Mohsen

Mohsen is a long-established Persian restaurant in an unpromising location opposite Homebase in the Warwick Road, north of Earls Court. Established in 1994, it has a simple ground-floor dining room with a tiled floor and a few tables without tablecloths. There is a bread oven positioned in the window, and the bread, described on the menu as “naan” (there are plenty of links between Persian and Indian cuisine), is made there in full view of the dining room. The restaurant has no alcohol license, but serves fruit juices and water. Evian was priced at just £1 for a small bottle, a nice change from the West End.

The laminated menu had a few careless typos (“desert”, “auborigine”) and had starters priced from £3.50 to £5, main courses £10 to £14, with desserts £3.  Hummus was pleasant (11/20) with decent texture, served with bread that was served directly from the oven. This was evidently fresh, yet the texture was rather rough rather than supple, and much worse than bread I had eaten at Persian restaurant Hafez just a few days earlier (11/20).

Chelo khoresh fesenjan is a speciality of the restaurant, an Iranian stew consisting of chicken served on the bone in a dark sauce made with pomegranates and  walnuts, served with basmati rice. The chicken was slow-cooked and was tender enough, a little dry even though it was served in a sauce. The sauce was overly sweet to my taste; of course pomegranate is intended to provide this, but it seemed too dominant to me (10/20). The rice itself was nicely cooked and the grains of rice distinct, but this did not make up for the distinctly ordinary chicken.

Service was cursory. Despite this being a quiet lunch, staff wandered past mostly ignoring me, with one waiter occasionally breaking off his phone conversations to take the order or deliver some food. The two courses with water to drink came to £17.50, which is certainly not expensive. However, despite the low price, I wasn’t overly taken by my admittedly limited experience with the food or service here, and would not rush back.