Beloved Torrensville diner, Parwana Afghan Kitchen, has announced it will introduce a lunch service from this week – welcome news for anyone still mourning the loss of Kutchi Deli, Parwana’s sibling CBD lunchtime venue, which closed earlier this year.
Lunch will be available every Thursday to Sunday, and will be a mix of some longstanding signature dishes as well as new ones. Newbies include Afghan pasta and bolani (a pan-fried, stuffed flatbread filled with seasonal vegetables or meat and served with a herb chutney).
Durkhanai Ayubi, who runs the restaurant with her parents Zelmai and Farida Ayubi, says Afghan pasta isn’t too dissimilar to Italian pasta. “[Pasta] is topped with tons of sauce like a rich tomato and split-pea sauce, and then topped again liberally with a tangy yoghurt and dried herbs,” she says.
Zelmai and Farida opened Parwana in 2009, and it’s full of black-and-white family portraits, murals, mirrors and all manner of kitschy trinkets. It’s been a place for the welcoming Ayubi family to share their favourite family meals and dishes, and to introduce Afghan cuisine to Adelaide. Durkhanai recently immortalised her parent’s story, along with her mother’s recipes that are the backbone of the restaurant, in Parwana’s debut cookbook. It also tells a bigger story – that of Afghan history and a much-misunderstood country that the Ayubi family left behind at the height of the Cold War, 37 years ago.
Durkhanai says a lunch service is the natural progression for the family. “Lunch is a huge part of Afghan cuisine – it's a way to stop, take a break, and reconnect with others around the shared joy of food before going on with the rest of our day,” she tells Broadsheet.
Like at dinner, BYO will be available at lunch. The corkage fee is donated to a homelessness charity.
