Zara Afghan Cuisine

729 J St

Sacramento, CA 95819

Rating:  

Located on busy J street in Sacramento, Zara Afghan Cuisine serves up a variety of Afghani food at reasonable prices. Upon entering the restaurant, our group was hit with heat equal to that of the warm outdoors since the AC was not on. After being seated quickly by staff, the AC was turned on, but took a while to get cool. Water was provided fairly quickly with the menus. Everything seemed fine after our orders were given, but that was not the case. Water cups quickly decreased due to the warm restaurant, and refills were not timely provided on multiple occasions. Food also took forever to be ready considering most orders were just wraps.

Today, I ordered the lamb gyro and kofta kabob wrap from the lunch menu, which also came with fries. The fries were very fresh, but were way overly-salted. The ketchup tasted different, but in a good way, and also helped diffuse the extra salt. The wrap itself was put together well and the meat tasted well-seasoned, but I could not tell the difference between the two meats I chose as it all just tasted the same. There was not a lot of their white sauce in the wrap, but did taste fresh with the cucumbers.

Overall, Zara serves up decent food at affordable prices; however, slow service after ordering and multiple counts of people in the group not receiving food prevents me from coming back again. Considering that we were the only large group in attendance upon arrival, staff should have been able to accommodate us prior to the lunch rush. I would give Afghani cuisine another chance, but I would not give Zara another chance.