The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
I drove past Fuadijan on the way home maybe 500 times before I went to eat there with my friend ES.
The chicken seekh kebabplate ($13.50) with naan was juicy and flavourful, and a good amount of the price.
The lamb tikka plate ($16.50) I enjoyed less, finding the meat a bit tougher than I would have liked, a problem not at all helped by the flimsy single use cutlery providing no means to cut it.
But I had a fun time, and the woman working there was really nice. She even let us try some extra rice when we couldn’t decide between rice and naan.
I don’t know that I’d go back to be honest, I’m surprised that such a meat forward place did so little for me food wise. But I’m glad we went.
Comment below if you strongly feel that Pakistani food should have its own category on this site.
What do you do with these? What is the completion rate on these, and what happens to the remaining pickles that are left over?
We really enjoyed the tangy batata bi kizbara ($16) – “deep fried potato tossed in coriander, garlic, mild chilli & lemon juice”. It’s hard to go wrong with deep fried potatoes in general, but the citrusy and garlicky sauce was just an excellent accompaniament. People with a pathological aversion to coriander do have a pathological aversion.
I didn’t love the sambousek meat ($16). Though the filling of mince and onion was dense and falvourful, the pastry was dense and dry and unexciting. This could’ve been better with an oilier or less dense pastry.
The samkeh harrah ($19) “oven baked barramundi topped w coriander, roasted nuts, tahini & chilli sauce had potential but was far too salty to the point of inedible for me, even eaten with Lebanese bread.
The skewers platter to share ($44) was seriously excellent. It featured 2 skewers each of kafta, laham mishwi & shish tawook, all of which was extremely juicy, fresh and tasty – the Platonic ideal of what Lebanese meat skewers should be. This, together with the garlic and chilli sauces, was perfection, and should be an unmissable item for any first time visitors.
Overall: In our experience, an equal number of hits and misses. Use this insider info to avoid at least 2 misses from their menu and maximise the hits.
The 6 falafel ($15) were really good. Nice and warm and moist on the inside, and crispy on the outside, accompanied perfectly by the pickles and side dish of tahini. They were, unfortunately, so good that we kind of filled up on them before our main arrived. It would be even better if they could come in a serving of 4.
The mixed plate ($34) was alright, but definitely had better and weaker components. My personal opinion was that the chicken skewer was the best of the three, with good flavour, tenderness and juiciness, as well as good synergy with the toum. Second would be the kafta, again quite moist, followed by the lamb meat. The toum, the hummus, and the baba ghanouj were all good though with both the pictured bread and the entire bag of Lebanese bread (unpictured) that came with the meal.
Overall I thought the food was good, but not neccessarily the best I have had. They were certainly open very late, which was a plus as it meant that I could catch up with my friend after finishing work at 9PM and then driving an hour.
Beirut Bites 457 King Georges Rd, Beverly Hills NSW 2209
We celebrated my partner’s birthday like four times over the course of a fortnight. One of those times was at Kabul House in Merrylands. I showed up about 90 minutes into the thing after a day shift at work, but I feel confident in my assessment given that we ordered a huge new batch of food for me to have by myself, whilst everyone else watched.
This is the half platter ($65), a huge dish of 2 shami kebab (minced lamb), 2 chicken kebab, and 2 tikka kebab (lamb cubes), as well as bread (pictured below). My partner, who ordered for me as I drove from work, wanted to give me the option of trying as many things as possible, but didn’t realise that it was possible to order half this amount of meat for half the price. This is definitely too much meat for one human, and this was after finishing work at 9PM and not having eaten anything that entire day apart from two soy coffees and a protein shake in the morning.
As far as the meat quality goes, I enjoyed the chicken the most, as it was juiciest and most tender, followed by the shami kebab, for similar reasons. The tikka lamb kebab was a tiny bit tougher and drier, and definitely decreased in palatability as it cooled down a bit, whilst the other two remained good throughout the course of the meal. I consider myself pretty good at cooking chicken, but I wish I could cook chicken like this.
This is bread, which came with the half platter. It is not the best Afghan bread I’ve had, but not the worst. The best Afghan bread I’ve had to date was from Gulistan Take-Away in Box Hill VIC on the 16th of September 2017.
We also had some chopan kebab ($16 for one 4-piece skewer), which were barbequed lamb chops, which everyone else raved about the tenderness of but I didn’t love.
The aashak(aushak) ($25), described on the menu as “10 fresh chives stuffed dumplings topped with yogurt and lentils” was really good. I think it’s vegetarian, but I didn’t even notice. I’d not had this before, but really loved the creaminess of the sauce, the slight bit of texture of the lentils, as well as the moistness and chive flavour of the dumplings and the overall package. I think unless you have a specific aversion to one of the ingredients in this dish, this is something you have to try if you eat here. I devoured the leftovers the following night.
Overall thoughts I really enjoyed the aashak dumplings, and think they were the standout of my meal. The meat was not bad, but I actually think that the lamb tikka at nearby Kabab Al Hojat was better.
The mixed kebab ($20) from Merrylands’ Kabab Al Hojat is pretty well known both within and outside of the Western Sydney Afghan community. Essentially what your $20 gets you is a skewer of chicken, a skewer of lamb tikka, and a skewer of shami (mince) with a grilled green pepper, half a tomato, some fresh salads, and an unreasonably large quantity of bread. The meats were juicy, well flavoured, and tender, but I thought that the fresh salads didn’t really complement the meats in the way that I ate it. I assume that one of the intended ways to eat this would be to wrap everything up in bread and eat it as a roll, in which case it would’ve made more sense.
Pretty good/10. Well known locally. Some guy in scrubs came to pick up his order whilst I was there, and given it’s around a half hour round trip during the day from the nearest tertiary referral hospital I thought that was a bit brave.
