As you are probably aware, North Van has a significant Iranian-Canadian population and therefore some great Iranian food is to be had. Scout Magazine's "Never Heard Of It" list has a couple of these places listed and we have been intending to visit Yaas Grill House. Apparently, Yaas has been heard of by now. They have 2 outlets just a few blocks apart. We stopped at the first one that we spotted and I'm not sure if it is the original outlet or not. Just off the freeway on Lonsdale is a convenient location. We started with an eggplant dip (they were out of the smoked eggplant) with pita and some house-made pickles. This was the best pita that we have ever had. They make it in house and it has some beautiful char and was hot and perfect! Also amazing was the eggplant dip (could have used some salt) and I am not sure what the specific flavours in the pickles were but they were also excellent! The ground meat skewers were as expected. Nicely charred and served with very good basmati rice, grilled tomato and a little side of sumac. Number one on the menu is a bargain and a winner. The Sunday specials both had sour cherry rice on the side. I had never heard of this but was immediately convinced that it was critical to my life experience! And it was amazing as you would expect! After lunch, we walked up the road to a Persian grocery to buy sour cherries and I have tried to recreate this since then! The Sunday special offered lamb shank as one main. This was fall-apart tender and tasty! At $15 this is a smoking deal. Come here on Sunday for this!
So the lady who took our order was not too friendly but she had a neck brace and probably should have been home recuperating. Food was delivered to our table wordlessly by another server and we got the feeling that we were not such amazing customers. No sense being judgemental though as we don't know what is going on in their lives. The food was great and the value indisputable.