Panjshir

We order this to-​go frequently. We love the apps and kabobs. They do big trays for when we have company and we have never been disappointed. The kabobs are average, the sides and everything else make it great!
We love this place :)

In one word, forgettable.
The food was meh, and this is despite the fact that I was famished. We got the muntoo as the appetizer. It was okay. The flavors of tomato, meat and yogurt topping were there, but the the insides of the dumplings themselves were bland.
We got the lamb kabob and the quabuli palow. The rice in general lacked salt. and no, adding salt after the fact is not the answer. The sauce of the lamb was good, but the meat pieces tasted a bit like they were added to the sauce separately and not cooked together low and slow. The bread was the best part of the meal and I did scarf it down.
Tried this place because of a Groupon and won’t be back. Food Corner near Tysons is way way way better in terms of quality, taste and value.

Good restaurant, great service. Had the chicken kabob, good plate but nothing to write home about.

Been coming here year after year… and it is still the best Afghan restaurant around. Esmat, the owner is welcoming and always attentive to his customers. Each meal comes with complementary bread (so good)! I highly recommend their dish Kadu Palow (sautéed pumpkin topped with yogurt and tomato sauce served with lamb and spinach rice) and their tea.
I’m hungry just thinking about it!

I was looking for a place with a Groupon near Vienna after an appointment and thought I’d try Afghan cuisine. I expected more meat from the chicken kebabs that I ordered to-​go but kebabs only have so much meat by nature. However, the chicken kebabs were not too flavorful. The lamb dish I had (I think it was the quabili palow) was pretty good. They give you a side salad before your entrée comes.

I personally like this place. The food is great, the waiters and owners are very friendly. There is a really large menu and food comes out relatively fast. The ambience isn’t the best ever, mind of looks a bit like a nice cafeteria but I enjoy everything else about it.

My husband and I had the kebeb-​e-​gos fund and the kadu palow. So tasty and the right portion sizes! Omg especially the kadu palow (I’m a huge fan of great tasting pumpkin anything so yeah)! Nice atmosphere and staff too. We’re gonna come back here again.

Even a vegetarian can become a fan of this place. Amazing entrees and apps. They make veggie apps for you and have delicious food. We ended up trying four out of seven vegetarian entrees and they were all amazing. Potato, spinach, apples and turnip were the main ingredients in each of those delicacies. I think now I just have to go again to try the rest.

Delicious Afghan dishes; quiet, cozy interior (not at all like the building’s somewhat dumpy exterior); friendly service. New favorite spot!
My Zardack Palow had melt-​in-​your-​mouth lamb and the most savory mix of veggies with walnuts and Afghan prunes! The pumpkin side/​appetizer was amazing (not normally a pumpkin fan). My husband’s spinach and lamb dish was also excellent.
Nothing against fusion food, but I really enjoyed how this was thoroughly Afghani – not sort of watered down for American preferences. The dishes aren’t spicy, though each had the most unusual and just enjoyable seasonings.

I have only had Afghan food twice in my life; once at the Afghan Kabob Palace in Charlottesville near UVa, and once at Panjshir. While the food at both restaurants was palatable, the cuisine offered at Panjshir was clearly superior. My friend and I ordered the aushak, which consisted of scallion filled dumplings with beef and yogurt sauce. The dumplings were rather flat and was not as densely stuffed as I would like; however, the meat and yogurt sauce was well-​seasoned and delicious. The tart tomato flavor of the meat sauce was perfectly foiled with the rich and cooling yogurt.
We also ordered the kadu chalow, a vegetarian dish that consisted of sautéed pumpkin, seasoned basmati rice, yogurt sauce, and tomato sauce. Initially, the dish was incredibly satisfying for the sweetness of the pumpkin balanced the tart and creamy yogurt; however, after the first few bites, I found the starch to be cloyingly sweet. I desired something more savory, and my craving was met by the unlimited seasoned bread.
The servers were attentive and friendly. They were also patient with me, as I typically spend a lot of time scrutinizing the menu before I place my order. Although the ambiance was average and slightly too dark for my liking, I do recommend this restaurant for the good quality service and tasty food.

