7 Grill Mediterranean

Also known as Seven Grill, Garden Grove’s 7 Grill Mediterranean is legitimately a “hidden gem” by local restaurant standards, nestled behind a Valvoline oil change garage in a small Little Saigon plaza. If it had been located in Orange County’s Arab cultural and culinary district Little Arabia five miles away, it would have competed with numerous Mediterranean dining rivals, but here, it’s surrounded by Vietnamese restaurants – Brodard Chateau is across the street – and almost certainly the best Persian restaurant in Little Saigon.

Credit to both 7 Grill’s chef – said to have recently relocated here from a “top 15” restaurant in Iran – and its friendly front-of-house team, who clearly understand that they’re serving unusually excellent plates by local standards. The menu choices are typically Persian, including appetizers such as hummus, eggplant, and yogurt dips, dolmeh grape leaves, and small bowls with olives, pickled vegetables, or vinegared cucumbers; several soups and salads; and expected entrees including beef and chicken shish kabobs, koobideh, and barg options, as well as lamb chops. None of the choices will surprise you much if you’ve visited any Persian or Mediterranean place in this area; it’s only when the plates arrive that you’ll realize something special is going on.

While the kashkeh bademjan eggplant dip we received didn’t look at all like 7 Grill’s menu photo – a rare exception in our experience – it was served warm and perfectly flavored, ideally balancing onion, garlic, eggplant, and mint flavors with light drizzles of kashk whey. A bowl of hummus was sublimely creamy, preserving the flavor of chickpeas without any grit in the texture. Served warm or cold at your preference, grape leaves arrived with a drizzle of sweet and sour fruit vinegar, and tasted quite good; if we were to tweak anything, it would be the seemingly sourced rather than handmade pitas, which were unleavened and a little bland, but quickly and generously replenished.