Pasha Restaurant

Kurdish Restaurant - alleyway off Wilmslow Rd, Rusholme 

This is a genuinely interesting place to eat. It is a Kurdish 'restaurant', its alleyway location and lack of English sights and sounds make it feel like it is located in a foreign country – the least western feeling place we’ve been to. The menu is confusing and inaccurate and the service is pretty unhelpful. The menu had a mixture of English words and Arabic script. The English words on it did not necessarily apply to actual dishes that they served or line up with their actual prices – so ordering was a bit of a problem – does ‘chicken’ mean a whole chicken? A chicken kebab? chicken gizzards? etc. – a sheep’s head was mentioned at one point, which apparently is what 'Pasha' means and is a national dish. Although that may have been a misunderstanding too.  In the end, without any real idea what was going on or how to proceed, the fall-back of shish kebab was ordered - even though it was not written on the menu. We were asked to sit down, bowls of pleasant tasting, thin stock/soup followed as did a rather limp plate of salad. It was not clear if these were to eat immediately or to accompany the kebabs, which took quite a while.  When the kebabs did arrive they were something akin to a fried kobeda - tasty but very greasy as would be expected of deep fried mince. However, the bread was of a very high standard - thin, light and crispy, which suited the rich kebabs. Some tart chilli sauce, to cut the grease a bit, would have been nice. One good aspect was that the bread and kebabs just kept coming rather than a ‘portion’ being served. This meant that there was a huge amount of food - although we did pay £6.00 each. This is a slightly difficult place to come without prior knowledge of Kurdish food or language – not one for the unadventurous. Perhaps there are gems of culinary greatness here – they’re just hard to find.