Afghan Kebab House in Deira, Dubai - Restaurant Reviews

Afghan Kebab House

Grab a nan bread the size of a continental quilt and use it like an oven glove to relieve a red-hot skewer of its meaty burden 1 Reviews

Like many good things in life, it’s not easy to find. But all the searching is worth it. In the teeming crowds of deepest Deira, the labyrinthine alleys wreathe and curl through Naif Souk like snakes in a basket. Each twist seems familiar, yet every turn confounds with arresting sights and smells that conspire in their strangeness to derange the senses. Before long, you can feel disorientated, displaced, dizzy even. Pretty soon you realise it’s time to scan the swarming mass of humanity for a single stationary soul, and pluck up the courage to ask ‘Where’s the Afghan Kebab House, mate?’

Banish all preconceptions of sizzling elephant’s feet revolving in tawdry kebab house windows because this is the real deal. This isn’t where drunken men come to fill their boots with stodge after a hard day’s night. It’s where real men come to fill their bellies with nourishment after a hard day’s work. Grab a nan bread the size of a continental quilt and use it like an oven glove to relieve a red-hot skewer of its meaty burden. There’s chicken, lamb and beef up for grabs – all licked into juicy tenderness by lashing flames – so if you’re with a group, a mixture of everything is a must. And, it all comes with a fresh salad of tomato, onion, cucumber and green leaves.

But a visit to the Afghan Kebab House is as much about the experience as the food itself. All around you, groups of men huddle over crouching tables deluged with food, many tucking into a traditional Afghan dish with meat, vegetables and pilaf rice – with nothing but their hands. As you sit among the hubbub of voices discussing the trials and tribulations of the working day, you can kick back with a full belly and smile to yourself about the job you’d had just to find the place.

By Time Out Dubai