Afghan Cuisine

86 Wilmslow Road
Rusholme, 
Manchester M14 5AL


Kobeda and naan: £3.50

Afghan Cuisine inhabits a shop in Rusholme that previously hosted three restaurants in as many years.  Luckily, Afghan Cuisine's killer combination of delicious food and reasonable prices means that it should be able to stick around for a while.  Rusholme is increasingly changing from the Curry Mile into the Kebabi Mile, with an increasing number of Middle Eastern kebab-and-flatbread places opening up with their roots in Iraq, Lebanon and the Arabian peninsula.  Afghan Cuisine offers slightly different options and has an Afghani and Central Asian clientele, judging from my fellow diners on a sunny Friday afternoon in April.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time or the money to eat any of the more interesting sounding dishes, so I settled on a kobeda and naan, both of which were cooked fresh by the friendly man behind the counter.  The naan was the best I had eaten in a long time.  Thin in the middle, fat and puffy around the edges, plenty of air bubbles, and a stretchy and flavourful dough.  It was almost as long as my forearm, and formed the bed for a long kebab scattered with chillies.  The kebab was served with two sauces - a minty yoghurt and a chilli and coriander one that reminded me of salsa.  Both enhanced the spices in the kebab without being pugnacious.

Along the increasingly identikit Curry Mile, Afghan Cuisine provides dishes that are different from the norm.  Next time I visit, I intend to sample them, especially if they are as good as their kobeda and naan.