Khyber Kabob

Okay, I miss Alexandria a little more now.
Out here in the wilds of Loudoun County, it’s been difficult for me to find good Pakistani food, which I now favor over Indian and Afghan. Down closer to DC there are many options, but not so for those of us out on the DC western frontier.
Today I tried this place out for the first time, and their buffet was excellent, with dishes that seemed authentic and were surprisingly fresh — it was a very slow, rainy day, consequently with few other customers in the restaurant.
I even (mostly) overlooked the styrofoam plates, a pet peeve of mine, the food was that good. And $ 12 for a full meal? That’s about the cost of lunch at the Chic-​FillA across the parking lot. Yeah, I call it «sheek filla».
If you’re trying to follow a low-​carb diet, Pakistani food is a good bet. Okay, they bombed my diet with that great bread, but otherwise the options on the buffet were great, the spinach (saag) being a standout, and even more so the chickpeas.
Nice place, not loud, not crowded, great food, low cost, off the beaten path. Bingo.
If this were closer to my office, this would be the go-​to to go to for lunch. Much better than the options in Reston.

Excellent buffet, friendly owner. Good variety of food and sweets. Will certainly stop by here the next time I’m around.

Don’t let the Styrofoam plates and plastic utensils fool you; this place is amazing! The weekend lunch buffet has a variety of options, so you really can’t go wrong. One downside is that they don’t have any labels on the items on the buffet, but the individuals working always seem delighted to explain. We’ve been a number of times and the food is consistently delicious. When the buffet isn’t available on weekday evenings, the selection does seem a bit small. The food is still good, but the buffet seems to be their forte.

We ate the buffet here and ordered a a seekh kabab and chicken tikka for the kids, as the buffet did not have a single tandoori or grill item. Although the buffet food was tasty, I do wish, for the $ 12 price, that atleast one grilled dish should’ve been in the buffet. There were too many curries, and not one of them was labeled. The owner/​server was exceptionally courteous and friendly. We will come back, but probably not for the buffet.

Received halwa that had mold in it, green and white fuzzy mold. Explained it to the owner that this is not acceptable. In return he gave me the money back for the order and a random explanation on why he thought mold would develop. Since he was not convinced there was mold I brought him the original package and kept it nice and safe for him to review. Then he went on another rant about this is the first time and wanted to know our experience with the molded halwa. He will continue the relationship with Shineys that provided the mold to his store. Still this serves the best biryani and their own products are good, but this experience made me update my review.

Good fresh food and great service. Buffet options are available on weekdays and weekends.

Excellent Pakistani/​Indian Food. I visited this restaurant several times. I mostly eat from the buffet. The food is full of good flavors and it is very delicious. I strongly recommend you visit this restaurant if you are looking for a delicious Pakistani/​Indian food. It is the excellent taste of the food that brings me back every time.

We just ordered from here tonight. We were craving Indian because i have a cold and its good to clear the sinuses. I had the Tikka Masala which was delicious and he even made it with less salt because i am watching my salt intake. My Fiancé love the Chicken Bryiani and he loved it. My fiancé picked it up and said the man gave us free rice pudding for dessert, so nice! This place is delicious, everyone needs to go try it!

Food seemed like out of the frozen section at some grocery store. No other customer on a Sunday night except us. Both chicken Chapli kabob and beef kabob had the shape and taste of frozen food. Not going to go back there again. Not sure how this place got 4 stars.

The very first thing I noticed when I entered this place was that, it was very clean and neat. They had done a great job! I decided to go for the buffet option to get a taste of Pakistani food. They were all good and yummy. Something, totally different for me. I enjoyed my time and will go there again to taste some of their special made foods. Give it a try!
P. S. the price was $ 12 and I think very reasonable with your options!

Decent meal and price. Felt like a take out place more than a sit down restaurant. When we arrived there were only 2 people in the restaurant. Within 10 minutes 4 large groups of 6+ people arrived and it got busy! It looks like there is a buffet, but had not been set up yet. Overall, good but probably wouldn’t return.

Being new to Pakistani food, I am so glad I’ve found this place! Delicious Biryani Chicken… Returned for the lunch buffet recently with my husband and we both enjoyed the variety of foods. Very kind and informative staff, will in to explajn all the varieties of food and answering my questions. My new favorite restaurant!

Not only is their food the most authentic, and truly spiced (warning for the unexposed people), their staff is always friendly and genuine, and always ask after my mum. The Café Rice and Kabob across the shopping centre may be good but they’re more expensive and more rude and aren’t producing the kind of consistent quality these guys are.

