By now Merrylands has become for us the centre of the grilled lamb world in Sydney. There's multiple Afghani grill shops, it's the first place we think of coming when we crave some lamb chops and fresh tandoor bread.
Just as the name Shanghai is plastered all over Ashfield, Kabul is the city to name your resto after in Merrylands. We count three different places with Kabul in the name including one of our 'wow-em' visitor favourites, Kabul House. They're all at various levels of swoosh, a simple and welcoming set up for all.
The bread in an Afghani resto is usually cooked in house and served warm off the oven. The crisp brown bubbles on the bread surface shown how the bread has risen while cooking and give a soft / hard variety to the texture.
The lamb chop gets a good grilling here, one skewer with bread, salad and sauce is $10. The sauce is actually two, one of yoghurt and dried mint and the other a chilli chutney, a more liquid style of sauce more like tabasco than sriracha. (Look for Chopan kebab or 'lion chops' on the menu!)
Blackened bones and lamby crisp edges. A light sprinkle of sumac adds a touch of sour spice, it's also in a shaker on each table so you can add more.
Tikka Kebab, pieces of lamb backstrap cut into smaller pieces and given the same good grillin'.
Borani Banjan, a plate of eggplant shallow fried with tomato, onion, garlic and capsicum and topped with a lacy swirl of yoghurt. This is an instant new favourite, the bread soaks up this mix of sauce and yoghurt so well you might need to get extra.
Kabul Sydney Restaurant is at 178 Merrylands Rd, Merrylands. Ph: 8677 8787. (Mazar Restaurant was previously on this site.)
Our trip to Merrylands is saddened when we see our absolute favourite Afghani, if not one of our favourite places to eat in all of Sydney, Kebab Al-Hojat, has burnt down. We are so sad we have to have several beers at the Billagong to process the loss.
Not far along Pitt St is the third 'Kabul' resto, Kabul City Restaurant. More lamb chops, yay!
See you at Kabul House next time.
*sad face with a single tear emoji*
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