Hawasana Afghan Cuisine, Stoke-on-Trent

Hawasana must be one of Stoke on Trent’s best kept secrets. I’d never heard of this Afghan restaurant until a follower of my Facebook page sent me a message suggesting I try it. “It isn’t the poshest place you’ll ever go to”, she said, “but it was a very interesting experience for us – we ate a number of things we’d never heard of before.”

She also mentioned that herself and her husband had eaten two courses each with a jug of mango lassi and the bill had been just £22.

Despite my very long list of new places to try growing longer by the week, I was intrigued. Consequently, I bumped Hawasana up near the top of my list and off we went one recent Saturday night.

HAWASANA

I’m one of those people who likes to do a little research before I eat somewhere new. When it comes to Hawasana, that’s no easy task. They’re clearly not ones for shouting about what they do on social media.  By all means click on the link above to their Facebook page, but at the time of writing it hasn’t been updated for yonks.

However, I’d read that the restaurant was regularly full of local Afghan families as well as students from the nearby Staffordshire University main campus. So word about this place must gradually be seeping out.

Hawasana is in the basement of Winton House, an unpromising-looking office block on Stoke Road in Shelton. Inside the restaurant itself, it’s quite plain but perfectly comfortable with a view of the goings on in the kitchen. We received a very friendly welcome too.

I was a bit surprised that there was only one other table occupied. Later, a small family group came in and a couple of takeaway customers were served too.

But it wasn’t until we were on the way home that I remembered it was Ramadan. That could explain the lack of other Afghan diners if they were observing the Muslim fast which wouldn’t be broken until sunset – still a couple of hours away.

Maybe we were a little early for the student crowd too.

THE MENU

Not knowing anything at all about the food of Afghanistan, reading the menu I did see some apparent similarity with dishes and terms you’d find in a British Indian or Pakistani restaurant. For example pulao/pilau, kebabs, gosht for meat, murgh for chicken and qurma/korma.

As Afghanistan shares borders with Pakistan, along with China and Iran (plus some of the countries previously part of the old Soviet Union), it’s not surprising there’s a degree of crossover.

We wanted to try a good range of dishes and, helpfully, the menu includes a description of many of them. Staff were also happy to explain dishes where there was no description.

I suppose I ought to point out that Hawasana doesn’t have lots of choice if you’re not a meat eater. There seemed to be three vegetable based mains, not all of which were available on the night we visited. There’s also vegetable samosas and chips, but that’s about it I’m afraid.

Unusually for us, we decided to forgo the starters and instead chose four main courses to share. Being the only customers at this point, we were served within about twenty minutes. With big portions on big plates, everything just managed to fit on our table.

TANDOORI MIXED KEBAB

I love a good tandoori mixed kebab, and that served at Hawasana (£7.50) was excellent.

It featured an enormous lamb kofta that couldn’t be contained on its oval platter. Its end dangled lewdly over the side. The minced lamb was very well flavoured with just a few herbs and a light spicing running through it. There were also two good chunks of tender lamb, equally tasty.

Four chunky pieces of chicken also sat on the platter. Two chicken tikka and two chicken with garlic and pepper. I thought that both were expertly cooked, with just the right amount of charring on the outside. Inside they were tender and moist.

As we discovered with our other dishes, Afghan cuisine is not an especially hot one. The level of chilli heat I’d categorize as moderate. But if you do like a good whack of chilli with your kebab than the fiery sauce that came on the side will be right up your street. There was a contrasting, cooling, minty yogurt too.

The salad garnish that came with the kebab was bog standard iceberg lettuce, a couple of slices of cucumber, tomato and lemon. But it was very fresh.

NAAN

Also included with the meat and salad for your £7.50 was the biggest naan I’d ever seen. I think it must have been at least the size of that ancient measurement, the cubit, i.e. roughly the length of an arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.

Unlike many restaurant naan, I don’t think this had butter on it. As someone who generally thinks just about everything can be improved with a good dousing of butter, I was surprised to find that I liked this drier version. I don’t think either of us ate much of it with the kebab, but the chewy bread went very well with the saucier dishes we’d chosen.

MARVELLOUS MANTU

Mantu (£6) was a menu item I certainly hadn’t heard of before. Described as meat stuffed in steamed pastry, in my ignorance I was initially surprised this was an Afghan dish. Perhaps, looking at my photo of it below, you might be reminded of Italian tortellini in tomato sauce?

