Individually owned restaurants are hard to find these days. Finding Parsa Kabob, a Persian (Iranian) eatery on Old Waterloo Road in Elkridge is even harder than it used to be last summer when it opened.

That's because Old Waterloo Road is tucked down behind that huge superstore complex that boasts Costco, Lowe's, Best Buy and other big-name retailers, plus a trio of popular recipe restaurants.

Still, locals have been finding Parsa Kabob's neighboring restaurant, Waterloo Pizza, for 20 years now. Which is undoubtedly why owners Ali and Shannon Shirva decided to try their hands at an eatery that serves creative, reasonably priced fare inspired by the cuisine of Ali's native land and other Middle Eastern countries.

The dining room here is a few-frills operation. Designed to be a counter-service establishment, there are about 40 seats in the single-room site. Walls are butter yellow "stucco" above and robin's egg blue below. Scattered here and there are small arrangements of photographs from Iran.

Tabletops are bare, with a "mahogany" finish, and a few condiments set atop. Your dinnerware will be foam. Your utensils will be black plastic. Your napkins will be paper.

And the only beverages are soft drinks: sodas, something called "dough" (more later) and pomegranate juice. No alcohol is served and you can't bring any in.

From scratch

Despite its being somewhat less than a full-service, fine-dining establishment, you'll fare well at Parsa Kabob, whether you eat in (and thus avoid having to do any dishes at all) or carry the food out.

Four of us visited on a recent Wednesday night. The place wasn't super busy, but doing a steady business, mostly of the carry-out variety.

Ali was dividing his time between Waterloo Pizza and Parsa Kabob. Ali does do some of the cooking -- he's been cooking in restaurants for 25 years, he'll tell you -- but this evening he appeared to be serving as order-taker, server and back-up sous chef.

No worries, though, as a native Iranian was in the kitchen doing his thing and some other kitchen help emerged from the back of the house to serve us our freshly cooked selections.

The menu is simple and proves that the restaurant is aptly named. Kabobs -- skewered, grilled meats, poultry and fish -- in all their variations hold pride of place, while typical Middle Eastern go-withs make appetizing and sometimes exotic combinations from which to choose.

Beef (sirloin, tenderloin and filet mignon, according to the menu), lamb, chicken and fin fish (swordfish and salmon) are on offer. Some of the red meat comes in chunks, while some of it is finely ground and mixed so that it holds together in a tubular shape on the shish-kabob skewer. This approach is termed a "koobideh."

You can also opt for combination plates, which feature two protein sources, or wraps, plus salads, including a Greek salad, a main-dish salad featuring one of the kabobs, and salad shirazi, which features onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, salt and pepper and lemon juice.

There are four different wraps, done up in pita bread, of course, plus a couple of vegetarian dishes, including a vegetarian kabob (onions, green peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and the vegetable of the day), or a falafel sandwich, which boasts vegetarian patties made of fava beans, chick peas, parsley and herbs.

The ingredients for virtually all the dishes, according to chef/owner Shirva, earn the label, "halal," the Islamic equivalent of kosher.

In the beginning ...

We all chose typical soft drinks (this is a Coca Cola establishment). But one of our number also decided to try the "dough" ($1.99). This was a small plastic cup of tangy, yogurt-y liquid sprinkled with mint. Very quenching in its own way, and would be good to sip with spicy food, although nothing we tried was very spicy.

There are a trio of appetizers on the menu, as well. We had some coupons, so we decided to "spring" for them all. They included a half-dozen grape leaves (dolmas) at $4.45; hummus ($4.95) with pita triangles, and an offering of feta cheese with kalamata olives ($4.95).

The kitchen didn't expend a lot of energy garnishing these three dishes. Still, the dolmas were tasty, with tender rice wrapped inside equally tender, lemon-marinated vine leaves. The feta was white and tangy and there was plenty of it, although the pitted kalamata olives were rather scarce, about a half-dozen. The ecru-colored hummus was the classic, smooth and creamy, with just that hint of tahini that we like so much. Plenty of pita bread, lightly heated, albeit on the stale side. We were promised a fresher second helping, but that never materialized.

Three of us chose combination plates for our entrees, while a fourth opted for the only non-Middle Eastern dish: jerk chicken, a nod to our friends in the Caribbean.

All of the dishes, whether an individual entrée pick or a combo platter, were sided by a fragrant mound of two-tone, cooked-just-right basmati rice, a pair of juicy, grilled tomato halves and what we took to be a bit of shirazi salad, minus the tomatoes. These elements on our (foam) platters provided interesting color and textural contrasts to the various protein sources we sample.

The jerk chicken first. This single-item entrée cost $9.95 and provided ample chunks of marinated, grilled chicken. Our taster was expecting a somewhat spicier result, given the "jerk" name, but the chicken was rather subtle, proffering tender, moist, tasty mouthfuls that seemed mild but had an interesting, "spicy" afterburn.

Combination 2 featured a chicken kabob and a shish kabob ($14.45), the latter of which was described as featuring marinated beef tenderloin. The chicken chunks were properly grilled, moist and tender. The "tenderloin" however, needed to be far better trimmed, as there was a lot of fat, and gristle, making some of the meat virtually inedible, and difficult to cut with our plastic knives.

The Sultani combo ($15.95) was for our beef lover, both barg kabob (marinated filet mignon) and beef kabob (the marinated ground sirloin done up "koobideh" style). Both were good, the barg hunks quite tender and moist, the koobideh clearly "homemade," the ground beef an interesting contrast to the chewier chunks.

And combo 5 ($14.95) was for our lamb aficionado, with marinated flavorful, tender (albeit a mite gristly) lamb chunks and a beef kabob (koobideh).

Portions were ample, as we probably mentioned. Some of us even took some leftovers home.

We really didn't need dessert, but decided to try the "homemade rice pudding" ($2.95). Not a large portion at all. Creamy, with the rice tender, as it should be. But it should have a bit of garnish and should be a more generous amount.

Other desserts include cheesecake, chocolate cake, and baklava, which the Shirvas obtain from a bakery in Baltimore's Greektown.

Parsa Kabob (410-799-9191) is at 6590 Old Waterloo Road, Elkridge, in the Lark Brown shopping center.

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