persian specialty; mashed roasted eggplant, caramelized onions, whey, flavored with garlic and mint) - this was even better than the baba ghannouj.  This is now a new favorite for an eggplant dish (right behind Eggplant Parmesan in Nick's mind).  Apparently this is more of a Persian dish so that is why we may not have encountered it at other Middle Eastern restaurants which may have leaned more to Arabic or Palestinian fare.

Barg Kabob

The other entree was called the Barg Kabob.  It was a tenderloin, with cous cous and grilled vegetables. The kabob was very tender and beautifully spiced. There were large chunks of moist beef with enough cous cous to feed 5 people.

Both of the entrees came with soups - we had the choice of tomato lentil or chicken barley and we tried one of each.  The tomato lentil was kind of boring, but the chicken barley was surprisingly tasty with large chunks of vegetables and a large flavor profile.

Also we have to mention that before the soup we were brought a small plate with radishes and feta cheese and a giant plate of baked bread.  The bread was amazing! It was almost the consistency of a pita bread, but since it was served on a large platter it reminded us of the way spongy bread is served in Ethiopian restaurants. We ate with with the radishes, cheese, soup and with the dips in the veggie combo dish.

Chicken Barley soup

Nick was worried about the location; it was a bit out of the way from other places.  It is located in an apartment/condo building and the parking situation is a bit awkward. We were the first ones in the restaurant for dinner. They were blasting Frank Sinatra music which we thought was a bit strange, but then later in the meal they switched to more Mideast/Persian music.

Final thoughts on Reza's:
Food - good filling food that came in super large portions.  We both had enough for leftovers without even ordering a separate appetizer.
Service - the service was really great.  Now granted we were the only ones there for a while.  But the waitress was very helpful in guiding us through the menu.

Atmosphere - really nice interior (this used to be the French restaurant Fond de la Tour many years ago).  They do have a few different dining spaces and in one of them there is buffet set up.  We looked through the reviews before we went and a lot of people didn't seem to like the buffet so we went with the regular menu which worked out well for us.