A Gastronomic Adventure at Walter’s

The first thing you see upon stepping inside Walter’s Restaurant in Claremont is a knee-buckling array of homemade baked goods: fresh plum tarts, Indian naan bread and Swedish limpa.

As classical music washes over you, a friendly waitress leads you to an open table, past Pomona College students engrossed in Willa Cather and Pitzer College professors making precise red marks on term papers.

If it’s warm, you may want to sit outside. But bear in mind that the leafy patio fills up quickly around lunchtime, and groups tend to dawdle around the tile tables, unwilling to break the spell and accept the inevitability of returning to work.

At this homey restaurant run by two Afghani emigres, Nangy and Fahima Ghafarshad, there are dishes to warm the cockles of almost anybody’s heart, from great-aunt Dot to your punk cousin Slash.

“For your peace of mind, we would like you to know that . . . we absolutely do not use any type of animal lards; we bake and cut our own meats and trim as much fat from them as is possible,” reassures the frontispiece of the elaborate, seven-page menu.

Everything served at Walter’s is fresh picked or caught, or so the menu says, whether you choose a $7.25 salmon salad (fresh salmon poached in white wine on a bed of baby greens with dill sauce and a brioche) or the ahi tuna for $11.95 (grilled with scallions, fresh ginger and soy sauce and served with basmati rice).

Portions are hearty here. A turkey club sandwich comes with honey-cured bacon and roast turkey breast, not the pressed stuff you find at some delis. The waitress will substitute french fries for fresh fruit, bringing a mix of plums, bananas, strawberries, apricots, watermelon, honeydew melon and ruby grapefruit.

Woven like a Kabul kilim through the menu of pastas, calzones , salads, grilled meats and appetizers is a scattering of Afghan-inspired dishes, including six types of kebabs, various pilafs and vegetable dishes. The Afghan menu expands dramatically Thursday through Saturday, when the Ghafarshads add a handful of Afghani specials that change from week to week.

On any day, however, the gastronomically adventurous can sample from about a dozen Afghan dishes, including qabuli pilaf for $10.50 (a rice pilaf topped with carrots, raisins and chunks of lamb). Vegetarians can try badenjan borani for $8.95 (eggplant and tomatoes topped with yogurt sauce). There are also Afghan appetizers such as bulani for $5.50--meat, potatoes and onions stuffed in a thin dough and deep-fried, served with yogurt sauce.

In addition to the traditional omelets found at most breakfast joints, Walter’s bows to its heritage with a feta cheese omelet ($6.75) that includes eggplant or lamb and is topped with yogurt.

Nangy and Fahima Ghafarshad and their extended family who run Walter’s have the restaurant business down pretty smooth after 21 years at one location, drawing patrons from as far as Pasadena and Orange County. A 25-year-old daughter who graduated from Pitzer is the night manager. Their son, 18, also helps out. So do four in-laws.

It’s a far cry from Nangy Ghafarshad’s childhood in Kabul, where he dreamed of flying fast planes, not roasting whole chickens on a spit. Nangy Ghafarshad arrived in the United States in 1960 and went to pilot training school, then flew in the U.S. Air Force as an exchange officer.

Later, he did a stint as a corporate pilot, then moved to La Verne, where he taught flying at Brackett Airport in 1971. He quickly decided there was more money in restaurants than airplanes.

The couple struggled for the first two years, until Nangy Ghafarshad sent his wife to France, where she enrolled in a culinary institute to hone her cooking and pastry-making skills. Today, Fahima Ghafarshad makes all the desserts and Nangy makes the breads.

From an original 50, Walter’s now seats 300. The patio, added in 1978, was an immediate success in the long months of summer. There is no shortage of business, what with the six Claremont Colleges nearby and lots of official functions that need to be catered.

Funny how things change: When they first opened Walter’s in 1973, the Ghafarshads had to coax clients into trying Afghan food, which was considered odd and exotic for the Pomona Valley.

To whet people’s appetite, “We used to give it away for free,” Nangy Ghafarshad recalls. “One customer came in and he asked, ‘What kind of hound are you cooking tonight?’

“But people open up to you after a while. And after they taste the food they really like it.”