Panjshir II Restaurant

Seems to be closed. No note on door or window. Telephone disconnected. No new info on website (
)
Thanks, management.

RESTAURANT CLOSED!
Showed up with friends for dinner last night and they have closed. Not sure if Falls Church branch is still open but plan to check. I’m already in mourning for their kadu chalow (pumpkin) with spinach rice. Best I’ve ever enjoyed. No other local Afghan restaurant came close.

Since I won’t be going to Afghanistan anytime soon (eff you, bin Laden!), I decided to visit this Afghan place to take a virtual trip to that Middle Eastern country gastronomically.
Not bad! But so sad… maybe it was because it was a weekday afternoon, but the entire restaurant was so… empty and forlorn when I walked in with a friend. I immediately doubted my decision to have lunch here. After all, no customers means bad food, right?
Not so. The first thing (person) I warmed up to was the manager, who was so incredibly nice and friendly, joking lightly and being very patient with us while we decided on what to order.
The food was great, too. I ordered the Kadu Chalow (sauteed pumpkin topped with seasoned yogurt and tomato sauce; served with spinach rice) and it was wonderful. The pumpkin was perfectly seasoned, and really deliciously sweet. The spinach rice was cooked well too: savory and flaky, not at all mushy.
My friend ordered the Kabab — E — Gos Fund (chunks of lamb marinated in herbs and spices, served on skewer with saffron rice) and it came freshly grilled, slightly sizzling. I stole a piece of meat and found it juicy and nicely flavored, albeit a tad bit chewy.
The prices were so reasonable: none of the dishes were more than $ 9 (minus tax and tip), and the portions were just right. I felt full, but not stuffed.
I’ll be back, definitely. I have the apple dish in mind.

The food here is outstanding and the restaurant owner is so extremely inviting! The only problem is that they do not have enough wait staff on evenings that may, perhaps, get busy… but I do not blame them for that as it is often difficult to predict how busy the restaurant will be in these economic times of difficulty.
LOVED the «vegetarian» options (delectable)l however, some are prepared with chicken broth… so be aware.
The atmosphere is pleasant and inviting… almost romantic, if you’d like to entertain that special someone.

Okay, so this place is pretty mediocre. For all the very good ethic restaurants in Fairfax County, this one seems to have been left behind. I ordered a carrot dish with figs, etc. It was fine. But the price was much higher than I thought it should have been. The value was not there. I get the feeling that it’s supposed to be a trade-​off for the «nicer» atmosphere (which I found sort of stuffy for the sort of place that this is) and the service, which admittedly was pretty good.
Overall, though, the portions are pretty small and the flavor isn’t that amazing. There are several restaurants in the area I would go to before returning to Panjshir II.

No way this place deserves 4 stars, much less 3. The portions are absurdly small. Honestly, their are a dozen other Afghan places around here that are a TON better than this.
Yes, the food is pretty good — but when you order a combination kabob, and get one piece of chicken, lamb and beef, something is wrong. No joke — one piece each. And no, they were not big pieces. We literally went to another place to eat more.
It seems like this was the first to bring Afghan flavors to Vienna/​Tysons, and they have just been slacking and surpassed.

There is a difference between expensive fancy restaurants that serve amazing food and provide an unforgettable ambiance and service and the restaurants that try too hard to be fancy so they could be expensive. Panjshir II definitely falls into the second category.
The waiter came to fill up our glasses with water and I noticed glasses weren’t well cleaned. The environment did not feel authentic, menu items are overpriced and portions are not what you pay for.
I took my girlfriend there for dinner, we ordered 2 meals ($ 15/​each) and an appetizer ($ 5) and one drink ($ 2). If you do the math it comes to around $ 37+tax. We left a generous tip in cash because I dont like cutting corners on tips for the staff. Later that night I checked my bank account and I had a charge for $ 63 from the restaurant. I have tried calling the restaurant 4 times in last two days to get an explanation and the phone just rings and rings.
I am certainly not returning and my «word of mouth» will certainly cost them a lot more than what they took from us.

I would have to agree with Robert k, the meat portions were very small. I got the Quabili Palow. It was good but nothing like they serve in Kabul, at least not at the places I used to get it.
The Palow was very disappointing, it seemed they put very little effort into it. I’m sure it would be much better if I made it at home.
The cardamom tea was very good, flavorful and my cup was never empty.
For dessert I had Firnee, it was pretty good but not great. I dont have anything to compare it too though.

Panjshir’s a nice, little Afghan restaurant, with good food at decent prices. The menu’s heavy on kabobs and dumplings –actually with different flavors than I’ve had at most Afghan places in the area. ‘Lighter,’ I think I would say. Someone once told me this was representative of the northern or southern region of Afghanistan while most other Afghan restaurants in the DC area tend to represent the opposite region. They could have been making that up but I bought it at the time. I’ve been several times now and haven’t yet been displeased with a meal or appetizer. That said, I haven’t been wowed either, which is too bad. (I’ve been trying numerous Afghan restaurants in vain ever since my favorite one closed in Georgetown several years ago.) The staff is polite and capable and, as with most Afghan restaurants I’ve been to more than once, the owner/​manager is very conscious of return guests. Unfortunately, none of that helps the service speed; as others here have mentioned, the service is almost laughably slow — well beyond a possible ‘we’re-giving-you-time-to-enjoy-a-leisurely-dining-experience’ intention. Initial requests for the check or next course, meaningful looks, hand signals… none of this seems to have an effect.
I recommend it for variety, but definitely go when you’re not in any rush.

