Paymon's Mediterranean Café & Market changes its name.After fielding so many phone calls from upset customers it dawned on me that we would have to finally change our name. After having built his business into a successful model, Paymon would be forced to better identify his brand of business. No longer could he fend off the marketing genius of other restaurants by simply ignoring them. Amidst all of the chaos, the customer that so loved the Paymon's Mediterranean Café and Market was rather confused.
The phone calls and face-to-face meetings with customers were quite contemptuous. How could Paymon open another restaurant in another part of the valley that was so mediocre in food quality, service and ambience? How could this man that consistently delivered such a fine product, adorned by so many food service awards, deceive us in such a way?
Good luck to all of the restaurants present and past that have tried to capitalize on the name and reputation of Paymon Raouf’s Paymon's Mediterranean Café and Market. You will certainly need it! It was quite amazing to see such a percentage of restaurants serving our style of cuisine confusing customers with names so similar to the Paymon's Mediterranean Café. In a world of so many creative name choices, how could it come to be that customers could be so confused over who the operators are?
After promising the hundreds of callers that the other Mediterranean restaurants were not operated by us, I quickly decided to convince Paymon into using a name that everyone in the valley was familiar with for our existing business and our upcoming ventures. No longer would customers be confused. When they see PAYMONS on the sign they will know it is owned by Paymon Raouf.
The new name of our restaurant is Paymon’s Paymon's Mediterranean Café. The lounge is Paymon’s Hookah Lounge. The grocery market is the Mediterranean Gourmet Market.
For the record, as of now we have one location at the corner of Flamingo and Maryland parkway.
Jeff Ecker
General Manager
RESTAURANT REVIEW: Honor Student
With UNLV nearby, Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe & Market charms patrons with favorable food, friendly service
By HEIDI KNAPP RINELLA
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Let's see ... a campus-area restaurant with a quirky campus atmosphere, prompt service by attitude-free earnest young college students, an inspired ethnic menu and -- oh, yeah -- great food, too.
Sounds like a winner to me.
Nothing cookie-cutter about the Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe, either. There was the moussaka ($13.95), for example, which I almost skipped, actually, because this is a Greek/Mideastern restaurant and the moussaka presented itself as ... well ... moussaka. Get-it-in-any- Greek-restaurant moussaka.
But this turned out to be inspired moussaka. Like a particularly successful showgirl, all the parts were there, and in the right proportions. There was the eggplant, sliced thinly enough so it had that sort of melted texture that all eggplant should aspire to. Ground beef (although we would've preferred lamb) seasoned with just the right amount of cinnamon. Tender sliced potatoes -- an option in the classic, it seems, but one that adds a nice textural aspect. A textbook bechamel, which is to say rich and creamy, its roux sufficiently developed that we didn't taste any flour.
And -- oh! -- the surprise of roasted red peppers. A natural, of course, considering the affinity of peppers and eggplant, but not something you encounter in most moussaka. And the choice of red was perfect, for flavor sweeter than the green would've been.
Then there was the fesanjan ($12.95). Oh, good heavens, the fesanjan! This is another staple -- of Persian restaurants, which are more rare than Greek ones, though Greek ones are rare enough in this town, truth be told. Few fesanjans are as perfectly balanced as this one. The secret of a fesanjan is the pomegranate juice, which imparts a nice tart touch, and ground or finely chopped walnuts, for a bit of contrasting sweet and to impart a lovely texture to the sauce. Nicely done, and the use of boneless/skinless chicken breasts was great, because we didn't have to mess with it.
Hmmm, what else. Oh, how come we never can find pita bread like this in Las Vegas? (Maybe we should start checking the Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe's adjacent market.) Soft little pillows of joy. If you're used to that cardboard that the supermarkets call pita, you really ought to try this.
And we tried a fair amount of it, because we were busily using it to scrape up the dips on our combo dip plate ($5.25) which in our case (you get a choice of two) were a serviceable hummus and the bourrani, a creamy mixture with the tang of yogurt, the grassy taste of spinach and enough garlic and olive oil to mellow things out. Trust us; it's worth risking the bits of spinach in your teeth.
The saganaki ($6.50), another Greek-restaurant staple, was good, even if they didn't flame it at the table (as the menu promised and as every Greek restaurant in the country does with an oversized flourish -- Opa!) and even if they used kefalotyri instead of the more commonly used kasseri cheese, which is a little softer, a little more mellow and a little less salty.
Service throughout was just fine, our young waitress clearly familiar not only with the menu but also the (sort of campus-y) wine list, and deftly serving our wine with a finesse that escapes many servers twice her age.
We finished things up with baklava ($3.95), another Greek-restaurant staple. Oh, but Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe offers two different types of baklava: the standard, and the Mediterranean Baklava, with pistachios instead of walnuts and with the addition of chopped mango, with an orange syrup instead of the usual lemon. The flavor of honey still shines through, though, and it's absolutely, positively delicious, especially with some fresh coffee.
Sweet.
Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are unannounced and done anonymously at Review-Journal expense.