Ariana Authentic Afghan Cuisine

Seriouslyyyyyyyyu… I can’t believe I got charged from the drink I didn’t like simply I told him I don’t like to drink thay still Bill me out fothay. I don’t think $ 4 is a big deal .by the way apparently they love to sell the food and put pressure on the customer to buy their food! Sorry I don’t like this kind of service.

Worst service ever during buffet. No restocking and you wait forever to get some food. Last time to be there.

I just re-​created my Unilocal account to put this review, because such cheap people and cheap place must get a bad review, so that everyone knows what kind of place this is.
First of all this place serve buffet only during the month of Ramadan, so i would expect that this place knows what ramadan is and knows that muslims only eat in ramadan at a certain time so i am expecting these people to have enough food for the amount of people who will eat at the same moment, it is not like a surprise that 30 or 40 or even 50 person will come to your place and start eating at the same minute, so when you don’t have enough food this is a big problem.
2^nd thing when you don’t have enough meat for 5 persons, you must mention that you are serving a vegetarian buffet, it is soooooo cheap to say that you are serving a buffet then you come to each table with a small plate and you start putting a tiny small chicken kabab piece in peoples plates, that is so rude !!! Literally they put one piece in my plate, and lastly the buffet price is 20 $ which is expensive for such service.
I doubt that i will ever come to this place again.

As a general rule of thumb, I find that restaurants that need to put in superfluous adjectives (i.e. authentic) in their name, there’s a fair chance it’s going to suck.
I don’t mind paying for nice meals, things, or women; however, my bill was over $ 40 for two dishes that I continually fail to see how it can justify said pricing. I ate with my friend who is vegan, so I let her decide. She ordered some vegan okra curry dish and leek dumplings. I don’t even recall the exact names; it’s been a while and the meal was so unmemorable.
That is probably the most mathematically unsound bill I’ve ever received. If I had that same meal for one week, it would cost $ 280 for eight ping pong ball sized, leek-​filled dumplings laid out in a fashion over a sauce that resembled a pool of menstrual blood and bowl of okra. Let’s just sit on that for a second.
On top of that, I experienced the strangest interaction I’ve ever had with the waitresses. Two exceptionally sweet ladies worked there that night, one of whom decided to tell me how to say «I love you» in Farsi and then asked me how I would say the same thing in «my own language.» I couldn’t tell if she were hitting on me or racial profiling me. Lucky for her, I still speak my mother tongue. I hope that turned her on enough for that evening.
Besides the quirky experience, nothing about this place warrants a second visit.

Good Afghan food. They had some items unique to us on their menu plus a whole vegetarian section, which is why we decided to eat here.
We ordered the yogurt marinated bread appetizer (very unique), a chicken kebab plate for the kids (plus an extra kubideh kebab), a curried vegetable dish, and vegetarian sabzi. Plus mango lassi and sheer chai for me. I had to see the pink colored tea. Yes, it was pink. I should have taken a picture. The tea was delicious, but it was sweetened so be aware of that. The kids loved both my tea (lol) and the mango lassi.
Food was quite good. The bread appetizer was tasty, but it was a bit too rich as they had poured quite a bit of olive oil over the whole thing. Our vegetable dishes were well flavored and the rice was excellent. I’m not sure what Afghanis (and Persians) put in their rice, but it comes out tasting so good. No need to add anything to it. I tried a couple of pieces of the chicken/​meat and both were very tender and well seasoned.
It’s a little on the expensive side and service is slow. Quite slow. That is pretty typical of places like this (a cultural thing), but hard when you have impatient kids and a schedule to meet.

Notes from/​for Gringo.
My wife is Persian so I was familiar w/​many of the dishes. Others were altered some, and others were totally new to us. Drinks would be nice, but then again, maybe it would keep away some of their clients.
Kabab Koobideh is what you should get. Leave the fancier tenderloin ones for a subsequent trip.

