"When he came here, he was shocked, because baking is different here," Tahmili says.

"You can do chocolate chip cookies off the box here. [In Iran], it's all handmade."

Tahmili says this commitment to the Persian style of baking sets him apart.

"From the day I opened, all the stuff I make is totally different," he says.

"You have to know something different. People come to my shop, since everything I make is new," he says.

Even the tools he uses are unique.

A large copper disc on the end of a long metal rod is used to make the ingredients for a Persian-style cream puff. A row of small cookie cutters forms the uncommonly shaped chickpea flour cookies.

Coming to America

A relic of the early years of the shop remains, though: an archaic electronic eggbeater, now yellowed, that Tahmili bought for $3 at a garage sale.

For a year and a half after opening the bakery, Tahmili was in debt. "It was very tough, because you don't know the business, you don't have enough customers," he says.

"But I didn't give up. Every time I talked to my father, he said, don't worry. You have a unique shop, you use the best quality. Just keep using the best quality."

But despite Tabrizi's pure-cream frosting and sour lemon syrup, the baking wasn't going as planned.

Boston's humid weather changed the consistency of the recipes meant for Tehran's dry climate.

"I had to have a lot of phone calls in the beginning with my father, discussing when it didn't come out," Tahmili says. "We had to change a lot of our recipes."

Free samples helped the bakery to attract more customers, and foot traffic slowly increased.