Colbeh — Restaurant in New York

Came here for a business meeting and the dinner was free. Despite that, I think this place is just a solid 3. We had a private room which was nice.

We didn't get the pick from the menu as the meal was pre-determined but I think this is what we had. Salad Shirazi, Tossed Salad, Mango salad, and Salad Olivieh. We also had slices of bread with 4 different types of spread (babaganoush, chumus, tahina, and matbucha I think). My favorite was the babaganoush. All the spreads were tasty and fresh. All the salads needed a lot more work. The only one I liked more than the others was the mango salad. The other salads were flavorless. Needed more seasoning.

We also had hot appetizers: morrocan cigars, burekas, and some other fried stuff. I actually liked the morrocan cigars. Fairly tasty but nothing memorable. The rest of the fried stuff was too oily and the dough overpowered the stuff/ingredients.

For the main course: chelo kebab koobideh, barg, chengeh, boneless joujeh and kebab chelo. The beef should have been cooked medium rare, it came out well. It was kind of chewy. The chicken breast was dry and the flavors didn't really penetrate through into the meat as expected. The ground beef was more flavorful but that's inherent. They also served us three different types of rice (white, "green rice" with lots of herbs, and a "yellow/orange" rice with orange peels in it I think). I actually liked the "yellow/orange" rice. The "green rice" took some time to get used to because it was heavily seasoned with herbs.

Service was decent. They were attentive and came to clear our appetizer dishes. They put out bottles of water at the table already so we could just refill our glasses ourselves. As for drinks, they came about 3 times to the table.

Overall, it's an okay place. I'm not sure about the pricing but as other reviewers have noted, it's probably expensive for this type of food and the quality of food you're getting. I assume this place is also kosher because there were individuals at the table that were able to eat everything...

I have been in many Persian restaurants in Iran and a few Persian restaurants in Chicago, Los Angeles, and NYC, they were all great. Unfortunately this time my experience was disappointing. As long as we got in the restaurant, the staff were not welcoming and the one who gave us service seems to be very sad and poured the water pitcher along his way for a next table, seems not willing to work, facial expressions are very important, everyone might have many bad times but when you are in your work place make your best, especially when you want to make a memorable time and memory for your costumers who visit your restaurant :) any way, after receiving the food, the Ghormeh Sabzi was mostly sabzi, I rarely could find a few red beans, and little meat, it was too much in compare to the rice they brought for that, let's be honest but the stew ghormeh sabzi was yummy though. The Stake was also yummy but no lemon along with that, also the ketchup was ran out along the way we started to use it, Appetizer was also disappointing, it was mostly unused. Not Persian to cooperate with the rest of food. no Persian bread. our water was filled once but seems staffs were just forced to make a work, of course not all of them. Also, there was no butter with the rice! Any way, one last complain is that, they should make a space welcoming for people, complete it with nice Persian musics, the space looked to be dead, instead of playing two TV's which had no sound and nobody is interested in watching, they must play nice Persian musics, people would get energy and continue their conversations anyway. To be fair for the manager we also got a small gift of Gheimeh along with Tahdik, thanks for that. I hope they consider these suggestions to make a special experience for their...

We ate at Colbeh/Paprika in Manhattan on May 25, 2021. The menus on line do not appear to be current. We were a party of 5. Four of us were interested in the stews. There are four stews on the menu, but they were out of Bademjoun and Fesenjoun, which was disappointing because 3 of us were going to order the Bademjoun. Upon learning of the absentee entree, I opted for the Fesenjoun, to the same result. Eventually, 4 of us ordered the Ghormeh Sabzi, and the fifth a shawarma. We were off to a rough start. We also ordered the Merguez Bites as an appetizer.

A gentleman whom we believe to be a manager and/or owner came by with Hummus, gratis, which was very good. Next, our server came by with Gheimeh, another stew, which we did not order. This, too, was gratis. "We want you to try the other stew." It was wonderful.

The Merguez was next, which was a large portion of an appetizer. By this point we were almost full but not complaining.

Next came the entrées, which, again, were very generous in portions. Everything we ate was fantastic.

I cannot say enough nice things about the staff and the food. Service was excellent. Food was excellent. Nice atmosphere. A shame there were not more patrons at this restaurant. I wish we had a Kosher restaurant like this in Chicago/Skokie. We all loved everything about this...