Zaytoon Steak and Kabab

The place is shut down.

My friend is fasting for Lent today so I needed to make sure that this restaurant served sufficient vegetarian dishes and they did! They have vegi wraps, a Mediterranean plate (hummus, falafel, baba ghanoush, tabouli, grape leaves, etc.) & a couple other items. The restaurant has fancy tableware but the building is a little ghetto and the area is very barren.
I got the Combo Plate ($ 12) with lamb & beef kabobs. The beef was ok but the lamb was so tasty! It was nice and tender. Surprisingly the rice was very flavorful despite its typical plain rice appearance. I tried my friend’s tabouli and they gave him too much and it was too tart. I think he got jipped because he got the Mediterranean plate but the baba ghanoush was missing.
Our waiter was very relaxed (bordering apathetic) but still fairly polite. The four of us were the ONLY ones in the entire restaurant but the food still took about 15 minutes to come out. I’m not sure if this is how you do it but we went up to pay and he was very cool about us splitting checks. There are a variety of stews on the menu that I definitely want to try!

Food: This place has the most delicious chicken kabob ever. I don’t know what the guy does, but the rice is so soft and flakey that it just melts in your mouth. Most Afghan restaurants can not seem to do the rice right, but this place somehow manages to get it right on point. I don’t eat beef or lamb, but my family members ordered it, and it looked really juicy and delicious. They give you a little salad at the beginning of the meal. If you don’t know much about Afghan food, I would recommend trying the «dough» yoghurt cucumber drink with your meal, unless your lactose intolerant.
Price: The food is decently priced for its superior quality meat cuts.
Location: This place is in the cuts. Not very appealing to the eye. Parking is not bad.
Ambiance: This place really doesn’t have any? It’s clean, though.

My wife and I went there once just after they opened.
The food was great and the service was exceptional.
I would like to go again some time to see how they are after being in business for some time.

Great looking Afghan restaurant in an old run down divey strip mall. Hard to tell from the outside but when you go in it’s fairly nice. White tablecloths, nice flatware; fairly formal as most Afghan places seem to be. Got some Shami ground beef kabobs to go on the way to the BART. Shami kabob was moist and flavorful. The rice that came with it was super tasty. The service was super friendly even though I was just there for takeout. Everyone who worked there seemed to be family and a lot of the clientele knew the owners and were of the Afghan community. Too bad it’s so far from work and home but if I’m in the area again I’ll definitely try and drop in for a full dinner experience.