6 days Ago By Lou Fancher
Sophia Akbar, the co-founder and co-owner of Oakland restaurants Parche and Jaji, was born and grew up in Walnut Creek.Related ArticlesNew Concord restaurant Mazza is offering an authentic taste of AfghanistanAt Lira restaurant, chef Tucker Ricchio boasts a ‘Next Level’ menuJames Beard Award finalists: Which Bay Area restaurant professionals made the cut?Raised in a single-parent home by a mother who worked full-time in dentistry and with an older brother with intellectual and physical disabilities, Akbar learned responsibility at a young age. The family’s lesson book also included values steeped in respect for their ancestral history and identity as Afghan Americans.
Parche opened in 2023 and features contemporary Colombian cuisine. Now two years later, Akbar has recently launched Jaji, which features her take on dishes that mix her Afghan American heritage and modern California cuisine.Adding to Jaji’s visionary storytelling-on-a-plate is buoyant enthusiasm for Afghan culture and the resilience and diversity of the Afghan people, especially the women.
“I’ve always read current news about what was going on in the world and my country, Afghanistan,” Akbar said in a recent interview. “My grandfather was open to having conversations on international topics. He and my grandmother grew up in Afghanistan and were educated in Europe and became professionals in their fields.
“Their Afghanistan was an Islamic state but more Western, European, progressive and less extremist than now. I was curious about how the world works and why conflict arises. I was also responsible for making sure my brother got to school on time.
I was raised to be an independent thinker but also reliable.”The qualities — curiosity, independence, reliability — inarguably come into play in her work life as co-leader of two dining establishments with her husband, Paul Iglesias. As parents of two elementary school-age children, they regularly share his Colombian and her Afghan roots in conversation and food at mealtimes, among other ways.
Having learned culinary skills primarily from her grandmother and the importance of nutrition from her mother, Akbar says she is likely to someday teach their children the joy and passion she herself found in the kitchen.“Even though my mother was a working mom, we always had dinner together,” she recalls. “We ate internationally — sometimes pasta, sometimes Afghan.
It was more about sustenance than passion. The passion came from my grandmother, who loved to cook and bake.“Experimentation started with my making handmade things.
I thought it was grunt work — like making mantu, dumplings that are hand-wrapped — and work that was my job because I was the youngest.”Eventually, Akbar’s eyes and perspective were opened by her grandmother’s creativity.“She loved to create fusion, like her Afghan chow mein.
It would be chow mein noodles but with ground beef using cumin, coriander and other Afghan flavors. We ate it with chopsticks.”At Parche, which features her husband’s culture, Akbar developed vital coping skills and policies she says feed directly into Jaji.
“I learned you’re never going to be authentic enough, Colombian enough. Taking that down the street (the restaurants are in close proximity), taking a culture expressed with a modern lens, I knew some people would say the food (at Jaji) wasn’t spicy enough, wasn’t true enough to Afghan culture.”On the other hand, she says she found and trusts an equal number of alternative voices that thank her the food tastes exactly as they remember and how their families made it.
A second insight is the importance of staff training and inclusion in decision-making that has kept worker retention rates high in an industry known for volatility.“At Parche, after two years open, our back-of-house retention rate is about 37%,” she says. “The front is similar.
You work hard to create and keep your people. This means making sure it’s a place they want to work every day. Consistent staffing is as important as the dishes served.
”Asked to speak about Jaji’s menu, Akbar begins with “Mama’s Daal” ([sic], jajioak.com/menu), made with yellow and rainbow lentils and rice.“Dal (merriam-webster.
com/dictionary/dal) is a lentil dish you find in Pakistani, Indian and Afghan cuisine,” Akbar said. “The base layers of ours is yellow split lentils that I would see soaking in the morning and know what we’d be having for dinner.“The rice (pulao) must never by sticky.
You must be able to count each grain and only be able to break it with a fingernail. It’s nostalgic and fun to see it in the restaurant. My mother always put a dab of tomato in it.
It’s bright, colorful, and ours is vegan.”In the “Big Bites” section of the menu, “Qarto and the Hen” presents a whole Cornish hen atop a bed of pulao and heirloom carrots.“The hen is the least significant part.
The star of the show is the rice, the Kabuli Pulao, the national dish of Afghanistan (afghancooks.com/kabuli-pulao-recipe). Traditionally, you have meat buried under the rice, steamed in the oven together.
We chose Cornish hen for its sheer size. It’s perfect for sous vide with herbs and spices.”The “Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cake” is “up there” on the dessert menu, she says.
The flourless chocolate cake that tastes like ganache has layers of phyllo (Italian and Kataifi, the Afghan version) and pistachio semifreddo.“All of it in one bite mimics a Dubai chocolate that went viral last year. It’s not typical, but so popular.
”The cuisine at Jaji, a blend of tradition and innovation, mirrors the duality Akbar experiences daily.“Being born American but culturally Afghan, there was always a huge split and the feeling of lack of belonging. When I was maybe 6 years old, 9/11 happened.
And then when the U.S. went back into Afghanistan, there was a feeling of internal guilt.
Many Afghans feel it. Both feel like home, but you’re caught wondering where you belong.”Her confidence in the Afghan people remains firm, despite the “extremist groups now in Afghanistan” that she says she finds shocking.
“Afghans are resilient. The country’s been invaded more times than I can count but still is the land of the unconquerable. Women play a large part of that,” she says.
That’s why Jaji’s partnerships already include working with an Afghan photographer, plans to host collaborative dinners with a woman-owned spice company and special Mother’s Day tasting menu events throughout May, when Akbar will explain the cultural significance and family stories behind each dish.Akbar hopes to expand event opportunities and meanwhile continues to delight in sharing Afghan and Colombian culture and cuisines in Oakland. Jaji is at 422 24th St.
on the corner of Broadway and 24th Street in Oakland. For more information about Jaji, visit jajioak.com/about online.
Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Reach her at [email protected].
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