Thursday, January 12, 2017

Restaurant Traiteur - Meknes, Morocco

Another example of our getting ditched by our guides was at Restaurant Traiteur in Meknes, Morocco. We were led to the rooftop with an admittedly nice view, but it was relatively cold and there were only a few other people up there. Meanwhile, our guides were eating downstairs in a much nicer atmosphere. 

Here is where our guides ate.
Here is where we ate.
We did have a view, but it came with some chill.
The food was reasonably good. For starters we got bread which was very Moroccan, meaning it was not very good. We had very little bread in Morocco that we liked. This bread was worse than most. It went mostly uneaten. Very dry, very little flavor. 
I got fresh-squeezed orange juice, something I never got tired of in Morocco. Judy got a mixture of orange, avocado and apple which she enjoyed. 
A plate of olives, a very common starter, this time in a spicy red-pepper sauce. Very good, but a little goes a long way. 
Then they brought out six small plates of different salads. This is one of the food traditions of Morocco I really like. Some were better than others, but I think we polished off most of them. 

This was quite good, green peppers with olives.
Cooked carrots
Carrots and green peppers
Zucchini, or a similar kind of squash.
Eggplant, a staple of the salad bowls.
I don't remember exactly what this is, a combination of onion, and perhaps squash and other items. I think this was one of the less popular salad dishes. 
Judy got a tagine of lamb with vegetables. It was dominated by a huge clump of yellowish cauliflower, I'm sure colored by saffron. 
Tagine with vegetables. The beans looked really good and I really liked how the Moroccans cooked cauliflower. 
I got a tagine of lamb with prunes topped by sesame seeds and part of a hard-boiled egg. It was okay. Judy fared much better. However, that said, I would have eaten lamb at every meal. I never tired of lamb tagine, but usually had issues with chicken or beef tagine. 
I always enjoyed the prunes in tagines and I ordered them quite often. 
Finally, for a dessert, we got some coconut lemon cookies and the usual fruit plate, this time with bananas, oranges and apples. 

I'm not sure we even ate any of the fruit - perhaps the bananas as they were much less common than the apples and oranges and we were pretty full. 

2 comments:

  1. I'd go back just for the juice. Like you, I think I could order lamb at every meal, and I would also add fresh juice at every meal. One thing about those starter dishes is that since they are salads, they are cold. I would have liked some warm veggies every now and then.

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  2. I think the bread of a country is always interesting. What is tasty for one culture may be unappealing to others. I wonder what our nation bread is--Wonder bread? Donuts?

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