Didar Persian Cuisine — Restaurant in Hayward

Bad business and customer experience. Here's why. On Friday evening I drove up to this cloud kitchen and placed the order for a kabab combo plate, a salad and a Fesenjan Vegetarian. As I was trying this place for the first time I confirmed with the guy at the front that in Fesenjan everything is indeed fully vegetarian dish, as my wife is strictly vegetarian. Later at night, around 9.30 pm when we opened the box to enjoy the dinner, we realized that the Fesenjan dish given to us is a chicken version. I tried a spoon to be sure. SO there was no food for my wife except the watery Shirazi salad. So the next day ie Saturday I took the box for proof and went to the restaurant asking for a refund. They took the box, consulted in the kitchen and straight away refused it. Why ? They said that I didn't come down the last night itself to return!! Ridiculous reason !!! Google Maps and Yelp says the Didar restaurant closes at 8PM. Naturally I won't drive for 30 mins again from home to return that box at 10PM. And the guy also argued that the counter was open till 10PM. How is a customer is supposed to know about it when all the leading sites show you are closed at 8PM. I paid $17 for this dish and was a total waste. There was not a single apology from the representative at the counter or the kitchen !!! They did offer me that they can remake the vegetarian dish. But I didn't want that food on Saturday as I was heading for a dinner somewhere else. We bought the dish on Friday and wanted to have it on that evening !!! How is replacing it on a different going to work. He also mentioned that they aren't authorized to do a refund. If your system is equipped to charge money/taxes/tips for the service from the customer that the same system should be able to issue a refund.

I don't even know why did I even tip 15% on the bill up front as their customer experience was catastrophically poor. Neither the kitchen nor the guy at the counter helped me when I needed too. Service was abysmal !!!

Taste of the food As I said above, I tried the Fesenjan with a spoon to check if it was vegetarian and I must say I am never going to recommend this dish to anyone. I love pomegranates but this dish had a extremely overpowering taste of pomegranate (and probably a lot of sumac too). The Joojeh Chenjeh Kabab combo tasted fine. It can definitely be shared by 2 persons. The Shirazi salad was all watery. And is not at all worth $8 !!! They also gave a bunch of lavash bread but it didn't come with any yoghurt sauce. So was kind of...

Update: 05/12/2025 Didar continues to satisfy my Persian food cravings. Very consistent and flavorful. Try the grilled wings- joojeh with bones- Its excellent

Update: 03/27/2025 My whole family has been enjoying Didar for about a year now so I thought an update is deserved. I ordered some food tonight. The koobideh and chicken combo plus tadig with Gheimeh stew. The servings are massive. Absolutely delicious traditional Persian food. I enjoyed everything as always.

Update 9/7/24 This restaurant is amazing Today I tried more foods and they were just as amazing. As a Persian I highly recommend this place as one of the best Persian food places in the east bay. The lamb shank and Baghali polo was outstanding.

I just moved to Hayward and as a Persian the first thing I look for is a local Persian Restaurant and boy I found a gem of place .5 miles from my apartment. Didar has all the standard dishes I love plus some extras you don’t expect like Taadig and stew. The servings are more than adequate and flavors are magnificent. The Koobideh kabab has a nice bite to it and they are huge. The rice is one of the most tender and delicious rices I have ever had even at my mom’s 😊. The Taadig is crispy and Ghormeh Sabzi stew absolutely delicious with plenty of lime flavor which other restaurants are very conservative about. Overall a 5 star for me. Try it and love it. Keep it up. Much success to you all. Cannot wait to try the other items...

One of my best lifetime experiences of tasting Persian foods happened in Didar, I have ordered Koobideh and Joojeh, I would say there are Koobideh kabobs in the US as great as Didar’s ones but finding a Joojeh kabob as perfect as Didar, I would say it’s almost impossible. The taste is incredibly amazing, it was above perfect, I literally don’t know how to describe it better, it was like a Joojeh kabob that in Iran you only can get it in a some of very high class hotel restaurants or in some wedding parties that they make tons of them with very talented chefs. That means chef of Didar is as talented as they are. Do not miss your opportunity to enjoy this food at Didar. I believe chef of Didar should be in Iranian part of restaurant of White House to introduce Iranian food the way they should be to the world. Thank you Didar for such a phenomenal experience...