Da Afghan (Bloomington)

It's this little place tucked away and is a little difficult to find, but so worth the search. It was an adventure, as we had never had Afghani food before. We arrived just after 5pm for an early dinner on a Tuesday night and for most of our dinner we had the place to ourselves.

I like that is was actually owned by Afghani people. We were greeted, given suggestions, and given some flatbread and 2 types of chutney (one was kinda spicy and the other had a strong cilantro flavor). We started out with the appetizer cold spread sampler (which included more flatbread, hummus, and baba ganoush - it's basically like hummus but made with eggplant instead of chick peas.) We really liked the flatbread. Andy wanted to order the baba ganoush, just because it is fun to say.

We were served this soup, that was very good. It's hard to explain what it was, I guess the best way to say was that it was their version of chili.


I am not sure what the names of our dishes were, as I can't remember, but I will describe them. Each of our entrees was served with basmanti rice. The main meat in each of our entrees was lamb. Mine tasted like a beef mushroom stew, but with lamb. I topped it with the chutneys and found it to be very delicious and the lamb was very tender. Andy's was a bunch of other veggies and lamb in a curry sauce. Some of his meat pieces were chewy, but he stilled liked it.

For dessert we asked the server/owner what he recommended and he said "Heineken." Funny guy. He then said he doesn't eat desserts, but they make the baklava homemade there and people really like it. So, that is what we ordered. It was excellent. It was served warmed with honey on top. We split one. It was small, but cheap (I think it was $2.75. Next time I think we will each get our own. Although the amount of butter you can taste in it will probably clog my arteries, but it will be worth it.

I highly recommend Da Afghan. I know we will be returning.