[Rating:4/5]
Update 7th March 2010: Yesterday was a foodwalk, very aptly named by Siddhartha Singh ‘The American Foreign Policy Foodwalk’, who wasn’t able to attend it unfortunately. Chapter one – Afghanistan, happened yesterday with Ishita Thakur and Sonny Rao. We went with the intention of going to the other two Afghani restaurants that have opened since but couldn’t manage as we ordered way too much at Afghan. Going by my last experience, I think they’re started serving spicier food to Indians; very very good by the way. We ordered Qabuli Pulao, Kufta Chulao, Mutton Qorma, Kufta Qorma and Tandoori Chicken the Afghani way along with Afghani rotis and Dogh. The Pulaos were essentially cumin flavored rice tossed with meat (and raisins and carrots for the Qabuli variety), but the Qormas were awesome, especially the Mutton Qorma, made with very tender, slightly different cuts of meat, coated with a gravy that was quite oily, rich in spices but low in chili. We ate directly from the plates, holding the thick, spongy rotis in our hands, coating them with that beautiful gravy and in general making one delicious mess but enjoying ourselves thoroughly. Everything was cooked very well and we’ll certainly be returning. Including one additional Dogh and three more Mutton Qormas we packed and took home with us our bill was INR 1500. Just in case you didn’t know, they’re open for lunch too. Telephone numbers are 65569389 and 9990996123. The number mentioned at the end of this post may not be valid.
Ashwin (of MentorLink fame) took us out to the Afghan restaurant, Lajpat Nagar yesterday.A foodie himself, Ashwin likes finding restaurants and places to eat in little known places. “Before they start dishing out commercial crap”, were his words on the subject.
Anyhow, more of an eating house than a restaurant the way we all expect it, the Afghan restaurant is a very small place (20 covers in all) with a few tables and a ‘takht’ in one corner. The takht is a raised platform covered with carpets on and behind it. A traditional form of eating, it was quite refreshing and different to sit cross legged and eat. I’ll bet most of us haven’t done so in quite a while.
First off, we were served water only on asking about 20 minutes later, the service is raw, uninformed but friendly and finally, the place is a bit dodgy at best.
Having got all that behind us, lets get to the good part – the food.
We started with the Manto and a chicken leg kebab. Mantos are Afghanistans answer to the Tibetan momo or Chinese dumplings. Composed of lightly spiced meat in a flour shell, it is steamed and served covered with one layer of beaten yoghurt and a second layer of a tomato based dressing. The chicken leg kebabs were heavily scored chicken legs, coated with dry (I think) spices and deep fried. They appeared burnt and rather dark initially, but were perfectly cooked and quite delicious when we actually bit into them.
One thing about Afghani food is the nearly total lack of spices or more specifically, the chilli hot spices. The food isn’t bland, it has seasonings and spices, but hardly any red or green chillies. The owner of the Afghan Restaurant, Wahidullah Noory, who took over the place a year back, says Afghani people sometimes walk in after not having eaten anything substantial for 1 – 2 days because they cannot tolerate the spicy nature of Indian food. Apparently 80% of their customers are Afghanis and 20% are Indian Kashmiris and foreign tourists.
Continuing our repast, we ordered Dogh, Dashi kebab and a mutton korma with Afghani naans. Dogh is a lassi (watered yoghurt whipped with some spices) with mint, onion, tomato and salt, served in large beer mugs. The Dashi kebab are mutton ribs served in an oily gravy composed wholly of half fried onions and some spices. The korma was unlike any other korma I’ve eaten anywhere else. Essentially very well done mutton in a thickish onion tomato gravy. The naans again were unlike any other naan I’ve eaten. Served in square portions, it was totally devoid of oil, made of whole wheat flour and quite springy in texture.
So, there we were, sitting cross legged on a carpeted takht, with large single portions of food in front of us, naans in hand and doing our best to demolish everything. By the way, we weren’t eating in individual plates – we did it Afghani style – all for one and one for all – all of us ate from the same portions only keeping our naans and Doghs to ourselves.