I have never been unhappy with the food here. All the people that work there are always friendly. The buffet is good and the dishes are good. Their best dish is the boneless chicken biryani. Also, they have paan for after the food so, that and the mango lassi are my favorite go to!
The restaurant has been empty many times that I go in there but, it doesn’t bother me at all. I enjoy the food and enjoy the range of options.
Totally try the chicken pastries! They’re delicious!

Food: OK lamb kabobs. Chicken kabobs came undercooked. Accompaniments were mediocre.
Service: Staff was pleasant. They mentioned they were working a wedding so they were understaffed. Unfortunately we had to sit in a cold restaurant because they kept moving food out and leaving the door open.
We waited almost 40 minutes for food to arrive. They did give us a complimentary appetizer while we waited and recooked our chicken that was raw.

I’m underqualified to really review Pakistani cuisine, but I enjoy trying out new places and I gave this place a shot. I went for the buffet because it was reputed to be a great value. The selection wasn’t as extensive as I anticipated. Also, as someone unfamiliar with the food, it would have been nice to see a few labels on the buffet.
A few of my friends ordered off the menu and got the chicken tikka and lamb kabob. I would probably opt for one of those next time.
The most remarkable part of the meal was the naan. It was fresh, hot, and had the right amount of char. The staff on hand was very generous in handing this out.
The amposphere and décor is sparse. This isn’t high class dining. It’s far from impressive, but the real priorities of this place seem to be in the authentic food experience.

My boyfriend and I tried this place after hearing of good reviews. We went there around 7:30 PM on a Monday and there wasn’t a customer in the restaurant. We got our entrees to go. I ordered the chicken tikka. My first bite of chicken tasted overly chewy and off. I tried another chunk and the same thing. So I only ate the rice and chickpeas. Within two hours I vomited and not long after my boyfriend had stomach issues. This was undoubtedly caused by the food we ate. Very awful experience and will not return. Also worth noting we really are not picky food eaters. This is the first review I’ve ever given on Unilocal lower than 3 stars and I’ve been using Unilocal for years.

All of my Pakistani favorites! I am such a sucker for Indian and Pakistani BUSTA-gut…just cannot help myself. Anyway, Buffet for lunch $ 8.99 with nan! Friendly, clean and very good. Got to watch a tv station from Pakistan too! Give this place a try. I will be back!

Very solid three stars with a chance to upgrade when I try something else there. So yes, I do want to go back and try more menu items because there’s a lot of potential. What I had was good, just not necessarily what I expected.
This is Pakistani food, influenced by Afghan a bit, given Khyber cooks food based on the Khyber Pass region of the Hindu Kush mountains, right on the border with Afghanistan.
The chicken kabob salad wasn’t what was expected — it was ground chicken formed and grilled, not chunks of chicken done over charcoal like you normally get at a kabob place. Still, it had a nice texture and taste, although it was a little heavy on the cilantro.
The lamb biryani bowl was mostly good. The rice was amazing — lots of very unique flavors and seasonings going on there. Some of the best Middle Eastern rice I’ve had. Rivals Tigris in Oakton for great rice. The lamb kebab was on the bone still, which made the dish pretty difficult to eat and resulted in actually getting very little meat. Some of the menu designates when things are bone-​in, but this didn’t. (Actually, the biryani bowls aren’t even on the in-​store menu, I just knew they had it from an online menu I found before visiting.)
The inside of the restaurant seemed clean and spacious, though no one was in there yet for lunch (I was pretty early though, around 11 a.m.). They also have a lunch buffet that’s under $ 9, which I would like to try sometime. The staff is friendly. While I waited on my to-​go meals, the guy working the register brought me a free bowl of rice pudding. Nice! (BTW, it was very good. I’m not much of a rice pudding person, but the cardamom flavoring was spot-​on.)
Again, pretty darn good place, tasty food, they just need to work on the menu and how things are described/​combined. It’s going to be a hit-​or-​miss experience until you find that perfect dish, but I’m pretty confident they have the culinary skills to make something four– or five-​star worthy.

Been back numerous times and it’s just as tasty as the first time.
The thing here is to just be adventurous because the buffet offerings aren’t labelled. Weekend offerings are more varied and there’s a lot more different dishes to try compared to the weekday lunch offerings.
Puri here is nice a fresh, goes great with the chickpeas and a great addition to the meal with the piping hot, fluffy naan.
We’ve only tried some of the sweets. I would still recommend ending the meal with the homemade kulfi they have in the freezer next to the cash register. The other sweet I’ve tried was some sort of square that was flaky, sweet, and made of milk– very tasty. I would skip the jalebi. The batch I tried had an unpleasant oil taste (like the oil had been used just a few too many times).