The Power and the Glory of Kebab

Each weekend night on a very busy corner in Crystal City, area cab drivers along with droves of South Asians and their families pile into Kabob Palace. Naturally, this is the sort of scene that immediately inspires AC and myself to see what the fuss is all about.

We made our inaugural visit to Kabob Palace when it was just a cab stand, a small take-away with about a dozen tables, all of which we typically found occupied during the late dinner rush on a Friday night. While diners wait in line to place their orders, they can while away a few minutes checking out the case of raw skewered meats, all of which are painstakingly arrayed in one of the most glorious displays of unrepentant carnivorousness in the D.C. area.  Moving up the line, watch as one of the countermen takes a freshly kneaded loaf of dough and sticks it to the side of the clay oven, removing a fully realized naan barely ten minutes later, steaming and blistery. As you can imagine, Kabob Palace quickly became a mainstay in our weekend repertoire.

That’s why we were pleasantly surprised about a year ago to see that Kabob Palace had expanded and added a full-service restaurant about three doors down, as a supplement to the cab stand. Service can be spotty, and on almost every visit, the waitstaff have had to inform us that at least one item we ordered is not available, or, in the case of their mantu, the item we desire will require an excessive amount of time to prepare. Nevertheless, having been to the newer location several times, we have now identified our favorite selections and, thankfully, these items seem to be consistently available.

First off, meat is essential. In our opinion, Palace Combo #9 is king. It includes a skewer of kubideh, which are cylinders of ground lamb, liberally spiced and very juicy, and a skewer of lamb kebab, nicely charred on the outside, dusted with sumac, and tender and juicy inside. The meat comes with a small cup of their cold, refreshing herbed yogurt sauce, which is an appropriate dipping sauce for the meat and bread. As the restaurant delights in serving large portions, we always share the combo so we can leave room for their amazing vegetable sides.

Kebab Palace offers a choice of spinach or chickpeas with each of its kebab combos. We always opt for the spinach dish, which we find is a close cousin to saag paneer, the standard spinach and cheese side found at a lot of Indian restaurants. Though this version is more hardy, less of a puree, than saag. It’s flecked with onion, herbs, and spices, and is the perfect accompaniment to the meat. The chickpeas are a bit oily for our taste, but they're unique in that they seem to have been slightly sweetened with cinammon.

But the star vegetable in our view is the okra do piaza, which may very well represent the most complex and delicious preparation of okra we have ever tasted (pickled okra is a close second). The okra is sautéed within an inch of its life, as it is almost crispy, but it still retains its fleshy innards, though none of the sliminess that seems to be okra's natural textural tendency. It’s cooked with ample onion and red pepper and a lot of spices. But it's the mustard seed that launches this dish into the spicing stratosphere. Between you and me, I probably eat more than half of it each time we share this dish. Sadly, the okra is not offered as one of the complimentary sides for the meat platters and must be ordered separately.

As with every South Asian meal, bread is a key component. The naan is among the best we’ve had. It’s always presented to us piping hot, doughy, and crispy in all the right places. And we always get a few of those odd bread bubbles that occur in the oven when air gets trapped inside the bread—we love that. But what we love the most is creating our own little sandwich with the bread: a bit of kubideh, a generous helping of yogurt sauce, all wrapped in soft, hot naan. It’s heaven. The best part is that this whole meal, including a drink or two, will run two people about $30 with tax and tip.

Eat more than your share at Kabob Palace:

2315 S. Eads Street
Arlington, VA
(703) 486-3535

—AK