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2700 Jefferson Davis Highway, Alexandria, Va.
(703) 548-0022
Hours of Operation and Prices
Open: M-Th 11 am-11 pm, F-Sun 11 am-midnight
Lunch Entrees: $6-$8
Dinner Entrees: $6-$13
Pre-Theater: Daily 4:30-6:30, $25 (for 2)
Other Information
• Credit Cards: All major
• Reservations: Recommended
• Dress: Casual
• Parking: Free lot
• Entertainment: Afghan music F evening
• Handicapped accessible
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Washington has several good Afghan restaurants, some far more attractive than this plain, warehouse-sized cavern, and most of my favorite Afghan dishes are done better elsewhere. But the bread - called nan - is what attracts me to this restaurant, and in an Afghan meal the bread is all-important.
You can see what I mean when you order a kebab. It's four long, flat skewers threaded with meat, piled on flat bread the size and shape of a skateboard. Blistered from being cooked right on the oven floor, the bread is browned and blackened in spots. It is wonderful bread, stretchy and chewy, with the flavor that a well-developed yeast dough should have. It tastes like pizza dough with soul. Scoop up a little of the tiny tomato-cilantro side salad and the cilantro-green yogurt dip, and eat the bread and the meat together. Think of campfires and of carrying your life's possessions in saddlebags.
Prices here are so low that even the extravagances cost hardly more than an appetizer elsewhere. So splurge on the rib chops. They are cut thin and cooked thoroughly so that the meat is crisp at the edges. Otherwise, there's boneless lamb or less meaty lamb ribs. The beef is ground, mildly seasoned meatballs alternating with bits of tomato on the skewers. But you can taste the seasonings most clearly on the chicken kebabs. They highlight the garlic and cumin and coriander, as well as the charcoal smoke. Also intriguing is carrayee, a mix of diced chicken or lamb sauteed with tomatoes, peppers and onions, smothered in coriander leaves and topped with a fried egg. The cooking here is rustic; some dishes are oily, some dull. Yet the surprise is not that Afghan serves some unsatisfying dishes but that, at its prices, the appetizers and kebabs are as good as they are and the bread is so distinctive.
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