Chili Chutney Grill

Although the “Chili Chutney” name initially evokes more Indian than Middle Eastern flavors, this large, nicely decorated Lake Forest restaurant has served Afghan and Middle Eastern food for nearly 15 years.

While it’s possible to order meals here that are entirely familiar from the area’s far more numerous Persian restaurants – including very good ground meat koobideh and sliced meat kabobs, plus typical appetizers such as hummus, sambosas, and lentil soup – we wanted to experience some of the Afghan novelties. A couple of highlights here are the mantu dumplings, a regionalized Afghan variant of the Korean mandu and Japanese gyoza, and Afghan beef boloni, a ground beef and spice-stuffed flatbread with several dips (yes, including Indian-style chutneys).

We were a little turned off by the aggressive saucing on our plates, but the items we ordered were otherwise fine to good: The mandu were relatively mild with a lightly spiced beef and onion filling, arriving drenched in sour cream, while the boloni was a remixed version of the Mana’eesh served at Little Arabia’s Al Amir, a thin-layered, neutral flatbread with its toppings in the middle instead of on top.