Panjshir Restaurant — Restaurant in Falls Church

This is an excellent restaurant! Years ago or used to be in another location in falls Church. It's just as good today as then!

We meet there at 5pm on a Friday night. There was plenty of parking when we got there (for 2 cars). There might be less as the night wore on. The parking lot isn't THAT big, but not small either. And half of it is reserved for the church across the street during Sunday church services.

We were the first patrons there for dinner. After a while several more tables came in and when we left, probably about 7pm, the restaurant was about half full. It had filled up well, but there was still room.

Nice atmosphere, elegant, fine dining. Excellent service! Unobstrusive but very helpful serving staff. The food was to die for! So, so good. Perfectly cooked and deliciously flavored. No salt needed, and I generally cook with some salt, (not a lot, but definitely some).

Three of us shared all the food:

We had the Aushak appetizer, scallion filled dumplings in sauce. There were 3 dumplings - one for each of us. Tasty and mild, but the dumplings were pretty flat - I mean they were not puffy like most dumplings are - which we thought was interesting. I guess because scallions aren't that big. They had a very mild flavor. Not heavily onion-y.

Also 2 entrees:

Mushroom Palow (seasoned chicken and mushrooms in sour cream & Afghan spices sauce) - my personal favorite of the night; and

I'm pretty sure it was the Quorma Palow - lamb chunks in a tomato-based sauce. This was also very good, but my personal preference is cream-based rather than tomato-based sauces. (I think I would have liked the Quabili Palow better - lamb in tomato-based sauce but topped with carrot strips, almonds, and raisins. (And I don't remember our lamb having raisins or nuts...) Both of these dishes could be lamb, chicken, or beef. We choose lamb.

Both entrees came with nicely seasoned rice. (I don't think it was just plain white rice. It had a subtle flavor if my memory serves me correctly.)

One of those entrees (both?) came with a side of the Kadu Palow (aka Kadu) and we also ordered a separate side of it. Glad we did because one side would only have given us each a small taste - enough to leave us wanting a LOT more.

This, Kadu, is a delicious, sweet and yet savory dish of tender pumpkin chunks in a delicious seasoned yogurt and tomato sauce. It was so so so good! Almost desert for dinner but not overly sweet. I would have also been quite happy eating just that as an entree. Or as having it as a dessert!

We ate EVERYTHING. No leftovers. I was nice and full, but not quite really stuffed. I had most of the Mushroom Palow, but some of everything else. I know the last few bites I ate I was eating because I liked the taste, not because I was hungry.

The mushroom Palow and the Kadu were my favorites of the night, but everything was very good!

I think I'll try some of the very interesting vegetable dishes next time. Maybe get them all as sides instead of as entrees. (Almost everything can be gotten as an appetizer, side, or entree.) With the Mushroom Palow, of course! And maybe the OTHER dumplings that have meat in them as an appetizer. (Appetizer size is bigger than a "side" I think.)

FYI: Afghan food is sort of similar to Indian food but not "hot" spicy at all. Very flavorful with great spice combinations, but not spicy-hot. 😁

So much good food to choose from. A treat for sure, but well worth the $$!

Treat yourself.

I'm going to start going there for just a bite. Try a different appetizer each time. Not so expensive but I get a sampling over time. I wish I had seen the turnovers! They have at least 2 kinds. And if i wasn't so full that we turned down desert without even looking, I would definitely have tried...

I came here for lunch. The place was empty, literally the only customer. No matter, its all about the food, value, and experience.

Food - 4 stars What food I was given was very tasty. The lamb was savory, the sauce was delicious, the rice was cooked perfectly, and the bread was excellent.

Value - 0 stars For a lunch, $20 for one entree is a lot and after eating everything including the bread basket, I am still quite hungry. There was more plate than food. More sauce than meat.

Experience - 3 star Place was very clean. Decor was very cultural and interesting. Service was very mediocre. I was the only person and I still had to wave down the waiter to place an order and get my check. They turned up the music while I had head phones in which I wouldn't normally care except that I found it strange as I was the only customer there and clearly not listening to the music.

-1 star I came here because I looked online and the prices seemed reasonable, but the price for eat-in was about $3-$4 more than the takeout and then I'm supposed to tip so suddenly my expectations of a $15 meal turned into a $20 meal and I'm still hungry. I thought I was crazy and shrugged it off, but I grabbed a take out menu on the way out and sure enough the prices were cheaper on the...

I would give zero stars if I could. The owner of this restaurant is unprofessional at best. Although Google stated that they close at 10PM, we were told that they had closed a majority of their kitchen at 910PM when we arrived and that we can only order rice/salad/etc. When we placed our order with our limited options, the oh so lovely owner stormed over to our table and stated that he refused to keep six employees there for an order of rice and salad. We are visiting from out of town for just a single weekend and drove 30+ minutes to get to this pathetic excuse for a business for this type of treatment. He was even gracious enough to charge us for the 2 sodas we couldn't even drink because he basically kicked us out and couldn't even come back to the table to handle the check like a real man after having his temper tantrum. No food is good enough to overlook this type of behavior. To think we made the trip out to support a fellow member of our cultural community....