Hello fellow budget hunters
Today is another storytime, this one about the best food I have ever eaten abroad. It comes from our visit to Essaouira where we ate at lots of different places – my experience of Moroccan cuisine was menus that all said tagines, cous cous and kebabs.
The first day in particular, was the day we had the best food – it was a lemon chicken tagine and was so beautiful! The meat was so tender it fell off the bone and the flavour had seeped through to the meat. Every mouthful was pure bliss and my partner had a beef and prune tagine which was exactly the same. The meat was tender and flavoured, the tagine bread was still warm and we just loved every mouthful.
The restaurant in particular had ‘plat du jour’ so we had those and desserts, and of course the mint tea – which is compulsory in Morocco! We were the only customers and sat inside as during January, it got cold at night in Essaouira. The place, sat in a courtyard just off the main road in Essaouira, just before the square and the man who ran it was very quick to run out with a menu. He was very charming and appeared to cook everything himself in the kitchen next door. After such a wonderful meal, we left and decided it was the best place we had been!
The following day, we decided to go back – after looking at lots of similar menus, we decided to return. (Also my partner had left his scarf there so we had been back in the day and promised to come for dinner) Both of us had decided that we would try the ‘pastilla’ on the menu that we had seen before. I think we both picked chicken and I’m sad I never photographed it!
Out came a filo pastry that was folded into a circle and filled with vegetables and some meat. Then topped with cinnamon and icing sugar which made it taste sweet. The filling was bland and had no flavour, so all we could taste was the sugar coating the outside. My partner managed almost all of his and I left about a quarter but it was very difficult to eat – within 2 days we had the best and worst food in Morocco – in the same restaurant!
Obviously, we didn’t want to offend our new friend so paid and politely left. Maybe other pastillas are nice but that one certainly was not my favourite!
I would highly recommend Essaouira for it’s array of French and Moroccan food!
TheGreatAmbini 