This was around the time that this country was seeing an influx of Afghan immigrants escaping a rapidly deteriorating nation and Khyber Pass soon had some competition. In particular, Da Afghan opened up in Bloomington. Somehow Khyber started to slip and our allegiances changed. We continued to frequent Da Afghan until perhaps five or six years ago when its quality took a rather sharp dip, although one of my memorable restaurant outings in the Twin Cities is still the feast they threw, complete with a whole goat stuffed with rice, carrots, and raisins, when the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan.

Until this week, I had been to neither Khyber Pass nor Da Afghan for quite a few years, and our ending up at the former was happenstance. Our first choice, selected by a good friend of mine who joined us for lunch, was La Corvina, which, we found out when we showed up, had joined the innumerable other dining establishments in the happy restaurant hunting ground in the sky. Khyber Pass had recently relocated nearby to Snelling and Grand, in the space formerly occupied by Old City Café, so we decided to check it out instead.

The relocated Khyber Pass still has a spanking brand new look, sort of the visual restaurant equivalent of that new car smell. The space is divided into a front and a back room with an open doorway and dome-shaped wall cutouts affording views of the other room from each. Long-drop ceiling fans (very much a fixture of old buildings in that part of the world) are apparently intended solely to make you think you’ve been transported to Jalalabad—not that you’d care for that these days—since ventilation ductwork is also very much in evidence. Other authentic artifacts include cane plants in pots.

If it’s taking me a while to get to the food, it’s because my connection with south/southwest Asia is more than a culinary one. But let’s move on. The menu features meat and vegetarian dishes. Beef, lamb, or chicken is offered as stews and kebobs. Some dishes come with basmati rice, some with short grain. Spinach and lentils serve as accompaniments in meat dishes or as the basis for vegetarian entrées (other items in this category include an eggplant dish that I remember as being delectable from a decade ago).

I started with a cup of a vegetarian bean soup, which was hearty  and came with a tangy dollop of yoghurt. It was quite tasty. For my entrée I had stewed lamb with spinach. This came nicely presented on an oblong plate with a bed of rice layered with a smaller concentric serving of spinach and, on top, cubes of lamb in a mildly spiced sauce. The basmati rice was a little undercooked and toothy, and the lamb and spinach could have been more strongly flavored, but overall I would recommend the dish.

The restaurant also has a few wine and beer selections plus some indigenous beverages such as the rich shirin chai and the yoghurt-based dogh. I had the latter and enjoyed it; some restaurants make it too thick but it was cool and refreshing here, with cumin and diced cucumber.

The waiter complimented me on my pronunciation of dogh, so I presume he is Afghani. But we live in a global village now, and it turned out that he is also the host of an international jazz show on the local alternative public radio station, KFAI. This was discovered by my friend, a leading saxophonist on the Twin Cities’ jazz scene, who thought he recognized him from the club scene. My friend was less than enthusiastic about the food, though he enjoyed the soup. Perhaps he was psyched for Mexican.

I lived in Peshawar, a border town in Northwestern Pakistan, for a small while in the late seventies. As a callow youth I was enamoured with antique motorcycles and one of my most pleasurable memories is riding my white 1941 Matchless 350CC from Peshawar to Torkham – the extent of the Khyber Pass. The journey through the pass is spectacular. A narrow paved road snakes through towering mountains that are lightly covered with scrub. It is easy to imagine the long British columns marching through this area on their way to the Afghan campaigns (or the subsequent withdrawal from a rout) being picked off by tribal gunmen lining the hills far above. There are remnants of the old Raj everywhere, from the granite regimental colors of British units carved into the hillsides to the ancient blocks of cement designed to stop the southward advance of Czarist vehicles. The people of the Khyber Pass (and I don’t mean the restaurant) are extremely hospitable and generous. I remember trying to buy gasoline at lunch time and being invited (almost forced!) to sit down with the staff of this remote petrol pump for a meal of huge Nans (bread), chicken kebabs and dahl.

Kyber Pass has recently moved into its current location on Grand and let me compliment the owners on a fine choice in colors and decoration. One is immediately struck by the cheerful yellow walls and high-white ceilings from which hang ceiling fans, reminiscent of my days in Peshawar. The walls are tastefully decorated with Pashtoon dresses and Afghan carpets, there is even a fake bird in a cage! The Kyber Pass used to advertise itself as an Afghan restaurant – I wonder if recent events have caused it to review this policy and advertise itself as a Pakistani restaurant specializing in food from the Northwest.

The menu has appetizers like borani (eggplant cooked in tomato sauce, topped with garlic laced yogurt), shola (mung beans cooked with short grain rice), dahl (lentils) and hummus (this is not really an Afghan dish). There are eight meat-related entrees ranging from chicken to lamb and three vegetarian dishes: mung beans with rice, sabzi and dahl (spinach and lentils) and a vegetarian combo (eggplant, spinach, dahl and stewed potatoes). There is a tiny wine list. The reds: Australian Shiraz, Argentinean cabernet and a Columbia crest merlot. The whites: Banrock chardonnay and a Glazebrook sauvignon blanc. The list is interesting only in that it includes wines from Argentina and New Zealand.

I ordered a glass of the Argentinean cabernet, which seemed a little warmer than called for – perhaps it sat too close to the fire in the kitchen. For a starter I had a cup of the mashawa (vegetarian soup made with organic beans, topped with yogurt and mint), this was excellent with a wonderful texture and flavor; the menu also offers this in bowl size, which with bread could serve as an excellent meal for under $5.00. As a main entrée I had the chicken kebab, this was served with basmati rice and chutney. The chicken was a bit dry and it could have been spicier but nevertheless the dish rounded off a most pleasant lunch. Our bill for three came to around $46.00.

The service was polite but slow. Upon arrival we had to stand around for a while before deciding to choose a table ourselves. It appears that there was only one (saturnine looking) waitperson on duty and he might have been the chef and the proprietor as well! I would highly recommend Khyber Pass as a lunch destination and if you feel a little more adventurous try and visit the real place, of course after all the recent nonsense has blown away.

B