Oh my! So easy to over eat because it’s all so delicious. Start with some kadu, we had the quabili palow and the kabab-​e degee. Both were fantastic. Yummy. We come here every time we are in DC

Absolutely love this place! So unique and delicious. I get the turnip or the pumpkin dish every other time. So sweet and spicy, unlike anything else. The desserts are light and not overly sweet. Wonderful!

Five stars because we’ve never had a bad meal here, the atmosphere is very comfortable and not loud, and we love seeing small, family-​owned local restaurants as an alternative to corporate eateries.
Years ago, my family and I used to come here for the variety of kabobs, which were always delicious. Now that I have been a vegetarian for some years, I still enjoy coming here for their vegetarian options.
The Kadu Chalow pumpkin stew is fantastic. I also love their Banjan Chalow eggplant, and the Buranee-​E-​Kachalu potato dish. The seasoned yogurt and tomato sauces are great. They offer a vegetarian combination which lets you sample three of their entrees. And they also have a really good menu of sides that you can combine into a meal.
For dessert, try the baklava or the chilled traditional Firnee pudding. The cardamom tea is exceptional.
If you are inclined, they offer a totally decent wine list, priced in accordance with this area, though I find that the traditional Afghan tea compliments the cuisine much better.
The owner is usually around, and frequently does table service. If unsure about what to order, or if you have questions, you can ask him for suggestions or a recommendation. Great place for a nice quiet dinner and authentic food.

Kadu Palok. Translates to pumpkin rice. Such an unassuming name for a dish that totally blew me away. :)
My friend and I came here for dinner. He had recently eaten and was originally going to just share the Kadu Palok entrée with me, but after having a couple bites, he said he had to order his own or he’d eat all of mine!
The dish has three parts — spinach rice, pumpkin w/​tomato, and lamb curry — as well as a side of fresh Afghan bread. Each part of the entrée was fantastic — the rice was perfectly cooked and mixing it with the sauce of the main dishes made it even more fantastic. I do wish there had been a few more chunks of lamb (I think I counted 6 – 8 small cubes) but otherwise, a perfect dish for under $ 20.
Highly recommend. I will be back soon!

The kind of fantastic meal that took my taste buds on a wild, wonderfully enjoyable ride, which, to this magnitude, is truly a rare occasion. I think that much of my enjoyment with the dish stems from its novelty: I don’t recall ever having Afghan food. After all, adventurous taste buds would kill for newness! I’ve had Pakistani food on several occasions, which I felt was more akin to Indian food. But how to describe this wonderful blend of flavors? Perhaps I’d say it’s something of a cross between Pakistani and other Middle Eastern food I’ve had, but that certainly doesn’t do it justice. This dish (based on my culinary experience, anyway) comes with its own unique flavor. For one, it’s sweeter. And the spices that figured prominently in this dish — zardack palow, a wonderful blend of «carrots cooked with seeded Afghan prunes, tomato sauce, chickpeas, and walnuts, served with chunks of lamb and white rice» which the kind server suggested as a delicious traditional Afghan dish (so long as I was good with carrots… and with ones so supple as these, how could I not be? — were of a different nature.
I get a hint from the kind of tea I was served: Afghan style cardamon tea (which was also delicious, tingling the tongue with a somewhat anasthetic effect… the seed was, after all, chewed by the Greeks for dental hygiene)! I’m no spice expert, but I’m guessing that cardamon played a dominant role in this delectable dish. (Sure, I could have just asked, but I felt like doing some detective work during my meal and leaving a bit of a mystery in the air!) So the flavor of cardamon is described by the epicentre as «Warm and eucalyptine with camphorous and lemony undertones.» I’m not sure about the camphorous part (though it reminds me of aphrodesiac, which apparently it is!) but I think warm, eucalyptine, and lemony definitely describes it – plus a general spicyness, but the dish overall is not overpowering for those with a low tolerance to heat. If there’s not enough heat for you, it even comes with a side of spicy green sauce which you can mix in with the rice, along with a garden salad and soft pieces of spiced bread (all included). And the servings are generous.
A local from Afghanistan wrote a review vouching for this place, second only to home-​cooked meals (but really, what’s better?). So I knew I had to try it, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. I’m a vegetarian/​pescetarian 99.9 percent of the time, but I make exceptions a couple times a year for special meals. This was one of them. I decided to get the dish with lamb rather than the pure vegetarian version. And I don’t regret it. The lamb was sweet and tender. Surprisingly, while it was savory, so was the long Middle Eastern rice — and I don’t think I’ve ever found myself saying that about rice! That alone speaks to the quality of this place. I can’t wait to go back and try their pumpkin dish and mouth-​watering dessert options next time I pass through!

