Afghan Grill

952 Troy Schenectady Road (Peter Harris Plaza), Latham, 783-5553. Serving daily 10-10; lunch buffet Mon-Fri 11-2. AE, D, MC, V.

Cuisine: Afghan and pizza

Entrée price range: $8 (lamb curry and more) to $16 (mixed kabab plate)

Ambiance: casual, informal

By B.A. Nilsson

Anyone who can make okra taste fantastic while presenting butternut squash in a completely unexpected light is my kind of cook. And Hayat Osmani isn't simply demonstrating his own skill at the skillets: He's giving our area its first taste of Afghan cuisine.

A year and a half ago, Hayat and three of his brothers took over what was a pizza joint in the Peter Harris Plaza on Route 7. They maintained both the name-Torino's-and the menu, adding a few Afghan kababs and promising more. Last week, that promise was realized. The restaurant's name has changed, the interior has been extensively redecorated, and the menu now teems with a variety of native offerings. And you can still get a pizza.

Those kebabs were enough of a success that the list has been expanded. Lamb, chicken and ground beef are the core offerings, in varying combos. The meat gets a marinade of Afghan spices and garlic, with yogurt added to the chicken chunks, and is skewered and grilled over charcoal. Lamb chunks, a ground beef loaf (kofta) and three types of chicken are $10 apiece, on a platter with rice and sides of bread and salad. Chicken is served in boneless chunks, as bone-in segments with saffron or in its entirety-at least to the extent of a half-bird.

For more ambitious eaters, the chopan kabab ($13) gives you a quartet of grilled lamb chops, while a pair of "manager's specials" combines the above ($15 and $16). Kabab meats are also available worked into salads ($11).

But when you have flavors such as the lively mix that accompanies the okra, even a meat-lover like me can be swayed to the other side. And a number of good vegetarian dishes abound ($8 apiece): Sabzi is an herb-and-peppers-enhanced spinach dish; gulpi does the same with cauliflower. The eggplant in badenjan borani is cooked in a tomato sauce and served in a yogurt sauce, a wonderful combo.

You can get the eggplant as an appetizer as well ($4), and you'd be crazy not to try the kado borani, the aforementioned butternut squash, marinated with just enough vinegar to give the squash a tang in addition to its sweetness. A slightly different yogurt sauce, livened with garlic, accompanies it.

"These are both characteristic of the cooking of southern Afghanistan," says Hayat. Flavors boast complexity without spicy heat, although you can adjust the temperature either by asking that the dish be made fierier, or by using the tableside hot sauces (red pepper or cilantro, two homemade brews).

A number of seafood dishes include Afghan preparations of shrimp or salmon ($15 each); they even give a native twist to fish and chips ($11).

Although Afghanistan shares a southern border with Pakistan, the curry isn't as spicy as that neighbor's cuisine might have inspired. An order of lamb curry (kurma palow, $8) has a presence of tomato and a comfortable balance between sweetness and spice. A little fancier is the kaboli palow ($9), in which the curry of chicken or lamb is topped with raisins, carrots and almonds.

Such Middle Eastern standards as hummus and baba ghanoush are available, of course, as well as the pastry turnover called a samosa, familiar from Indian cookery. Mantoo ($9) is a pie stuffed with ground beef and onions, served with a yogurt sauce; aashack ($9) is a vegetarian version.

Where do the recipes come from? "I grew up eating this food," Hayat says with a laugh, "but I also learned much of it from my uncle, who ran four Afghan restaurants in New York City." And that's where Hayat put in his kitchen training, 15 years of mastering the cuisine even as he's been pursuing studies in computer science and physical therapy.

His brother Adam is likely to be your host, and you might also see brother Najib. But he, like co-owner Mohammed, also has a full-time job elsewhere.

"We started moving up here slowly," Hayat explains. "My uncle came here seven or eight years ago, and as the rest of us got older and had families, we didn't want to live right in New York."

A flurry of refurbishment has paid off, transforming what was a pizza parlor into something a little more subdued, with artwork and keepsakes on the walls and plain chairs dressed up with handsome coverlets. The most striking feature of the dining room is the portrait, painted by a friend of Hayat, of Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula, who was famously depicted in a 1985 National Geographic cover.

Sample the fare at the weekday lunch buffet, a $7 feast offered from 11 AM to 2 PM, featuring a couple of Afghan entrées, a tray of rice, something Italian (baked ziti was offered when I visited), salads, spreads and even pizza. What with the many office workers nearby, the selections change daily for variety's sake.

I watched a steady stream of people stop by to find out what this newly named restaurant is all about, and those who didn't immediately stay took menus and promised to return. So I anticipate a lot of excitement. And it's especially nice, during times of international political strife, to be reminded of how much we have in common.