The Thousands

Parwana. I don’t know what it means, something in Afghan? According to the interwebs there’s no such thing as a specific Afghan language – they speak around 40 with over 200 dialects! Oops! I am embarrassingly ignorant when it comes to this part of the world – and despite thousands of Australians occupying it for the last bunch of years. Whatever your politics, or level of ignorance, a girl has to eat. I like to learn about non-Western cultures through eating so I went to Parwana, an Afghan restaurant on Henley Beach road between the Thebby and the Abyssinian.

The food here is delicious! Think Middle Eastern/Lebanese/Indian and you’re kinda there. Charcoal grilled meats, fluffy colourful rice, curries, dips and bread. But the highlight of the meal? Easily the rose and pistachio ice cream. This frosty treat left me, and the rest of the table speechless. Then we started hassling the waitress about buying it in bulk. Then we started talking about eating it all summer – one of us hypothesised that it would be THE MOST REFRESHING THING EVER in the heat. Hopefully we had some influence and they start selling bathtub sized buckets of the stuff. At any rate I learned one thing – Parwana means delicious. Oh and they only take cash.