Sadly, this chicken stew tastes about as good as it looks. Pacific Market’s name gives nothing away. The business at 12332 Lake City Way N.E. is neither solely a market nor sells anything from the Pacific, so don’t come expecting an Asian or PNW grocery of sorts. What you’ll find is actually a home-style Persian restaurant and food shop. Situated among a strip of dilapidated bars, tattoo shops, and unremarkable restaurants, Pacific Market is equal parts grocery and sit-down diner, with five small tables and a couple of sparsely stocked aisles of ingredients–more like the owners’ personal pantry than a proper market. It’s a tiny space, but even still, when I visit with a friend for a weekday lunch, we’re the only people there for the duration of our hour-long meal. The silver lining of an empty restaurant is that there’s no excuse for bad service, and fortunately the man helping us (an owner, I’m guessing) is friendly and offers suggestions to help us navigate the menu of unfamiliar names–Persian stews, kabobs, and appetizers, mostly. I’d been recommended the khoreshte fesenjan, a chicken dish in a sauce of pomegranate, walnuts, and pumpkin, so we order that, along with a beef and okra stew called khoreshte bamieh. Before our meal arrives, we’re served a basket of lavash and a bowl of intensely vinegary cauliflower and celery pickles. The pickles are overwhelming and the lavash would be better paired with some sort of dipping sauce, but when you’re starving, it’ll hold you over until the food arrives. When our main dishes do come, the pomegranate chicken is different than we’d imagined–rather than a chunky stew, the chicken has been cooked in a puree of the other ingredients, the result being tender meat pieces in a thick, brown gravy that is quite sour and a little sweet. The beef and okra is actually better. Though okra is a difficult vegetable to work with, it’s cooked well in a tomato-based sauce, and the stewed beef could have been cooked longer to soften it up, but it’s not bad. Both dishes have strong flavors that require the large plates of basmati rice they come with. Neither are dishes we would crave in the future, but I’m glad we’ve tried them.There’s a large tray of fresh baklava near the register, and I see a sign for homemade saffron ice cream as well, but we’re so full we can’t manage post-lunch dessert.A few minutes of browsing through the grocery section is all that’s needed–sections of the freezer are bare, and there are holes on the shelves. Scattered around are jars of whey called kashk, huge loaves of pistachio-studded mortadella, bottles of sour-cherry syrup, bags of dried beans, saffron-coated rock candy, and a few staples like spices and olive oil. On our way out, the owner says, “Spread the word!” He’s so genuine that I wish the words I had to spread about the mediocre experience were better. Follow Voracious on Twitter and Facebook.