Great little place closed to downtown Baltimore! Service was spot on, food was great, got for appetizers the aushak and bowlawni, Main course I had Kabuli pallow and to finish I had baklava and Turkish coffee which it's a must! Highly recommend!!

I really enjoy the food and service at The Helmand. You can count on a relaxing atmosphere and not feel rushed to finish your meal. In addition to the photos we also had the Kaddo Borani (pumpkin appetizer) and Dessert! The goat cheese cheese cake is an unexpected but delicious dessert with a great balance of tang and sweet. My husband had the Hazelnut Chocolate cake and enjoyed it very much as well.

I highly recommend this beautiful, intimate restaurant for date night, family gathering, or to simply enjoy a meal for the sake of a delicious meal. The Helmand is a quintessential to the Baltimore restaurant scene. The service has always is excellent, I like the provision of a coat rack. The food is truly delicious and heavenly divine, one bite forces you to slow down, unwind, and be present with history and culture presented in a plate. My family and I visited the restaurant today just before a BSO show and they were quite accommodating to our large table order and got us out the door so we had time to attend our show. I highly recommend making a dinner reservation in advance!

If I could give this place more stars, I would. This is some of the best food I have ever had! The spices were absolutely amazing and unlike anything I've ever had, and everything worked so well together. We started off with appetizers: Mantwo and Aushak. They were both incredible and paired with Naan was the perfect way to start our meal. For our main meal we shared the Chicken Lawand and Mourgh Challow. It was so so good. The service was great and our server made it a point to get our names and notice that we hadn't been in before! Very welcoming. I also loved the cultural decor and the ambiance was nice for a date night. Overall this is amazing food for a great price, and we got an elegant dining experience without breaking the bank! I will be coming back when I'm in Baltimore again!

Such an amazing place to dine! Ten stars +! Don't hesitate to dine here! The service is great, too!:)

It was a one of the best dinner I had in Baltimore. The food was high quality and quantity, super flavorful, and the service was passionate and friendly and patient. I'd give it 6 stars if pissible. The food came in large quantity. We ordered Mantwo for appetizer and it might be the best beef sauce I've had. It's full of the special season and the dumpling came freshly cooked. The lamb dish was awesome too, it came medium cooked which is a bit red (which I like) and very juicy. And the sauce/dressing!! The one came with the chicken (the same for Shornakod salad) was beyond good--- it's the best chutney/dressing I've had. It's cilantro vinaigrette-- and it's tangy, mixed with cilantro and all different kinds of spices. It's so exotic and delicious that I took a dipping sauce box with me when boxing leftovers. We had ice cream for dessert, and it was delicious. It was cardamom flavored, with dried fruit and nuts mixed in. We were so full but couldn't resist eating more. Conclusion is: if you like flavorful Indian/ Middle East, Afghanistan food, you can't go wrong! The service was great too, it was our first time there, they explained to us what are dishes like and what wine to pair with our food. They are patient and apparently knows their restaurant and food super well. They checked back when we were eating frequently. The ambience was great too, was romantic (with candle lights) and people are slightly dressed up. Plenty of space between each table so that you have privacy. We had a great date night and eat until they are almost closed (hence there is an inner space picture lol). I'd definitely recommend and will come back more times in the future.

Food was bomb! The food came out pretty quickly, and our waters were always filled. The food came out hot and pretty quick and it was just so flavorful. It's pretty dim inside but still nice inside. Don't skip out on this place, you won't regret it.

What a great experience! I've been meaning to come to Helmand for forever now. I've heard such great things about it and it's been a longtime staple of the Mount Vernon neighborhood. I finally went in for dinner with a few friends and couldn't be happier with the food, the service, and the atmosphere. Everyone who was working was so nice. From the host, to the servers, to the man cooking the naan bread in the oven, they each had a smile to greet you with. The inside is a lot nicer than I expected. It feels very fine dining with the white tablecloths and dim lighting. And it's really cozy thanks to the beautiful decorations and the brick oven in the back. The bathrooms were also really clean too. We got a couple appetizers to start: the pumpkin and the eggplant. The pumpkin was very tender and came drizzled with a yummy yogurt sauce. The eggplant was cooked to perfection and that's saying something because I normally find eggplant to be too slimy to appreciate the flavor - this one was good! For entrees, we decided to share the kabuli pallow and one of the specials, the chicken lawand. We were all new to Afghan cuisine but these dishes came highly recommended by the staff. The kabuli pallow was definitely my favorite. It featured tender, flavorful lamb over a bed of herbed rice and raisins. Omg, soo good! The chicken lawand was also very good and well seasoned but I think I just liked the lamb more. We also got a bottle of red wine that paired really nicely with everything we ate. I'd definitely come back to explore more of the menu and wouldn't be opposed to just ordering that lamb for takeout for myself!

This is the third time I've been to The Helmand in person and have gotten delivery as well and it's always so solid. I forgot how good the food was. They serve Afghan food and it's a staple in Mount Vernon. It's pseudo elegant in that there's paper menus and paper table cloths but it's that old school vibe. I went on Boxing Day and it was pretty packed. We ate everything family style starting with the kaddo borwani which is the first listed item on the menu an unassuming pumpkin with a yogurt - it was definitely more garlicky this time which I enjoyed. The mantwo pastry shells filled with meat had a kick to it and served with rice. Their green chutney is like crack - obsessed with it. The lamb dish - koufta has a sweetness with apricots that makes it addicting! Highly recommend this spot. Great with friends, family or a romantic night out.

I came here for an early dinner with a friend. It was already quite busy for being around 5:30pm on a Sunday. It's a nice restaurant inside, nothing super fancy but just nice dining. We started off with a bottle of white wine which was quite good. I got one of the lamb specials which was really tasty and had great flavor but disappointing there were only 4 little pieces of lamb chunks in it with the rest mainly being potatoes. We shared some naan bread that was decent and ended with baklava for dessert which was ok. Our server wasn't that friendly and didn't know or even speak(?) English well. When trying to decide on a couple options for a wine bottle, he didn't seem to understand our questions and went to grab someone else who seemed to be the GM. The GM was very helpful and gave us tastings of the two wines before we made our decision. Service of the wait staff could be improved but I'd still come back here again to try their other dishes.