If there were no other Afghan restaurants around I’d give this place a 4 because the food is good, but since there are others around that are better I will only give this a 3. First off, they do not bring naan and hot sauce to your table when you are seated. Bamian in Falls Church does. I don’t know why they don’t (maybe they want you to order appetizers and think if you have bread to munch on you won’t). Bread and sauce comes with the entrée, though, which is a good thing. Their hot sauce is a bit too thin and vinegar-​y for my taste, though. I almost choked on it. The stuff at Bamian is much better tasting and chunkier with herbs.
The service is very, very slow. I came here once before and left after no one came to our table for 15 minutes. I reluctantly gave it another shot since I was craving Afghan. The service was better, but still slow.
The Ginger Ale they brought to our table was completely clear and tasted like flat seltzer water. We politely pointed it out to them and asked for another and they said the ginger ale tap had run out of syrup so they changed it and brought us back actual Ginger Ale. Why did they bring us clear seltzer water in the first place? I guess they weren’t paying attention.
The food was actually very delicious and even though the portion looked small, it filled us up nicely. I had the Quabili Palow and the lamb chunks were very tender and nestled in a rich, flavorful sauce. The saffron rice was also delicious and I loved the sweetness of the raisins, carrots and almonds which matched well with the rice. We ordered a side of the pumpkin, too, which is good enough to be a dessert. Not sure I’ll go back any time soon, though. For my Afghan cravings, I much prefer Bamian.

4.5 stars???
4.5 stars???
For what??? How???
I ate at this place on a whim with a buddy. I paid $ 15 for a lamb and rice entrée. I paid an extra $ 2 for yogurt. There were 3 tiny cutlets of lamb. There was 5 spoonfuls of rice conveniently flattened over the plate to make it cover more surface area, giving the illusion of a generous portion. The only thing there was an abundance of was spinach, which I wasn’t even aware that I had ordered.
What’s killing me here is the portioning. I’ve paid ¹⁄₃ the price this place cost me in NY and got kabob, rice, and bread, TASTIER FOOD and a bigger damn portion.
Seriously are you fucking kidding me??? $ 17 and all I get is 4 grains of rice with curried lamb?
Not only that but the service was devastatingly slow. It took about 25 to 30 minutes for our food to come out. This stuff is usually pre-​cooked, so I can’t fathom any justification for the amount of time it took these guys to bring our food out.
Honestly just stay away from this place. There are much better high-​class kabob restaurants in Springfield and Alexandria, perhaps even some in McLean. This place was just all-​around disappointing. The pinnacle of Afghan cuisine, as I’ve learned from fine dining and fast food joints all over the place that cater to this art, is strong flavors and heaping portions. The portions here were a joke. I was still hungry after the meal. I feel ripped off as hell.
Just stick to fast food kabob joints, avoid this fancy-​schmancy ripoff bullshit. These assholes think that just because they’re serving you in a white dress shirt and bowtie that they can skimp you while overcharging you and call it «classy fine dining».
Yah, go fuck yourself.

This food is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I often go to Tara Thai next door, and one time I decided to stop by here instead. I am so incredibly glad I did. The pumpkin/​yogurt combination turned out to be phenomenal, and every dish was better than the next. Go there already!

I had never had Afghan food before, and so I didn’t know what to expect. But this place was DELICIOUS. The strip mall location is underwhelming, but it feels very nice inside and the service was impeccable. I got the vegetarian combo — with pumpkin, spinach, and
eggplant dishes. I’m mostly vegetarian, so I was a little disappointed to read in the above review that the pumpkin dish uses chicken broth. But it was worth cheating if that’s the case. My dining partner had a lamb and turnip dish and we both cleaned our plates. We will be back for more!

I have only been to the original Panjshir once, but I have been to Panjshir II many times. Their food and service is outstanding. In the 10 years I have been coming here, the manager has always been there and he always recognizes us, greets us, and shows us to our table. I get the feeling he does that for a lot of returning customers.
The food is excellent, but a word of caution: most of it is NOT vegetarian even if it seems so at first glance. The restaurant’s standout feature is kadu chalow, a pumpkin dish, but the sauce is made with chicken broth. However, you can request that it be served without the sauce, and it is still quite tasty — although it’s a little dry that way, so make sure you have water.
My only complaint about Panjshir II is getting the check taken care of can sometimes take a while. They will bring it to your table eventually, and then eventually they’ll come back to pick up your payment. You can get around this by going straight up to the register at the bar, and if you show them where you were sitting they will ring you up promptly.
Attendance at Panjshir II has dropped since they were closed long-​term following a fire in the shopping center where they were located, but the service and food are still outstanding and recommended.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to experience Afghan food, run, don’t walk to Panjshir II in Vienna. Recently, a friend of mine and I had the opportunity for a «girls out» afternoon. We had been to Panjshir in Falls Church and had heard they opened a new location in Vienna. Fantastic Afghan food! We each had the pumpkin entre (sorry, I don’t remember the ethnic name for it). It was slightly sweet, but not over-​whelming, and served next to a bed of spinach rice. We also shared a side of the eggplant which was cooked to perfection — slightly firm and not mush in the least — in a tomato-​based sauce. Bread accompanied the meal. Unfortunately, we were both stuffed and did not have the opportunity to try a dessert.