Outstanding food with unique flavors in an old bar in downtown Kirkland.
I’ve recently eaten in restaurants advertising cuisines from Afghanistan to many of the various regions of India to Tibet, all serving basically the same idea — spitted meats, rice, pakoras, naan, and dishes with delicious sauces. I remember the old days when the Indian Palace in the U District was about as diverse as it came — but I date myself. Life is so much better now.
This Afghan variant uses spices that were fresh and new to me. The tomato-​based sauce that surrounded our okra dish was the best I’ve had in years; rich, slightly spicy, robust tomato with texture of onions and garlic. I longed for a vat of it to dunk some oysters. (swoon.)
My chopan kabob featured lamb chops marinated (our server revealed later) in onion water overnight, leaving it juicy and tender with unique flavor even though the chops were just on the far side of medium. My wife’s salmon was merely a perfectly crisped fillet, nothing particularly unusal with spicing, but complemented well by the additional boat of tomato sauce our server provided without asking when the accompaniment to the salmon proved to be sour cream based. (fie, lactose intolerance, you demon!)
Even the green tea had a delightful hint of cardamom, perfectly balanced and not overpowering.
Service was pleasant, well-​informed, and friendly. Portions were smallish, but in line with Kirkland pricing. The ambience is all dark wood and dim light. It’s a shame that beautiful old bar-​top isn’t used for anything.
I look forward to returning, and trying lamb shanks, and some of the Persian-​inspired items like fesenjoon.

My friend and I went here Thursday night around six and it wasn’t super busy. We ended up chatting a lot with the owner about Afghan cuisine and he was very enthusiastic. Naturally his enthusiasm is reflected in the atmosphere of the restaurant and the quality of the food…
Phenomenal.
The dish I tried is apparently the national dish of Afghanistan. He gave us complimentary saffron rice (we had asked about the trademark spices of Afghan cuisine – saffron, cardamom and rose water) and are saffron ice cream (incredibly good) rooted with crushed pistachios, capped with cardamom tea.
He explained the importance of rice in Afghan cuisine. He thinks Pakistan grows the best rice and stop he ships it from new York in order to have the best on hand. He also described the difficulty of cooking rice perfectly, so it isn’t sticky and maintains texture and flavor.
It is clear he prioritizes quality over profit, customers over numbers, people over time.
We will definitely be back, and Afghan cuisine may now be in my tier of favorite cuisines along with Moroccan and Turkish.

Wonderfully tender lamb kebabs and rice. So far every time I have eaten here I have not been disappointed and neither has anyone I’ve brought here. The service is friendly and staff is attentive and polite.

Great Afghan food in a wonderful location. We ordered the ash, owners plate (mixed kabob), mantu and kabuki pulau and all items were excellent. Also, must mention that Moijie was an excellent and extremely friendly server.

Try the off menu pumpkin dish!!! Like now. Go there now and order it. The trip is worthy it if only for that but fortunately for you everything else on the menu is amazing.
Ask for the booths in the back for a view of the water.
Get the chai tea too!!!

Ooh changes!
First came here back in 2014 when they first opened. It was a buffet lunch. A lot of food for $ 12 ish I believe. I didn’t quite like it. I love that you get a lot of food but I wanted more grilled meat variations. The space is quite big and spacious. Right next to wild rover in Kirkland downtown. Its a good location. I just wasn’t crazy about the buffet!
Fast forward two years later~ I gave this place another try! A few tries to be exact. First: the sign on the door says Buffet is back as of Feb 26^th. Glad it wasn’t there when I went. My girlfriend and I came to catch up here. We had a great time.
Their sha tea is pretty amazing. Its black tea oxidized to a pink tea! What! Pretty sweet like a dessert. I loved it. The menu was pretty straight forward and then some. I’m all about kababs so I went for the Chopan. My friend went for a qorma sabzi: spicy veggie dish. Both her dish and mine came with a lot of basmati rice. Mine came with pulau but since I know I didn’t like it last time, I went for the basmati. Fluffy and buttery!
My second time around was a few days later. The server/​owner lady was super nice. She chatted with us for a while while! Both times; we were the only table! Or one of the two tables! Such a big massive place! I went with Koobideh and the lamb kababs. This time: we did the pulau and the basmati. Food portion feels much smaller for these two kababs. Definitely for koobideh.
Didn’t finish the food~ took it to go. Added the pulau rice next to my basmati and koobideh. Easy peasy right?! Well wrong. Got home two hours later to find that the pulau has gone really really bad. That old/​rotten food smell ruined my whole box of good food. Shame shame! I know that it is cooked in a meat broth. But man! Must have not been fresh at all. How can rice go bad so fast??! Pretty disappointed. I was hoping to go back but not sure after that little incident.
3 stars because the lady here is so nice!!! Buffet was a 2 stars but the menu food+ service+ tea was a 3 stars. I really like that chopan and chai! That rotten pulau though. Man! Watch out!

