Dolma @ Real Taste Kurdish
106 Smithdown Rd, Wavertree, L7 4JQ
If there’s one thing experience has taught me, it’s to always take food recommendations from taxi drivers.
On our first trip together to Rome it was a cabbie who suggested that my wife and I eat at Trattoria Valentino, a rustic and slightly faded restaurant where the scamorza cheese was so good we ate it and began laughing.
And when, a few years ago, I got into a taxi outside legendary Punjabi grill Tayyabs in Whitechapel and complained about the two-hour queue I’d endured for a table, it was the driver who insisted I try the far quieter, far better (and far cheaper) Lahore Kebab House around the corner.
So I was very happy when I recently received another restaurant tip whilst taking a taxi. Steaming drunk in the back of a black cab, I was extolling the virtues of the Kurdish eateries of London Road when the driver cut me short to say that they were fine, but not as good as his friend’s place.
Real Taste Kurdish on Smithdown Road, despite looking from the outside like a petrol station minimarket, is a warmly-lit and welcoming place.
Lining either side of its dining room are several huge booths, designed for the extended family groups who regularly visit to share generous platters of kofte, sumac-crusted chicken and quzi (lamb slow roasted over saffron rice).
The restaurant has two weekend specials. Of a Sunday there’s sarupe, a dish of boiled sheep offal. I’ve become a relatively fearless eater, but am still working up to this.
On Saturday you can order dolma. As long as you arrive before it sells out. Kurdish dolma differs from Turkish dolma — and Greek dolmades or Lebanese warak enab — in that tomatoes and shallots as well as vine leaves are stuffed with rice and spiced meat.
The dolma at Real Taste Kurdish is delicious — lightly spiced and dripping in red paprika oil, it’s served with a hunk of tender lamb, falling off the bone. On the side comes a crisp naan and a tray of pickled cabbage, finger chillies and lemon wedges, the acid cutting through the sweet fattiness of the dish.
A recommendation so good I’ll forgive him taking me the long way home to run up the fare.
