Just 45 minutes from central Melbourne, get a taste of an off-limits country

The man reaches into a deep oven that looks like a door to hell, pulling flat, hot rounds of bread from its clay walls. The naan is rolled quickly into white paper and tucked under the arms of waiting customers, who disappear into the night.

Romal Saleh-Zada with naan from the Maiwand Bakery.Credit: Eddie Jim

The Maiwand Bakery is warm and steamy as a team of Afghan men and boys in T-shirts work in a chain, conversations in Dari switching to English as they proffer a round of sesame-studded naan roghani hot from the tandoor.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Afghanistan was a must-visit on the overland hippie trail through Central Asia, but Afghanistan’s deep blue chain of Band-e Amir lakes, the high peaks of the Hindu Kush and the glittering turquoise domes of Mazar-i-Sharif’s Blue Mosque are currently unreachable for all save the most intrepid traveller.

However, you can get a taste of the Central Asian country without breaching smarttraveller’s red-flagged, “Do not travel” warning. In fact, you don’t even have to leave Melbourne.

A 45-minute train ride from Flinders Street Station, Dandenong is the home ground for Melbourne’s Afghan population. Romal Saleh-Zada has spent a decade as a cultural ambassador for the City of Dandenong, where 163 dialects are spoken by people from over 100 countries.

Originally from the capital, Kabul, Romal is one of 23,500 people born in Afghanistan who now live in Melbourne, ahead of Sydney’s population of 14,000 – not counting the next generation of Australian-Afghan children born here. Romal’s family went to Delhi when his father needed a heart operation, but their return was blocked as Afghanistan spiralled into civil war. They came to Melbourne as refugees in 1997, where Romal – now a printer by trade and a tour guide by chance – has stayed.

Romal Saleh-Zada (right) with the owner of Afghan Kitchen, Naueed Ahmadi.Credit: Eddie Jim

Afghans are not new to Australia; remember that our signature luxury train – the Ghan – is named for Afghan cameleers working on the Central Australia Railway in the 1860s.

Romal leads groups to Thomas Street, the heartland of Afghan Melbourne, its footpaths stencilled in turquoise and lapis lazuli geometric designs inspired by Mazar-i-Sharīf. The street is lined with Afghan-run old-school grocers and homewares stores, bakeries and butchers.

In Maiwand grocer, named for the district in Kandahar Province, there are barberries for rice dishes, rose jam, and a tray of saffron-flavoured rock sugar on sticks, used to swirl in your tea. For curious foodies yet to fossick through Central Asia’s spice rack, there’s a cornucopia of the unknown – unripe grape powder, plantago major, balangu and ajwain seeds.

Due to the crumbling of the Afghan export market, many of the goods are from Iran, Tajikistan or Turkey, says Romal. “And it’s not just Afghans, but a lot of Pakistanis, Iranians and Indians who come here to shop.”

Shops are stacked haphazardly with gold-rimmed dinner sets, racks of bright rugs, silver platters for a whole lamb, stock pots to fit enough rice for a diaspora. “If you have 10 guests over, there will be cooking for 20. Anything can happen, but food must not be short,” says Romal.

That principle is amply displayed at dinner at Afghan Kitchen, where trays jostle for table space. Slow-cooked lamb shanks are hidden in Uzbeki rice pilau; manto (beef dumplings) are doused in a tomato and lentil sauce and lashed with yoghurt; and borani banjan offers up fried eggplant in tomato sauce and garlic yogurt. Bread, half a metre long and grooved, is central to the table.

The Dandenong Market Cooks’ Tour visits the 154-year-old local market, where a queue waits outside Kabul Kitchen for Kabuli pulao (rice), manto, kebabs and some of the 700 loaves of naan the kitchen bakes daily.

Kabul Kitchen co-founder Ali Haidari fled Taliban-occupied Afghanistan for neighbouring Pakistan in 2009 and trained as a chef before arriving in Australia by boat. After a year’s detention in Darwin and on Christmas Island, he was released and, in 2017, opened Kabul Kitchen with fellow refugee Mohammad Sarwari. Belatedly, they realised they had travelled on the same boat to Australia; the pair say they were reunited by fate.

“Kabul Kitchen really says a lot about the market,” says market guide and chef Tim Holland. “A refugee came here with nothing, and within a few years, he’s got a cast of thousands!”

As the Afghan proverb goes, “Even on a mountain, there is still a road.”

TOUR Take a walking tour of Afghan Dandenong with Romal Saleh-Zada, $100 includes dinner, dandenongtours.com.au The Dandenong Market Cooks’ Tour includes a market walk, cooking demonstration and three-course meal, $100-$150, dandenongmarket.com.au

STAY Holiday Inn Dandenong has rooms from $180, holidayinn.com/dandenong

EAT Maiwand Bakery, 7 Scott St. Afghan Kitchen, 247 Thomas St. Kabul Kitchen, in Dandenong Market.

The writer was a guest of Holiday Inn Dandenong and the City of Greater Dandenong.