Kabul Afghan Cuisine

Recommended: Pakawra E Katchalu, lamb sabzi,kebabs, lamb qorma, kadu, boulani, lamb loin chops, mater challaw

Skip: mantu, aushak

Pakawra E Katchalu (batter-dipped potatoes with yogurt and meat sauce) - although the same yogurt and meat sauce came with several other dishes, it was especially good with these. They’re more pastry-like than the description suggested – sort of fried turnovers stuffed with mashed potato.

Shrimp kebabs - smoky, juicy, sweet, perfectly cooked.

Lamb sabzi, made with boneless chunks of shank is the best version of this dish around. The spinach doesn’t taste warmed over and the spicing is brighter somehow. The chunks of lamb have the smooth succulence of shank meat.

Terrific lamb qorma that beats the other local Indian restaurant versions hands down. It’s not as spicy, but the tender morsels are to die for.

Boulani, is a turnover filled with ground lamb, mashed potatoes, cilantro, and herbs. The accompanying spicy mint chutney with it was very good. Rather than a griddled, multi-layered, stuffed flatbread, the version here is more an empanada with a short, tender crust. Quite crispy, the exterior seemed like it was deep-fried.

Two lamb loin chops were at least an inch thick, subtly seasoned, and cooked rare as ordered. Delicious with a bit of the green chutney.

The pallau, white rice and the bread were just beautiful. Long, individual fluffy grains of fragrant rice pallau and mild spicing. The thick and chewy focaccia-like flat bread.had satisfying chewiness and crunchy edges.,

Rice comes with entrees and was perfectly cooked and well seasoned (depending on the dish, it was either plain or spiced with coriander, cinnamon, probably some other spices as well).

The house salad is made with iceberg and a slice each of tomato and cucumber, the creamy herb dressing was nice.

Mantu was fine but not as good as they can be. The dumplings were a bit dried out on the edges (like from microwaving to reheat) yet doused with the heavy yogurt and delicious meat sauce, they hit the spot. Complex with long-simmered vegetables, the saucing has a bit of spicy heat here that makes it stand apart from the other Afghan restaurants.

Kadu - pumpkin (tasted like they’d been stewed in sweet spices) with the same yogurt and meat sauce as the pakawra. `.

The vegetable platter which includes three of the four vegetarian entrees, your choice. Kadu (baked pumpkin) was the star of the plate. Not quite as sweet as Helmand’s and with a firmer texture. The other two, eggplant and cauliflower, were identical in taste, differentiated only by the soggy lumps of cauliflower for a contrast in texture. The better choice would probably have been sabzi (spiced spinach) for one of them.

Mater challaw, lamb stewed with peas, onion, tomato, spices – very tender lamb, balanced spices, the most Indian-tasting of the dishes .

Some posters feel Kabul isn’t the best example of Afghan cuisine ... It’s the stewy dishes, the the aushak, the fritters, the rice dishes, etc that are the heart and soul of the cuisine ... the stewed pumpkin sweet and simple, the spiced yogurt drink (dough) was terribly tamed down, the mantoo (dumplings from over the Uzbek border) were vestigial, and the chalow was hardly worth a second bite. It was a uniformly mega-bleh meal.

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