Imagine you’ve had to flee your homeland, very suddenly, due to conflict, mistreatment or even violence. Imagine leaving your friends, your parents and siblings, your aunts, uncles and grandparents perhaps, without knowing when you’ll ever see them again.

Coming to a new country is tremendously hard. The language is different, ways of doing things too. You need somewhere to live, a way to earn money, and to understand where you might gradually fit in to this brand-new life.

Thanks to a wonderful social enterprise called Plate It Forward, a group of Afghans have found a place – to work, to be together, to share their skills and, even better, to support fellow Afghans both here and back home.

At Kabul Social, a food outlet in Wynyard’s Met Centre, there’s a line almost daily. And not just for the food. It’s a good-looking spot, sure, with its cobalt-blue exteriors. But what really makes customers feel good is that every dish they buy funds two more – for local refugees and for those struggling to survive in Taliban-torn Afghanistan.

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The women (mostly) behind the counter arrived from there, some only a few months ago. They include a nurse and a human rights advocate, as well as Yakut, a home cook whose skills with naan (flatbread) are second to none.

Stretched to feather lightness then toasted on a griddle, that bread is used to wrap a selection of “burgers” – with fragrant-spiced chicken, lamb mince patties, sticky-sweet eggplant or pumpkin, fries (because why not?) and the very excellent Kabuli salad of tomato, onion, cucumber and pickles. It’s an easy takeaway.

Eat in, if you can, to slurp up freshly cooked mantu, slippery lamb or garlic chive-filled dumplings smothered in minty yoghurt and a lentil-flecked tomato sauce. Ditto maash pilau – fluffed-up rice steamed with mung beans, a wonderful base for that sticky eggplant, a good drizzle of red or green chilli chutney, and that minty yoghurt.

Cobalt-blue tiled tables, blue-and-gold “wedding fabric” chairs and traditional brass lighting reflect its brilliant blue and yellow theming, and table tap water comes in elegant matt blue jugs and tumblers. As you eat, it’s hard not to smile at the large photo of an (anonymous) Afghan woman, looking out at you in such unfamiliar surrounds.

Kabul Social is the brainchild of Plate It Forward founder Shaun Christie-David, who also runs Enmore’s Colombo Social (a Sri Lankan eatery offering employment and training for asylum seekers). Kabul Social’s restaurant manager, Swita, is an Afghan refugee who arrived here just six months ago. Property company Mirvac has provided the venue.

You can’t help feeling good about being here. And for those behind the counter, among all the pain of leaving home, sharing their home food must feel pretty good too.

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