A new Afghan restaurant serving family recipes for kabobs, flavorful meat and baked goods opened on Langston Blvd earlier this year.
Amu Kitchen offers western Afghan cuisine with Mediterranean influences at 4775 Langston Blvd, with kabobs including char-grilled lamb, flame-grilled chicken, smoky ground beef and vegetable options. A specialty is the qabuli palau, a large piece of lamb cooked in rice to infuse it with juices and flavor.
While customers wait for their food, the restaurant also provides board games like chess, Ludo and Pucket.
“We don’t want a boring environment when they come here to eat our kabobs,” co-owner Najibullah Rezaee told ARLnow. “People would like to play games while they are waiting for their food to get ready. Either if they are adults or they come with family and they have children, they all would like to sit together and play a game.”
The restaurant officially opened in April, but Rezaee said he and his wife bought it, redid the menu and added the games in May. The couple had dreamed of opening a restaurant since they immigrated to the United States from Afghanistan in 2023.
The food comes with two sauces, a spicy green sauce and a white sauce with garlic, vinegar, yogurt and mint.
To try all the kabob options, customers can opt for the Amu Kabob Platter, available for $89.66. Amu Kitchen also specializes in karahi, “slow-cooked meat dishes simmered in rich, aromatic sauces, infused with traditional Afghan spices and Mediterranean influences,” according to its menu.
Options include lamb cooked with ginger, garlic and green chilies as well as chicken with ginger, garlic and tomatoes.
“People tell us our taste is different,” Rezaee said. “We want people to experience the real taste of the meat, not the spices, not the added ingredients, you know, but the meat itself.”
For dessert, Amu Kitchen bakes fresh lemon cakes, orange cakes and baklava. The baked goods are some of the restaurant’s most popular items, Rezaee said.
“My wife and I both love food and making food. Colleagues used to ask us to cook or bake for them, so the idea came to our mind: let’s open a restaurant,” Rezaee said. “I love it because we are in this together, and we support each other.”
For now, the Langston Blvd location is the only Amu Kitchen location, but Rezaee said he would like to expand into a larger store. He says he wants more space for customers, and he also wants room for more games.
