Feature: All female-restaurant breaking down gender barriers in Afghanistan while serving a range of cuisine

"My restaurant is relatively new and the doors only opened two months ago, but already I'm overjoyed with the turnover we're achieving everyday and I'm making a good living," Farzana Ludin, the manager of Afghanistan's first-ever female-run restaurant, told Xinhua recently.

The restaurant was established with the support of a non-governmental organization called the Afghan Women Silk Development Center (AWSDC) and opened in the downtown Shahr-e-Now area, in the capital city of Kabul in mid-September.

The September opening of the "Bost Family Restaurant" marked the first-ever time a female-owned and female-run restaurant had opened in Afghanistan's male-dominated society.

Aimed at encouraging women to showcase their abilities in the male-dominated Afghanistan and get involved in social, political and economic activities to achieve independence and empowerment, the valiant Ludin said that Afghan women have the talent to stand on their own two feet if they have the resolve to.

"This restaurant is for women and for their families to visit and to have a meal in a peaceful environment," Ludin also told Xinhua, adding that no males were allowed in the restaurant unless they were accompanied by a female.

The clients of the newly-opened female-run restaurant are often women and their families, she said, explaining that wealthy families usually visit the restaurant especially on Thursdays and Fridays, which are their days off in Kabul, to have lunch or dinner.

The staff of the restaurant are female and its ambitious manager is dreaming to expand its activities by opening branches of the restaurant in the future if conditions become amiable.

"Presently 20 women including myself and one male cook are working here in the restaurant," the manager of the female-run restaurant told Xinhua.

Nevertheless, she noted that the chef of the newly opened female-run restaurant used to work in a restaurant in Dubai and is currently working here as a subordinate to the females to cook both Afghan and foreign cuisine.

The male chef, besides cooking Afghan and foreign dishes, is also teaching the restaurant employees how to cook local and international foods, including Chinese and western dishes.

"In addition to serving local foods to our clients, our restaurant also serves Chinese and Italian dishes to the customers nowadays," Ludin said proudly.

Women's position in Afghanistan's society has been elevated since the ousting of the Taliban in late 2001. Currently, it's not unusual to see women serving as senior politicians, lawmakers, business leaders and in the police and army.

However, this is the first time that women have been brave enough to open a restaurant in a society whose deep-rooted beliefs still, in some instances, believe that women should stay at home and should definitely not work independently outside of the home. In fact in some of the country's more rural areas, women are banned from leaving home and the very idea of them working for themselves is considered taboo.

The clean and well-decorated restaurant with its polite waitresses dressed in special uniforms, however, is a breath of fresh air and a break from the norm, and the eatery is rapidly becoming popularity among locals and foreigners who live nearby, as well as for some well-off families who'll drive there to drop in.

"Our customer numbers are on a rise and our income is reasonable," Ludin stated happily.

To attract more customers, the restaurant also provides a delivery service and sends food to customers at their residences if it receives an order, she said.

"I have been working here as waitress since opening the restaurant two months ago and I am delighted with my job," Hania Karimi, a young waitress, told Xinhua beaming.

"Afghan parents traditionally don't allow their daughters to work outside home, but since it is a female-run restaurant my parents have no objection," Karimi said joyfully. Enditem