"Welcome to Afghan Kabob House" reads the blackboard at the entrance to the Lindenwood Park restaurant. The message is in chalk, written in English and, presumably, Pashto or Dari toward the bottom of the blackboard. Above it is painted Snax Gastrobar, which closed in 2018. Afghan Kabob House (3500 Watson Road, 314-449-1110) opened in its former home in February 2023 and has not quite finished decorating. The no-frills space is lined with booths and tables but looks like it's still in transition. But that doesn't come across in the menu or food. The former is curated but well rounded, and the latter tastes as if it's been honed in someone's kitchen for years.
That is probably the case. Owner Faizulla Karzai may be opening a new restaurant, but he's not new to the restaurant business. Originally from Kandahar, Afghanistan, Karzai moved to the U.S. in 2002 to join the army. He later cut his teeth at the Helmand — an esteemed, 34-year-old Afghan restaurant in Baltimore — before opening and later selling restaurants in Florida and then Portland, Maine, according to Feast Magazine.
He recently moved back to St. Louis and is now dishing out an exemplary introduction to Afghan cuisine for the uninitiated or a flavorful spin on familiar favorites for those already well-versed in the cuisine.
It's a dreamy evening — gently breezy, warm and quiet — to sit outside on the spacious front patio. The one page, double-sided menu is full of traditional Afghan dishes such as mantu, which is offered as an appetizer and an entree. The dumplings are made of a soft, thin dough that envelops a savory beef, onion and carrot filling. Topped with yellow lentils and yogurt, they burst apart in the mouth for a wallop of flavor with the lightest bit of heat.
The vegetable sambosas bring more heat. The huge dumplings are stuffed with potatoes and vegetables, similar to the Indian samosa, and wrapped in a thick-yet-light pastry that has been fried to a delightful golden brown. A cilantro and jalapeño chutney on the side adds a punch of freshness.
While the kabobs are not to be missed, the karahi chicken — Karzai even told St. Louis Magazine that it's his favorite dish — is a showstopper. The hunks of chicken are smothered in a tomato-based sauce, cooked with onions and green peppers and loaded with spices and a touch of heat. While the meat is bone in, it falls off with ease and dissolves in your mouth.
For most of the dishes we ordered, our server asked if we wanted rice or naan. If given the option, always go for the rice: It is perfectly cooked and salted and flavorful with some kind of fat and cumin. It is easily eaten by the spoonful. In contrast, the Afghan naan, which helps absorb some of the spice of the meal, seems to be baked and is much denser and without the characteristic char marks of what you'd find at an Indian restaurant.
Another star of the carnivorous menu was the lamb chop. It comes with a rice that is rich with cinnamon and clove (slightly different than the side dish rice) that perfectly complements the marinated lamb. There are some fresh vegetables meant to be a garnish rather than a salad — undressed lettuce, tomato, onion and cucumber, which adds touches of freshness between bites of the lamb — if you can stop eating the meat long enough to take bites of something else. The chargrilled tender hunks of bone-in loin have just the right amount of chew and are drenched in spices. Afghan food, in general, doesn't rely on heat, but instead uses spice to build depth of flavor that will culminate in something as complex as the chops, a combination of char and spice that doesn't overwhelm the flavor of the lamb cooked to tender perfection.
Also on the menu are a few dishes that might be familiar from Indian restaurants, such as chicken and lamb biryani and a chicken tikka masala. Neither varies widely from its Indian counterpart, and while they are delightful — the biryani is a mound of spicy rice with tender marinated hunks of lamb; the chicken tikka masala is a rich tomato sauce with just the right blend of sweet and spice — they are not the showstoppers that the other items are.
On the other side of the menu is a much shorter list of vegetarian options. But this collection of dishes is not an afterthought.
Not to be missed is the traditional Afghan bolani, a stuffed, thin-dough bread. You can opt for either potatoes or leeks, and we chose leeks. The dish tasted buttery, and the dough was thin enough that there was a slight crunch to it. It was served with the same chutney that came with the sambosas.
The gulpee, a tomato-based cauliflower dish, was equally appealing. The cauliflower had been cooked down enough to be a perfect soft canvas for a robust tomato-based sauce. The care placed into the dishes means vegetarians aren't missing out on anything here.
There is no alcohol on the menu, and this is by design. The restaurant is halal, and patrons are also not allowed to bring in drinks. There is tea on offer and a salty-sour yogurt drink called doogh as well as Coke products.
The pace of service at Kabob House is leisurely. Dinner took just under two hours, which to my impatient American heart felt like a while. But then I wondered why. Sitting out on the patio with friends and other families as the twilight approached on a perfect spring evening, what was the hurry? I took another spoonful of deliciously spicy lamb biryani and eased back in my chair feeling very welcome to stay a while at the kabob house. It is not easy to be in transition, but I could taste that Afghan Kabob House's was going smoothly.
Open Sun. & Mon., Wed. & Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. (Closed Tues.)
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