The Oldest Restaurant in Kabul (2017)

Often I read long form pieces and the signal/noise ratio is so low it feels like someone was blessed with a short point to get across but burdened with a large word budget.

This is one of those rare exceptions; when I reached the end, I found within myself an unexpected feeling of grief—mildly, for the end of a piece that managed to convey such a rich sense of place, and deeply, for the pain our senseless wars inflict on the innocent.

This one is shorter but more recent with more photos. Seems it's still going now the taliban are back in power.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220904-the-kabul-restau...

Wow, this was amazing. I like how the main topic was the restaurant, but yet the article told the story of Afganistan in past few decades.

If you want authenticish Pakhtun restaurant style food in the Bay Area I recommend the following restuarant locations. Please add any other recommendations to the replies:

Peshawari Kababs in Union City

Shalimar on Jones St (the Jones St one in SF has a couple Pakhtun cooks, the other branches have Punjabis)

On a related note, most of the South Asian restaurants on Jones St/Tandoorloin are Hindko-Pakhtun owned (though Pakwan has gone downhill now that they have Central American cooks).

Ka Forushi = Hay Market

I understand this article is about the restaurant, but its good to be fair. Taliban are hypocrites, but so were the Mujahideen with Ahmad Shah Masood and now his son. They were freedom fighters but they were also thieves who stole emeralds from Afghanistan's mines, smuggled and sold them to Pakistan (same people who fund taliban). They've made millions but afghans haven't seen a lick of it.

It's all a mess.

Hamid Karzai's brother owns some restaurants in Baltimore. They're pretty good.

Oldest doesn't seem that old, but maybe that is for historical reasons of local politics. 70 years was frequently mentioned but there are several restaurants in London that claim to be operating in the 1700s and the oldest pub in my city claims to be over 800 years old [1]! The mosque it mentions is old and surely people must have had to eat near there at some point.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Olde_Trip_to_Jerusalem