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| - My first Afghan experience was at Watan Kabob, which is not far from here. Both are good, but I think N&K is slightly better because their menu selection is better.
We came as a party of 4. We had Waziri, Sultani, Qabli Palau, and Mantu for appetizer. 3 mains + 1 app was enough for 4 people. Actually...more than enough. Each dish had a salad, lots of rice, and a nice portion of meat. The kabob dishes come with bread. The kabob dishes were more or less what I expected. I live near Yonge/Finch which has quite a few Iranian restaurants so I'm used to eating kabobs. Afghan seasoning is different from Iranian. Both are delicious. And the beef tenderloin pieces were large and VERY tender. Same for the chicken breast pieces.
I was very happy with the Qabli Palau and the Mantu as these are new dishes to me. Mantu was unique, but not so mindblowingly good that I'd crave them. I'd recommend them as it's a unique dish that you won't find easily. With the Qabli Palau You get veal AND curry chicken (which is different from Indian curry). The carrots are slightly sweetened and soft so they go well with the rice.
It's very close to a 5 stars. To me, price-value has to be there for me to give a place 5 stars. This doesn't mean expensive is automatically bad in my books. It just means food need to be expensive for a good reason. I've given good ratings to some expensive places before. N&K I find just a little expensive, especially when I have so many Iranian restaurants in my area as a benchmark. Iranian food and Afghan food use essentially the same raw ingredients except for seasoning. N&K needs to shave $1-2 off to be on par with the Iranian counterparts. You probably don't think $1-2 is a lot. To me, it is a ton because I eat out a lot. $1-2 per dish translates to 10-25% after taxes. It's like an extra meal every week when you eat out almost every day.
By the way, like most middle eastern eateries, there's practically no service, and you don't pay tip. You order your food, get a pager, and get your food when it's ready. There's no one to serve you.
Recommended. It's definitely a contender if I'm in the area.
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