We ate a small dinner on Saturday night consisting of a delicious soup and naan bread with an excellent squash appetizer. The restaurant is cozy and live music added to the occasion. We decided to return for the Sunday buffet and try out more of the menu! The buffet had a beef and some chicken choices, but also plenty of flavorful vegetarian choices, which is our preference. The four of us loved the okra dish and the squash and bean dish. Accompanied by mugs of warm Afghan tea, a great way to spend an evening and afternoon.

The location is nice and the inside is clean and classy. Overpriced food and long wait time.
We went on a Saturday and it was not too busy. I ordered a Shish Kabob with rice and it came with a bit of salad. The meat was pretty good, but not amazing. Definitely not worth 16 dollars for a couple tiny pieces of beef and a huge platter of rice. I also ordered the sheer chai which was pretty good, but should have been filtered better because there was A LOT of chunks of herbs and spices at the bottom and made the last quarter of the tea not possible to drink. Also, not worth the 4 dollars for 8oz of tea of which 3 oz were undrinkable because of the debris at the bottom.
What made this a 3 star review is the fact that we waited 45 minutes for our food!!! We ordered and it took them FORTY FIVE minutes to bring us our food. Absolutely ridiculous.
The server was very sweet, but that didn’t make up for the fact that we waited an hour to get our food (order and wait time).
We paid 50 dollars before tip for dinner for the two of us. Overpriced!

They have the best afghan food ever. Best customer service ever. We hire them for our wedding they were very generous. I had guests from Canada and Europe they loved their food. Best catering ever. Value for your money.

Good location in downtown Kirkland. Restaurant was clean, staff was friendly. The food was good. The rice was memorable because it was prepared perfectly. The main entrée was fine, but I’ve had better.

Two stars for location and cleanliness.
Service was weak. Decent but weak.
The food was seriously lacking.
The $ 37 kabob plate would have been overpriced even if it was a really good dish. Unfortunately the meat was dry and you only get three kabobs for $ 37.
We also had 2 orders of the lamb shank not flavorful. Did not give the impression of professionally cooked dish
We additonally ordered the lamb palau. This is supposed to be a traditional dish. The lamb was dry, the rice had no flavor and the raisins /​almonds seem to be thrown on top as an after thought
In conclusion save your $$$ and go to a nice place in Kirkland. Too bad this could have been a go to spot.
TIP: For great Afghan good go to Kabul in Wallingford.

This is my first time at an afghani restaurant so I’ve no idea how to compare it. But I’ll give it a try.
They are in a converted steakhouse so there is wood grain everywhere and a nice view of kirklands waterfront.
We were there for lunch and had Chopan Kebob is a lamb dish marinated overnight. Sambusa. Naan-​Aman. it was all hard to remember but delicious, this place is family owned and operated, so put your trust in what they say.

This was a cozy spot to run into from the Seattle rain! Went during a week day evening and it was not crowded. Several families were there and it definitely had a friendly, family-​run vibe. Our waiter was very attentive without being too pushy. We both ordered sheer chais, which were excellent and served hot. I ordered the Sabzi Chalau (spinach and beef dish with rice) and it combined very tasty flavors. My partner ordered the Mantu (handmade raviolis) which was also good but not quite as flavorful as my dish. All in all, nothing fancy but very tasty, comforting food and warm service.

Came here for dinner tonight, and the place was pretty much empty. The only two things I liked from this place was the lamb kabob, and she made sure to check on us regularly.
We ordered the mixed vegetable pakoras, the owner’s meal, and the kubida kabob with naan. The pakoras seemed to be basically potato… I didn’t even notice any other vegetables inside it. Also, it was pretty dull and lacked flavor. The chutney that came with it was a little too tangy for my taste. The lamb kabob was the best, but the chicken kabob was overlooked and dry. I also didn’t like the naan that much because it was a little too dry and hard.
I think I’ll just stick to indian food for its bold spices and flavor. This place is okay in general.