Recently I was going through my pictures and came across ones of Morocco. I visited Morocco just over a year ago and if someone ever asks me to talk about the place, its hard to stop me.
The first time you step into the old town, you aren’t quite sure where you are. The place for me represents the visual meaning of the word eclectic. There’s people pouring form all corners of the tiny streets, the main square is bursting with food, performers, shops and everything in between. But I am not going to talk about Marrakech through its shopping but through its food.
I had had tagine before I went to Marrakech but nothing quite like what I had there. Tagine in itself is such a fascinating way of cooking for me. The fact that all the ingredients are put into one clay pot to simmer over slow heat is enough itself to justify the deep flavours in the food. There is a lot of food ofocurse besides tagine as well there, a lot of grilled kebabs, fish, chicken, vegetable but I wanted to focus this post on Tagines.
Top Three Tagines
1) Terrasse des espices (https://terrassedesepices.com/en/)
We went here for dinner on our first night. The location of this restaurant is hidden right in the middle of the souk and it overlooks a spice, animal and bag market.
We ordered two tagines two share, both chicken, one with a tomato base and the other a lemon base.
My chicken was succulent and tangy and the potatoes underneath had absorbed all of the chicken flavour.
It was a delight to clear off my plate with the bread that’s served for pretty much every meal in Morocco.
This was very different to the other tagines I had later because of the tomato sauce, something less common in Moroccan cuisine, but it was great introduction to Moroccan food.
The view from this restaurant is also beautiful!
2) Ourika Valley Restaurant
I do not know the exact name of the restaurant because there was so many of them but it was in the Ourika Valley which is part of the Ourika river that flows through the High Atlas Mountains not far outside of Marrakech.
More than anything the setting of restaurant is beautiful. The table and chairs are almost set inside the flowing river, so the water is flowing just beneath your feet.
The tagine I had here was one with lots of Olives and a more simple flavour. Like most Moroccan food spices are used but not in huge quantities, so that the meat and vegetable are more in focus. I LOVE olives and hence adored this tagine as they weren’t shy with them.
3) Some restaurant in the backstreets of Marrakech
I have no idea where this was but it was very late and we were very hungry and stumbled upon this place. It seemed pretty local as you could easily spot us as tourists.
I got the Lamb Tagine here and I loveddddddd it! The quantity was much more generous than most of the restaurants we had been to and the lamb was cooked to perfection! We also got a chicken tagine but nothing could beat this lamb.
I am sorry I am raving so much about this place and providing no clue of its location!
(Breakfast not tagines, sorry*)
I know I said I would talk about Tagines but I just wanted to mention the breakfast in our Riad as well, mainly because I miss the place so much.
Breakfast was nothing crazy just bread, butter, honey, a alternating fruit platter everyday, of course Moroccan tea and eggs. But the food didn’t matter so much because just the experience on having breakfast in this beautiful open air space was enough and of course the resident cat.
So there it is, my thoughts about tagines in Morocco. The country is bursting with food and there was so much that I didn’t even have the chance of trying. I only talked about tagines here but I tried a lot of different foods there and all of them amazing. So please visit if you like crazy, loud, beautiful environments with great food (& great shopping!!).
- Shanzé -