But it turns out that mantu is a reflection of the influence of China over its Afghan neighbour. Once you know, I guess it’s obvious, but it was the Chinese who brought their dumplings and noodles to Afghanistan.

While the old story of Marco Polo taking pasta to Italy from China has been thoroughly debunked, the eating of pasta-like food does appear to have been going on much longer in Asia than Europe.

Anyway, whoever made it possible for me to tuck into a big plate of mantu the other night, they have my fondest thanks.

Like all the dishes at Hawasana, this came as a substantial portion. I didn’t count them, but there must have been at least a dozen little steamed dumplings. Inside was a lovely, strong flavoured minced lamb filling. It reminded me of a very good meat samosa. Again though, not too much heat and with mellow spicing.

Over and around the dumplings was a sauce of tomatoes and split peas, rather  like a mild Indian chana dal. It had a good garlic kick. Drizzled over everything was a nicely tart and contrasting yogurt sauce.

All these elements together made it the stand-out dish of the evening for both of us.

QABULI PULAO

Said to be the national dish of Afghanistan, how could we not order as part of our first Afghan meal the Qabuli Pulao (£6.50)?

The delicate rice in this steamed dish was perfectly cooked, the grains completely separate. Among the rice were sultanas and strips of carrot.

But where was the advertised lamb? Had we been swindled out of it? Ah no, can’t you see there’s something peeping out just toward the far end of this picture?

Pushing aside the rice, we were delighted to find a little lamb shank. And with only a few lights flicks of the fork, the tender and flavoursome meat simply fell off the bone.

This was another really pleasing dish. The mild flavour of the dryish rice went well with the sauces on the mantu and the other dishes I’m about to describe.

BORANI BANJAN

Wanting a vegetable dish to go with our meaty choices, Boranji Banjan (£6) was one of those we’d asked our server about, there being no description on the menu. He’d said it was aubergine, which was fine with us.

I’ve since learned that this is a classic Afghan dish. At Hawasana very soft aubergine was layered with slices of tomato and onion. More of that enjoyable yogurt sauce was drizzled over the top.

Like the mantu, there was not a high level of spicing. This allowed the flavour of the vegetables to come through, with an undertow of garlic.

SURPRISE EXTRAS

Along with the dishes we’d ordered, came something we were a little baffled about. At one end of an oblong plate was spinach studded with little cubes of chicken. At the other, split peas in tomato sauce with a lamb meatball in the middle.

Had we missed something in the menu description? Was it part of the rice dish? We happily ate it all anyway. It might not have been the best looking plate of food, but it tasted just as good as everything else we’d had.

It was only once we got home and I had a further look at the menu, it dawned on me that they were samples of two other dishes, Murgh Sabzi and Koffta Qurma, given to us free of charge.

When ordering our food, we’d mentioned (probably in an attempt to excuse ourselves for appearing greedy) that we wanted to try as many things as possible as we hadn’t eaten Afghan food before. So I guess they must have picked up on that and kindly given us a couple of little tastings. Done wordlessly, without fanfare, I think that’s pretty special.

DESSERTS & DRINKS

Unusually for us, we couldn’t fit in a dessert. There’s only one anyway, Firmi (£2), which is an Afghan custard.

No alcohol is sold at Hawasana but you’re welcome to bring your own, as we did.

The usual range of fizzy soft drinks is available plus green or black tea. There’s jugs of Mango Lassi (£5) and also Dough (£4) which sounds like the Afghan version of salt lassi.

GREAT VALUE

When our feast was served, we thought we’d never eat it all.  ‘We’ll ask if we can take the leftovers home,’ we agreed. But there were no leftovers. We’d cleared the lot.

For four large main courses, including that giant naan, the bill came to just £26 for the both of us. I’m hard pressed to think of another instance where I’ve paid that sort of money for this quantity of good quality food.

RECOMMENDED

I’d be the first to admit there’s nothing fancy about Hawasana. But we don’t always want fancy, do we? Sometimes, we just want good, tasty food without having to spend a lot. And that’s precisely what you’ll get.

As research for this review I did an internet picture search for ‘Afghanistan’. I wanted a map of the region to see which countries bordered it, to get an idea of the influences on its cuisine. Sadly, what I was first confronted with was page after page of soldiers, tanks and helicopters.

Due to its location between Europe and Asia, the country has been fought over for centuries, not just during its recent sad history. What a shame that is what’s conjured up by the word ‘Afghanistan’.

But go along to Hawasana and you’ll see another side. Hearty, relatively simple and great value food, served with warmth and generosity.

Recommended.