Kabul Restaurant — Restaurant in Prague

I am sorry to say, but anyone who rates this "food" more than 1 star hasn't tasted proper afghan food. Being an afghan myself and having eaten this my whole life, I know what I am taking about. Afghan food is best experienced when it is freshly made not made many days before and heated. My parents in law had 9 hour drive expecting some descent food, we had the "big package" for 6 persons where main afghan dishes were present but in no way a quality and taste you would expect: the meat in mantu was glued together (this is when your meat is in refrigerator for too long) and had a weird taste probably because it wasn't heated properly and old. The rice was sticking together - again because of being cooked a few days before and just heated for us. A freshly made and cooked rice is steamy and each rice corn is separated. Grilled meat (beef) was overcooked and rubbery and again just heated. Grilled chicken was so marinated that it had became sour. Their "afghan salad" has nothing to do with afghan. Afghan salad vegetables are cut into small pieces and added coriander and other herbs to amplify the taste. This one looked as if it was done in 3 minutes: just quick cut and mix 3-4 types of vegetables. The kofta (meatbals) were hard as rock. Normally it is very soft and you just eat it with a fork or spoon without using a knife. Only 1 type of rice. The "freshly baked" bread was many days old (although we got newly baked bread basket halfway through which was different type than the other two we got in the beginning)

Afghan food takes hours to make, if you get it served within 20 minutes all alarm clocks should ring. I had afghan food in a restaurant in Kiev the food took them an hour to make, boy they understood quality and taste! It is understandable that you cannot coock everything just before serving. But you don't keep cooked food in refrigerator for multiple days either just to heat it and serve. You serve what you eat yourself, if you want customers to come back. And you should go with the general advise: go somewhere where there are people. Nobody was eating here - on a Saturday evening (corona or not - other places were packed with people). Now we know why. I am a cautious type from nature and should have seen this coming but I chose to belive in good in people. How naive.

The worst part is when the owner tries to make you feel welcome and tell irrelevant fairy tales about high ranking guests just to take advantage of you later: firstly he gives you a ridiculous conversion range from EUR to CZK, secondly he does not accept any type of payment card, probably to hide the income from tax authorities, why would you do it if you were honest? And thirdly, it is extremely overpriced given the quality or lack of it: it is actually more expensive than what you get in an afghan restaurant in Denmark. As an afghan I am ashamed that people have to eat this. I do not recommend it - please do yourself a favor: eat somewhere else and if you choose to eat here anyway just know that this is not how afghan food tastes. I should have told him all this in person but in my culture it is sign of disrespect if it is done in somebody's own "house" and we were tired after a long day. That is why I am writing this here. I hope the owner sees it. Honesty is a good place to start a business from. You don't make garbage to scare people off but something so they come back and tell...

Not too bad, certainly an experience.

Food: Now i can't talk much about the authenticity of the food, as I have never had any other afghan cuisine, what i can talk about is the quality in general. It was good, not particularly amazing, interesting flavour profile, though a tad too salty at times, my biggest gripe with it, however, is the archaic plating and presentation. I felt like i was in the nineties, i mean, balsamic vinegar, plates with a gold rim, just stuff right out of my grandmas cookbook. The taste was good though, the chicken kebab and chilli chutney was especially great. I dont feel like the price is quite justified, especially not with the portion sizes, you pay for the experience.

Service: There was one man on duty at the time of our visit. He was pleasant, kind and nice.

Atmosphere: Here the age of the restaurant shows again, the decor is fine, but it feels old, some of the tables are also placed in a rather odd fashion, but nothing unforgivable. There are MANY pictures of various famous people from the past two decades, which felt odd at best.

Summary: It was a pleasant experience, the food was fine and interesting, the staff nice and the decor passable. However it feels like the restaurant peaked twenty years ago and the owner did not even try to modernise the decor or plating and presentation. I also feel it is not worth the price, as much as I would love to find a reason to justify it, frankly it has the price tag of a high class restaurant with the taste and presentation of a mid range diner from...

Honestly i was so disappointed as an Afghan that this is called “afghan food” It is far from afghan food. It is low quality, no passion in feeding people good food. I ordered the qabuli palao rice and it was atrocious. It was as if it was left outside for 2 weeks then reheated in a microwave and served to me. I ordered a skewer of the chicken and lamb kabob It had little to no seasoning and the meat was not tasting fresh. Just those 3 dishes alone cost me 800czk + On top of all that I had asked for a bread and chutney and they charged me another 125czk for that. In the end I was charged an absurd amount for an upset stomach and regret I came here with the intention of supporting an afghan business and wanted to feel like home, this is far from it. This business is a scam, the prices are crazy, and the food quality is so low I wouldn’t give it to a stray dog. I suggest any Afghan to stay away from this so called “Afghan” restaurant and any other person traveling and wanting to try afghan food, do not waste your time and money here . I wouldn’t call this Afghan food. If you are going to charge ridiculous prices, the least you can do is produce quality food...