Reviews for Shinwari in Falls Church, VA
Delicious food, very friendly and helpful staff, and generous portions. We ordered dal, lamb karahi, and chicken karahi, with a... side of rice for 6 adults to share, and it was plenty of food. You can tell the food is authentic when literally all patrons inthe restaurant are Pakistani. The restaurant opened at 5 pm on a Saturday afternoon, and within an hour all tables were seated. Read more
What this place lacks in taste of food it makes it up with the ambiance. Our daal and chicken Karhi were a bit bit on the bland... side and the lamb tikka was a bit undercooked. When ordering be ready to wait as our food took quite a while to arrive. Foodtasted fresh but as mentioned was a bit on the bland side for Pakistani food. To make this place feel like an authenticPakistani restaurant, they even had a few flies and bugs flying around the restaurant We also got the Kashmiri tea to go. Westarted to drink it in the car about 10 mins after leaving this place. Had to pull over and dump all the tea as the milk tastedrancid Lastly as mentioned on their menu, gratuity is included regardless of party size. Bottom line the forced gratuity doesnot match the level of food quality and service provided Likely will not return given there are so many other options around Read more
First of all, I was a bit skeptical about going to a restaurant with a 3.8 star rating. My wife insisted and wanted to check it... out given the glamorous photos from Google. So we finally got there after a few weeks of debate. Got to the restaurant on aSaturday evening and was houseful. That gave us some hope. We went in and was told that the waiting time would be about 20-25minutes for a table. So we waited outside until called about after 30 minutes. After going inside we were told that tables arestill unavailable and there's a floor sitting arrangement if we want. We decided to try it and was a reasonable sittingarrangement so decided to take it since we were very hungry. After sitting we scanned the QR code menu and there were no singleserve curry items only kabab skewers. We asked the server and he kept insisting on karahi which was $30 without giving us anyother options. It's very inconvenient for a couple to order something else if one curry item is that expensive. There was nomention of if any rice or naan item comes with any dish. We then decided to try their kabab skewers and the waiter mentionedonly rice option is qabuli pulao without lamb shank which is $10. Anyway we immediately changed our mind on trying the karahiinstead of kababs since only kababs with rice would be very dry. After 20-25 minutes of waiting the manager or the supervisorcame and asked us if we could move to a table since there was a big party of 40-50 people coming in. We were ok with it and moved to the table. Again waited another 10 minutes or so then we saw our order came with the kababs that we cancelled alongwith karahi and qabuli rice. The server didn't even give us any options of what's good or not and then with his suggestion weordered only karahi and got all this items served. I don't know how can 2 people eat so much food. Anyway since food was on thetable we decided to keep 1 skewer of kabab along with karahi. Rice was average didn't taste like qabuli at all. Read more
One of the worst lamb shanks I've ever had. We had ordered the mix platter and the lamb shank came with it. The lamb shank just... tasted off, it had a very bad off putting taste to it. I have had a lot of lamb shanks in other restaurants and they tasteddelicious. Other than the lamb shank, the chicken, quail and the other items tasted fine, just needed a bit more seasoning. Andthe staff was very friendly and professional. Read more
Shinwari offers fantastic food, incredible tea, and impeccable hospitality. A beautiful and unique restaurant, 10/10 anyone in... this area should absolutely give this place a try. Could not praise them enough. Thank you Shinwari for a wonderful evening! Read more
Excellent Pakistani road style ambience. Dinning hall is decorated with a Rickshaw, Jhoola, Pakistani bicycle and old film... posters that takes you to Pakistan at a glance. CharPaai with cusions are located both inside and outside. Carpeted Takht styleseating arrangement is available at the far end on the right side of the dinning hall. We liked their "Charsi Lamb Tikka"(Namkeen/Saltish lamb boti), "Khorak" (Bar-BQ Mix Platter for 4), " Charsi Chicken Karahi", Mint lemonada. Khorak (FamilyPlatter) contains Afghani pulao with lamb shank, whole pomfret fish, beef chapli kababs, Quails, Chicken Angara,seekh kabab andlamb roast. They need provide a printed Menu. They have just online scanned menu. Read more
A nice restaurant with a heavy Pakistani cultured theme and ambiance. The food quality and taste is authentic, the menu has a... wide variety, portion sizes are big, and service is efficient. There is a variety of seating options including table and chairsas well as traditional floor seating with cushions + charpaees. Advance booking on weekends would be ideal to get the desiredspace reserved. There are a lot of props for photos including Pakistani rickshaws, cycle and posters of retro Pakistani movies.However finding the location is tricky as google maps gets confused so you have to keep an eye out for the restaurant and get inthe service lane from the nearest traffic light. Read more
I really enjoyed the food and the ambiance. The mint lemonade was the star of the day. It reminded me of Pakistan. The lamb... chops were really tender and juicy. The food was a little spicy for me so I should have asked them to make it a little milder.Will definitely go back. Read more