We also chanced upon an elderly, huge, gruff looking Afghani gentleman named Mohd Alim. He apparently was/is the head of the Afghanistan High Court. When I requested a little smile for my photo, while he obliged, he also said that “We’ll smile only when our country is free of war”. Surprisingly soft spoken and gentle in demeanor, he too had come to the Afghan for an authentic Afghani meal.
Summarising, we had 1 portion each of Manto, chicken leg kebab, doshi kebab and mutton korma. We had 3 portions of Dogh and naan. The damages for a meal for three came to INR 460 – which was surprisingly low. They do home deliveries, takeaways and accept credit cards.
Afghan Restaurant: H-7, Krishna Market, Near Gurudwara, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi – I, +91.98734-28432
That’s an interesting post. I wonder if we have anything similar here, I shall have to investigate. The food sounds good, as did the whole experience, would you go there again? Very colourful pictures!
The food was quite unlike anything we’ve had before. It was a friendly, warm and colorful ambience.
Yes, I think I will be going there again, but only rarely, as I could do without the calories.
Bless! Have you started the daily swimming yet??
yes ma’am, nearly. every other day or so, depending on when work leaves me.
I’m very pleased to hear it!
The food sounds good. I admit I did wrinkle my nose at the “no spices” part of it. However I would like to go there sometime
hi did u learn photography n cooking? Just came through your blog,nice pictures,r u trained?
hello amit,
I’m happy you like the blog and pictures. I learnt cooking and photography myself, as i was interested in doing so.
technically, no i am not trained in either.
sid
hi,
thanks a lot for ths post, i had heard about this place but had no idea how is it. after reading this i think i will have to raid the place. it will be helpful if you can give me some direction to find it.
arijit
@Arijit: sorry, i don’t remember the route… why don’t you try calling the restaurant at the numbers mentioned. i’m sure they’ll be very happy to help.
Having been egged on the by the provocative descriptions of Sid’s dining experience at the Afghan R, I could hardly wait to visit the place and I did, too, last Saturday. While I am pretty sure Sid must have enjoyed what he describes as distinctly Afghani stuff – the pulao and the qormas, all oily stuff, I was very clear that I wouldn’t be in a position to consume high-calorie stuff while wanting to enjoy Afghan food, nevertheless. I therefore fell for the most tempting photo of Afghani Tandoori Chicken served on a bed of fresh greens, oh-so-enticing (check out CaL on FB). I ordered it, with a glass of Dogh (thin, savoury lassi) to wash it down. Well, Sid’s photographing skills being brilliant, the picture did the job of moving me from Gurgaon to south Delhi all right. But the dining experience was nothing to brag about. I am sure I would attribute this to my choice of dishes – having avoided their signature qorma and pulao, and having settled for the Tandoori Chicken, I felt that the dish only matched up to any standard preparation of Tandoori Chicken at any average Dhaba – there was nothing distinctive about it, neither anything Afghan, the only discernible trait being that extra lemony tang, thanks to a guessable overdose of lemon juice in the marinade. Also, I missed the smoky flavours of Tandoor, because the “Tandoori Chicken” in question was clearly a product of the Grill Microwave, evenly crusted and browned on all sides giving it a mechanical finish, sans the naturalness and enticing flavour of an open-fire cooking. I would better describe the chicken dish as microwave-grilled chicken with standard Indian spice marinade. Ha! As for the lassi, it was a low-salt diluted Chaachh sans spices, jeera et al. Well, well, well. At the end of it all, I wished I hadn’t braved Lajpat Nagar and instead, would have spent a happier, lazier afternoon at home ordering Tandoori Chicken and Chaach from the restaurant in the basement. At least, there would have been the authentic Tandoor flavour to fall back upon!
Doesn’t this remind you of that no carb, no fat, vegetarian pizza ad where all they were served were tomatoes? The chicken was indeed the low point of the meal, one that was quite expected. Next time, come with us and try the Korma sans dripping.