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If ever there were a hidden, albeit quirky, gem of a takeaway, you’ll discover it on the unassuming and seemingly forgotten Scott Street in downtown Kitchener.

Across from the former home of two of the city’s icons, the Waterloo Region Record and the Kitchener Farmers’ Market, KW Wholesale is in the former Braun’s bicycle shop which closed, rather ignominiously, in 2014 after more than eight decades in business.

Today, though, open the door at 27 Scott St. and you enter what is a half-soccer pitch of food products, cooking supplies, kitchen ephemera, notions and gadgets — and some very nice-looking Turkish carpets, to boot.

Head through the brightly lit aisles and then past pallets of rice and cooking oil to the back, and you’ll find a POS, partially obscured by pandemic plastic shielding, and a cooler case with ready-made dishes like mutabal and grape leaves — and skewered meats, wrapped and awaiting the grill — prepared by Yum Yum Kabob.

On one side is a flotsam and jetsam of wholesale storage, including the largest cooking pot I have ever seen — empty, it weighs 18 kilograms and costs $550 — and on the other is a collection, taped to the wall, of health department COVID-19 protocols for employees.

Yum Yum Kabob stands on its own, however, and has done so since it opened about six months ago.

Co-owners Somaya Mohammadi and Hussein Ferdos describe the cooking as a blend of Afghan and Persian, the menu for which is roughly 18 or so items.

Ferdos says he attended culinary school in Afghanistan, but most of his training has come from cooking in several countries.

“Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran. I took a little bit (of knowledge) away from each,” he says.

For us, that translates into comforting food, pure and simple.

Grilled meats and soft, fluffy rice are embellished with spices and seeds and the requisite — and virtually symbolic to the cuisine — chargrilled tomato, held together ever so tenuously by its blackened and blistered pericarp, making it even more delicious.

Vaziri kebab is, in tradition, a dish of the court prepared for a king’s viziers, or ministers: a flat skewer of joojeh kebab (saffron-tinctured chicken) along with a skewer of koobideh on rice.

Koobideh is a blend of beef cuts Ferdos has specially prepared by a halal butcher. The kitchen seasons the meat with onion, spice and salt and pepper, presses it onto the flat skewer into an undulating shape and grills it, traditionally over hot coals.

At the grill, cook Shahrzad uses a bamboo hand fan called a bad bezan to temper flare-ups. “We want to control heat and keep the flame off the meat,” Ferdos says.

On the stove is a pot of rice with a large pillowlike piece of equipment that serves as a cover: known as a damkoni, the pillow simply but effectively absorbs steam from the cooking rice that, on a regular pot lid, would condense and drip into the rice, ruining its fluffiness and starch structure.

The resulting basmati has a perfect texture accompanying its fragrance, to which saffron is then added as pomegranate seeds garnish — both tasty and visually appealing.

Joining the kebabs are a house-made Persian-style yogurt sauce, a tender and mildly vinegared red cabbage salad, and onion and parsley sprinkled with sumac.

Lest you think the bite of raw onion salad is too strong, its pungency is moderated by — and actually negotiates seamlessly with — the meat and rice, elevating the layers of flavour.

"Persian people,” according to Ferdos, “love eating koobideh with onion, parsley and sumac.”

Should they try it, I imagine a lot of people here will agree.

Andrew Coppolino is a Kitchener-based food writer and broadcaster. Visit him at www.andrewcoppolino.com.

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