Warm flatbread: soft on the inside, crispy on the outside. The three sauces were all wonderful, but the herby green one was the table favorite. The red one was a spicy chili sauce with black sesame seeds in it, and the white was a yogurt sauce.
Mmmmm, ravioli-like things filled with spinach and topped with both yogurt and meat sauces.
Both kinds of dumplings above totally blew me away.
Pumpkin! This is Helmand's most famous dish. When I saw it, I was disappointed. Steamed pumpkin, what's so special about that? One bite had me going back for more. The flavors, the accompanying sauce, the meat, the yogurt...it just all comes together somehow.
My beef with pallow (fragrant rice cooked with cumin and other herbs): the meat was overcooked. I was very sad. Meat like this is the reason I avoid kebab-like meat in most restaurants. The flavor was there, the char was nice, but it was so tough! The rice was good but not phenomenal, and the chickpeas were fine as well. What I really enjoyed was the grilled pear that came with a lof of the dishes.
Grilled lamb: much better than my beef.
Beef meatballs in sauce: I actually never saw this dish, but the rumor was it wasn't great.
Lamb special: this was the one dish that really did wow me. I was sad I hadn't orded it for myself. Very tender meat, a sauce that didn't taste like any of the other sauces at the table, and good flavor penetration.
Tenderloin steak: much better than my grilled beef. Rare in the center and tender. However, it was just a steak, and I could grill a tastier steak at home without much effort. The spinach rice did look delicious, though, and with all the little side vegetables this would have been something I could eat a whole plate of. Contrast with my beef, which was so tough it went around the table twice for tasting and I still had half to take home.
Grilled salmon: good fish, not overcooked. But again, just fish.
Fish: as usual, there was one dish I forgot to photograph. It was pretty good, actually. But again, the sauces start tasting the same after awhile.
2 comments:
There's a restaurant by the same name in Baltimore and it has many of the same dishes. It is one of my favorite restaurants, perhaps my most favorite, although I haven't gotten around to blogging about it.
I'd love to get that pumpkin recipe. I live in the mountains of New Mexico and I'll never get to Helmand's [or whatever the place is] but I love to cook.
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