Marrakech, Morocco

 Marrakech, Morocco. 

Busy and colorful streets abound!

An Olive shop in the Souk

The congested Souk where taking pictures is discouraged by the residents yelling at tourists lifting camera and phones for snap shots. 

Souk Cafe

gluten free cous cous with very soft cooked vegetables and Kefta. The kofta was mild and the sausage was mostly plan to my taste, but very mild rather than the spiciness that comes to my mind when I hear the word "sausage. However, harissa accompanied the food as well as an assortment of olives that were a variety of saltiness levels. One variety of the black olives was my favorite as they were actually mildly sweet, which I often categorize with green olives. The soup was offered complimentary with meals at this place and I found it addictive. It was a soup of garbanzo beans. 

Royal Mansour Marrakech

Pumpkin soup starter with date cream that was very mild in flavor. For me, it was a nice pumpkin soup, but without the date cream being intense enough for my taste buds to find it a contrast within the bowl.

In the background is a rose flavored butter that is colored with beet juice servcd with bread that had a sesame flavor. The rose was dominant with the beet adding primarily the beautiful shade of pink. Contrasting the nuttiness from the sesame was a nice contrast to the floral rose butter. 

I tired a seafood tagine with rice cooked in a risotto style, per the server. This was an unusual and modern interpretation of a tagine. Overall, the risotto was a drier style as was the presentation and cooking of the fish. I expected more soft textures and fattiness to afford a creamy texture to the fish than what was delivered, but did enjoy the spices on the plate.

Desserts were tasty and most tended to have an orange blossom flavor, as is traditional. There were also bites of coconut and another almond paste with argon (amlou), very nice tiny tastes of classic desserts that I saw in the local bakeries. I was so glad to try them in a small format as I had not tried them in the bakeries.

Nomad

lamb and prune tagine 

I found the meat to be tough in texture which surprised me as I expected very tender and falling off the bone to be the result of cooking in the tagine. Nonetheless, the flavor of the dish was enjoyable with tomatoes and eggplant in addition to the prunes, which added sweetness. 

raspberry rose and berber tea ice cream

The raspberry was dominant over the rose in the pink scoop, but was a zippy acidic contrast to the berber tea. The classic warm spices of berber tea came through with clarity in the ice cream and I could have eaten twice the amount! 

nous nous coffee

turns out that this is a simple half and half of coffee and milk. Enjoyable, but not an unusual combination, but rather perfectly classic mode for serving coffee. 

Le trou Au Mur

Meshui

slow roasted spiced lamb with roasted vegetables and crispy onions. Deeply flavorful and the food that I had that most captured what I had expected to experience from Moroccan fare. It is a traditional dish, but hard to find served outside of the home. 

I could not resist trying ras al hanout flavored ice cream accompanied by an almond pastilla ice cream, which is a popular dessert typically a moroccan pastry with cream. It was sweet and simple, a nice accompaniment to the flavorful depth of the ras al hanout. 

Cafe Restaurant Dar L'Hssira 

berber eggs were so disappointing. They were fine, but I had expected that I was ordering a dish more similar to shakshuka that I was seeing people eat in the Souks. This was really just diced vegetables with egg cooked in a hot tagine, so it was actually somewhat dry. I added harissa to enhance the flavor. 

Argan nuts being ground into butter. This is very traditional, healthy, and tasty to use as a nutty dip! 

Classic mint tea service. Addicting with lots of sweetness in the tea!

The streets of Morocco were mazes to explore for outstanding colors and endless spices!