Appetizer choices consist simply of raw or pickled vegetables, but a sufficient beginning to the meal is the basket of flat bread, with a dish of green herb paste peppery enough to clear any winter stuffiness. Try this fiery condiment, but only after you've buffered the bread with a thin veneer of butter. White rice, served with beef dishes, achieves greatness when you order a raw egg yolk on the side, to stir in so that the egg coats all the grains as the heat cooks it. Also stir in as much butter as you dare, and sprinkle on the dark, brown, powdered sumac that's in a shaker on the table. The other rice variations are recommended with chicken dishes.
Sweet rice is perfumed with sugared orange peel and crunchy with pistachios and almonds.
Cherry rice is topped with syrupy preserved cherries, and barberry rice is studded with tart dried red currants.