I have had afghan food before so I was excited to try a place local. Saw the reviews for this place so I couldn’t wait to try it. Well? I could have waited a little longer. We tried the Bulanee kachalu app which was good. We loved the sauce. Umm? But that was pretty much the highlight of our night. The muntoo was soggy. I had the Quorma Palow, few pieces of lamb, kinda bland with a lot of rice on the side. I guess I would have felt satisfied if I ate all the rice… But why should I have to, right? My guest had the Zamorod Palow, which had a few pieces of lamb and lots of rice. I should have probably tried the kadu that I see all the reviews about but one dish shouldn’t make a place.
If I do come back… I would probably try all the apps as small dishes and have drinks.
Service was attentive and polite. The place looks dark from the outside but inside its bright and clean. On the pricey side for what you get.

This place is great! I am afghan and trust me when I say this is the best afghan food you will get in this area. When I have a craving for a warm cup of aush or mashawa and I can’t get my mom, aunts or other good cooks in the family to make it I drive to falls church and mix in some of their delicious spicy cilantro sauce and go to town on it. They also have great lamb chops, aushak, and mantoo. I love their eggplant and kadu apps as well.
If you want good afghan food and don’t know any afghans who can make at home for you then this is the next best thing. Otherwise the best afghan dishes are always cooked in the homes of afghans :)

I’m not sure what Afghan food is supposed to taste like, but I guess it was average here. My friend and I were definitely up for a change, so the sauces were unique to us.
I would give the food about a 3.5 since it seemed like it was reheated, not cooked from scratch. The meat did not seem as tender as it should be.
The portions are somewhat small, and I was pretty hungry about an hour later. For $ 40 we had a pumpkin lamb, an eggplant dish, two teas, and one dessert.
MOST frustrating, however, is that the owner overcharged my credit card. He showed me a piece a paper and told me he cancelled the incorrect transaction, but didn’t give me a copy. He then processed another charge. It’s a week later, I just saw that his credit card processor wasn’t able to cancel the original charge, and I’m annoyed because I shouldn’t have to deal with the various calls back and forth to get a business to correct an error that they made.
Perhaps he was just careless that day because he was the only person in the restaurant. That said, the owner is incredibly nice and courteous; and, he absolutely is responsive in trying to resolve the overcharge.

Excellent! Tried the pumpkin and lamb dish… It was awesome! Wine selection is good… Everything tastes homemade. Yummy! Will be back!

I read an ethnic food article in a magazine that focuses on the Arlington area… and this was one of the spots mentioned. I checked it out on Unilocal and it seemed like a good spot. So off we went.
We got there around 8pm, there’s parking behind the restaurant. Décor is nice, and the wine selection is actually quite good. For an appetizer we had the beef and potatoes in a pastry. It was like a samosa but shaped like a quesadilla, and very tasty. It comes with a spicy green sauce – jalapeño purée, I think? He had a chicken kabob entrée and I had spinach rice with sauteed spinach and a lamb stew in tomato sauce. Everything was delicious! For dessert I took some pudding with pistachios and cardamom to-​go. Fantastic!
Why 4 stars? The owner brought me a carrot stew instead of the spinach dish initially. I said, «Is this what I ordered?»
«Yes.»
I looked at it again. No spinach anywhere. «I ordered the dish with spinach. Is it in the sauce?»
«Is what in the sauce? This is what you ordered.»
«The spinach. I ordered the dish with spinach rice and sauteed spinach.»
…look of comprehension… «Oh. Yes. I will be right back with it.»
5 minutes later I had the correct dish and it was worth the wait because it was really great.
The lady in the dining room was not as personable as the owner… she was almost robotic. The service could have been better… the owner made conversation with another customer for about 20 minutes then disappeared. The lady never offered to refill our waters or even glanced at the table. The food was great though… I would definitely go back.
It is not spicy at all, so if you like some spice to your food ask for some of the jalapeño sauce that is served with some of the appetizers.