Mike's Guide to Moroccan Food

A few words from Mike

Goat, anyone?

While Shelby took the safe option and mostly avoided eating meat, there was some delicious meals to be consumed in Morocco, so to give morocco a fair review on food it is only fair that I write it. Our first meal in marrakech was a full moroccan meal starting with a salad platter, for the main course I had a chicken tagine and for dessert we had sliced oranges sprinkled with cinnamon. Tagine is served on a steaming hot plate with a conical clay dish over the top and the food is shaped like a cone. It usually consists of vegetables, spices, some meat and sometimes cous cous. After nearly two weeks in morocco it seems about 90% of everything they eat is tagine! The same vegetables that make up tagine (carrots, potatoes, beans and zucchini) can become repetetive meal after meal but there were some delicious variations. My favorite meal would have to be camel tagine! We had this meal cooked for us in a family home and despite us riding camels through the desert the day before we were all willing to try. The camel meat was served in chunks with a sweet sauce, onion and French fries on top (maybe a less traditional but delicious touch). The camel was amazingly tender and tasted a lot like lamb! We were happy we made it through the night without any illness after our guide Abdoul warned us that excessive amounts of camel can give you some serious stomach upset.

Camel tagine

Our first attempt at eating out without recommendations from Abdoul was Essaouira and while his recommendations were more expensive, they were definitely better. Three of us ordered the chicken skewers and all decided the taste was definitely off, one of us was a chef so we decided to trust him and leave the chicken. Shelby ordered pommes frites, French for french fries. First she was served an omelet, when she repeated her order to the waiter they took the omelet and came back with Poms, a fizzy apple drink, third time lucky she finally got her chips. Fortunately there was also some amazing food in Essouira. It's a port town with a harbor filled with fishing boats and a fishy smell so there is plenty of fresh seafood. For dinner I had the mixed seafood, a huge plate of prawns, calamari and 3 types of grilled fish for 110 dirhams, about 11 euro for some of the best seafood I've ever had.

The food markets in marrakech were another culinary highlight. Every afternoon at 5pm in the main square a large area of marquees is erected and a heap of restaurants are set up, serving food until they pack up at 2am. The restaurants are busy all night with both tourists and locals. There are some interesting stalls serving some not so enticing things like goats heads and a variety of internal organs. Surprisingly these stalls were filled entirely with moroccans and we went for a safer looking stall recommended by Abdoul. It was tasty, cheap (around 35 dirhams or 3.50 euro for a main) and served the usual Moroccan food: tagine, cous cous, grilled skewers and pastilla. Pastilla is another Moroccan favourite, it's a pastry traditionally filled with pigeon meat, herbs and spices, but most places alternatively use chicken. The pastry is covered in icing sugar and cinnamon and it's so sweet it's almost a dessert.

The street food restaurant in Marrakech

Overall Moroccan food was great, but at most restaurants the options were slim and the food seemed a bit repetitive and bland after the 10th tagine. After some delicious meals and some questionable meat I managed to avoid getting sick, as usual the same cannot be said for Shelby- her attempts at playing it safe and ordering spaghetti bol in a Moroccan restaurant backfired... should've ordered the tagine

They call that a pasta