Pukhtun Afghan Cuisine — Restaurant in New Brunswick

PAKHTUN Afghan in New Brunswick. RECOMMEND TO NOT VISIT DURING RAMADAN FOR YOUR OWN SANITY!!

I really contemplated on writing this review as it’s Ramadan but there were a couple of things that pushed me to write this long review.

4 of us had made a reservation for 7:30 pm. We called at 7 pm to confirm reservation and also placed an order up front to which the person at the friend said it will be ready when you come. This is where things went downhill.

CUSTOMER SERVICE - We got there and he had given the table to someone else and was like can u sit on this 2 person table even though he knew we were 4. We were like okay, u know what these things happen even though they shouldn’t.

We waited for 40 minutes checking frequently on the order. By now it was 8:15 and this is where we were starting to lose patience. Upon asking again, the guy up front had given our entire order to the family he had seated on our spot upstairs. When he asked the cook to make it again, the cook got upset that the person had given our order to someone. He was like he is not going to cook anymore. Fortunately he calmed down and made our food.

We got our food at 8:35, one hour after Iftar - Alhamdullilah Allah give us Sawab for an extra hour of waiting for food. Now the fun truly began. We got our order but instead of the platter for 4 people he came out with a platter of 2. Obviously we were hungry so order 4 zinger burgers to supplement and now let me talk about the food.

FOOD QUALITY - So the platter was pretty good. I wish he had just made it for 4 because we would have eaten, chalked the customer service to the guy being new and left at that to try this place again in the future. But unfortunately the zinger burger we received was like drinking oil from a cup. Besides being oily it was undercooked.

BACK TO CUSTOMER SERVICE - By now the person up front was truly apologetic and had realized how much they screwed up. We wanted to have tea so he said don’t worry because of the inconvenience tea is on the house. We thanked him for it and proceeded to enjoy the tea, which was good.

As we paid and walked out we realized that not only had we been charged for tea but we were actually charged for 4 teas when we ordered 3.

By now we were pretty ticked so I sent a message to the owner. Now this is where we as desis really take the cake. Of course the owner had the standard desi line of “sorry Yaar I was in the other restaurant (zaika) because it’s extremely busy here and it’s priority, when u come next time we will not give you a chance to complain”. This smooth talk is really old and if anyone thinks saying that would make the other person forget then it’s pretty dumb.

The difference between a desi (and yes I am generalizing now) and a non desi outfit is if the non desi outfit screw up so much, they either give a significant discount on the bill or offer dessert on the house. Well here we were offered tea for “free”, but instead charged more.

Goes without saying we would not go back to this place because even though the platter was good, it’s not like it was the best thing since sliced bread...

We ordered delivery. Their menu is very meat heavy, but I was able to find a few vegetarian and gluten free items. Unfortunately, the falafel is cooked in the same oil as the meat and flour items. We ordered: Lentil Soup (yellow daal), Baba Ganoush, Afghan Salad, Plain Kabuli Pulao and for my husband only, Lamb Mix Grill.

Everything was in generous portions and we had leftovers for the next day. The Afghan salad was very special with such delightful spices. The tomatoes and cucumbers were sliced versus diced and mixed with lettuce. Flavors I detected included sumac and mint. Baba and rice pulao were excellent! The lentil soup was thinner that I'm used to but still tasty. Hubby liked his lamb--all 3 varieties in the mix. I do wish they would have a vegetarian, gluten-free pumpkin dish. There's no pumpkin on the menu :-(. They do have a lot of offerings and some very special beverages and desserts!

They have their own delivery staff so you do not need to order through an app and pay the extra fees. The delivery person was very cordial and respectful. He even wore a mask as he placed the food order on our porch for a no contact delivery.

As far as earth friendly, they will give you plastic utensils unless you request otherwise. The main entrées were in Aluminum containers. The salad was in Styrofoam, the baba ghanouj in number five plastic and the hot lentil soup also in plastic though I didn't catch the number. It's almost every restaurant now that uses the horrible number six plastic lids on the aluminum trays. I don't know what happened to the paper lids lined with the foil back which are more earth friendly?

Overall, we are thrilled to have this new restaurant so close to us and we give Pukhtun Afghan Cuisine a...

I first came to this restaurant back in October 2020. I had come here with my mother on a Thursday night and had a really good experience. We ordered the Mantu, Half Grilled Chicken, and Shir Chai. All of it was delicious. Despite the lockdown and chilly weather, the area was bustling with people and there were a lot of people eating in the restaurant. This was a fairly diverse group of people (i.e. they weren't all Muslim immigrants). It took me a while to come back to the restaurant since I don't live in New Jersey or anywhere nearby. I finally made it back today with my family. This was on a Friday afternoon and the whole area was deserted. We were the only people eating in the restaurant.

I ordered the Mantu and the Pukhtun Chicken Platter for Two. The Mantu didn't taste the same as it did before, It was no where nearly as good. It was heavily spicy like an Indian dish. Mantu is an Afghan dish and it's not supposed to be spicy. It was not like this before. I accidentally ordered the Pukhtun Chicken Platter for Two because I forgot what chicken dish I ordered before (the Half Grilled Chicken). The Pukhtun Chicken Platter for Two was rather bland and forgettable. I wouldn't say the food was necessarily horrible, it just wasn't particularly good.

The total for our meal came to about $45. I didn't recognize any of the staff, they were NOT the same people working there back in October 2020. I don't know what happened to this restaurant. There might have been a change of ownership. There definitely has been a change in the cooking staff. This is definitely NOT the same restaurant that I visited back in October 2020. I would definitely NOT recommend...