Saturday, October 1, 2016

San Francisco Exotic Food Crawl: Afghanistan Food at De Afghanan Kabob House in the Tenderloin



De Afghanan Kabob House. Little niche tucked between two other buildings.



Some nice Afghan-themed artwork on the wall, which is painted a deep red.



Combination Kebab



Manti

It is one thing to decide that you are going to do a San Francisco exotic food crawl. It is quite another thing to try to decide where to even begin. There are literally hundreds of cuisines that my best friend and I had never tried before! Where to even start? One day while I was on the San Francisco State University campus, I spontaneously decided that we would try the exotic cuisine of the first friend I see. Of course that friend turned out to be of Afghan descent.

And that was how we ended up having Afghan food. I asked her and another Afghan friend for dish recommendations. Armed with said dish recommendations, I began Yelping for Afghan restaurants in San Francisco. I decided on De Afghanan Kabob House because it looked to be the most authentic Afghan restaurant in San Francisco.

The restaurant is rather a small one, tucked between two other buildings and right across the street from Tommy's Joynt. The walls are painted a warm shade of red and there are interesting Afghan-inspired pastoral paintings decorating the wall.

The complimentary bread we got, which was lightly brushed with some sort of oil, was delicious. We ordered the manti as our appetizer because one of my other Afghan friend recommended it. It looked like Italian ravioli and frankly tasted like Italian ravioli.

We also ordered the combination platter to be shared between the two of us. It came with three kinds of meats, a minced beef patty, tandoori chicken, which tasted like Indian tandoori chicken, and a beef kebab. It also came with two different kinds of basmati rice, one white and one yellow. Honestly I couldn't really tell the difference in taste between the two, but both rices were very fragrant and nicely flavored. In Afghanistan, rice is considered the king of the meal and special care and attention is always taken in cooking it. The dish also came with a side of salsa and salad which felt slightly out of place but provided a nice spicy punch to the meal.

Overall, we were very satisfied with our meal; I have gone back there once more with my partner in food and another time with my visiting relatives. The food was consistently good both times. I would really highly recommend this restaurant if you are interested in trying out some Afghanistan food.

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