Food truck trend offers Kabul a taste of the West
Success is even more impressive given that spiced dishes of lamb, mutton and rice still enjoy pride of place in the country’s cuisine
When the first Lazeez food truck arrived in Kabul, many mistook it for a rickshaw and wanted to hail a ride — the yellow chassis and three wheels so reminiscent of taxis popular in South Asia.
But it took little time for the city’s emerging middle class to embrace the novelty of canteens- on- wheels serving Western fast food around town.
Parked on one of the capital’s busiest roads, Obaidullah’s truck — emblazoned with a giant hot dog, and the Lazeez logo — is unmissable. He serves a handful of customers, who are seemingly undeterred by the roadside pollution, and bullish about the sourcing and sanitation of the meat.
“Us Afghans are immune to all sorts of illnesses,” jokes Mohammed — an oral hygiene student buying a quick burger.
Food hygiene is terrible in Afghanistan, with 60 children out of 1,000 dying from diarrhea before the age of five, according to the French NGO Acted.
So for Naveed Noori, who founded Lazeez with his cousin Abdullah Karim, finding meat without breaking the cold chain — the series of transportation and storage options that maintain a given temperature — is a challenge.
Naveed buys his hot dogs frozen from Karachi, the Pakistani port megacity located 1,400 kilometers from Kabul.
“We have to pay attention to the conditions of the journey to be sure everything is going well, otherwise our cargo rots,” the 26- year old entrepreneur said.
For now, Naveed has found a successful route: Mohammed says his burger tastes just fine, as does the hot dog he also purchased, even if the fare is a long way from the tempting morsels available from food trucks in Paris or New York.
It has been a year and a half since the six food trucks emblazoned with the Lazeez logo — meaning “delicious” in Dari, one of Afghanistan’s two national languages — began crisscrossing the streets of Kabul.
Today Naveed has 15 employees and business is going well — for example, Obaidullah said the truck he manages serves between 30 and 60 customers a day.
$ 150 a day
After expenses and paying his employees, Naveed pockets $ 150 a day, a fortune in Afghanistan where 72 percent of households earn less than $ 150 a month and social inequalities are enormous.
His success is even more impressive given that spiced dishes of lamb, mutton and rice still enjoy pride of place in Afghan cuisine, rather than the US fast food which has become so entrenched elsewhere.
“Unfortunately no food truck offers Afghan dishes,” laments Nassir, a student who is getting ready to chow down on a chicken sandwich from Manoto, a food truck also doing the rounds in Kabul like Lazeez.
“Sure I’d prefer rice and Afghan dishes but they don’t have them,” said Saifuddin, a cleaner. “I work for the council so I get a special price — I pay 50 afghanis ( less than a dollar) for my hot dog instead of 100.”
“Even so, that’s expensive because I earn 6,000 afghanis ($ 87) a month and I’ve got 12 mouths to feed,” he said wearily.
The popularity of food trucks in Kabul owes less to their culinary offerings than the slow lifestyle changes of an emerging middle class.
The country’s middle classes speak English and work in foreign NGOs, government ministries or Western companies based in Afghanistan.