Riad Laaroussa - Fez, Morocco

I recently did a post on L'Ma Lodge in Skoura, Morocco, where I wrote about riads in general, and indicated that in many ways L'Ma was my favorite of the places we stayed in Morocco. Now that I am doing a post on Riad Laaroussa I can indicate that in many ways it was my favorite of the places we stayed in Morocco. Both were wonderful. I would recommend a stay at both to anyone traveling to Morocco. 

Riad Laaroussa was where we spent our first three nights. We flew into Casablanca, were picked up by our driver, Yousef, then driven to Fez (also spelled Fes and pronounced "Fess" in Morocco). It was a four hour drive and we arrived about 7:30 p.m. in the dark. Fez is primarily known for its walled medina, called Fes el Bali. No automobiles are allowed in the medina, so Yousef dropped us off at the gate nearest our riad and a baggagiste was sent from the riad with a little cart to carry our suitcases and show us the way. We entered the medina, characterized by narrow alleys and high walls, and quickly lost any sense of where we were going. After five minutes of walking we were standing outside a very high non-descript gray wall and a large metal door with "Riad Laaroussa" on it. I was a little stunned. We appeared to be in a gritty area and the outside bore no evidence of being the wonderful place I'd read about, currently rated no. 1 out of 92 hotels in Fez on Trip Advisor.  The large door creaked open and we were led up a couple of stairs through a hall and then a gorgeous atrium or courtyard opened up before us with orange trees bathed in soft night light and the building around it with colorful wood doors and beautiful Andalusian style tile.  

Narrow alleys and high walls in the medina.

Metal front door and label on riad.

Courtyard with night lights.

Sitting area off the courtyard.

We were led up steep stairs, with a very large step required to purchase each new step, then turned left through some wood doors into a small hallway and then through another wood door into our enormous room. We were informed that we'd received a room upgrade and I was astounded by the beauty of where we would stay. We had a large bed on one end, a loft with a ladder going up to it, on the other, a bathtub and shower underneath the loft, with two sinks, then even further back, the toilet and another sink. In a corner of the room near the bathroom door was a fireplace and a beautiful fire was going, taking the bit of chill out of the night air. Several windows in our room, one edged by stained glass, viewed out onto the courtyard. Stunning.

Steep stairs with Andalusian style tile.

Judy in our bedroom.

In the bedroom, looking back at the loft, the fireplace and the open door to the bathroom.

Two bathroom sinks (bath/shower to the right out of the picture) and bedroom straight ahead.

Sink in toilet room with more wonderful Moroccan light.

Bedroom window looking out onto the courtyard.

Dinner, which we'd ordered ahead of time, was waiting for us, so we left our room, went up some more stairs and found ourselves at the top of the riad, a kitchen to our left, a rooftop terrace straight ahead, and a dining room to our right. Because it was cool, we opted to eat in the dining room and they quickly had a nice fire going in the fireplace. Amazing. 

Dining room.

One other couple was already there, from Columbia. While we waited I sat in front of the fire and enjoyed its warmth and the light. I learned that night, and had it confirmed again and again, that light is magical in Morocco. One of the decorations in the room was a series of tagine tops hanging from the ceiling. 

Nice fire in the dining room.

Hanging tagine lids.

Lamp on our dining table. More wonderful Moroccan light. 

We were soon to be fed a tagine meal, the first of many on our trip. But before it arrived, we were each given three small glasses of colorful liquid. The white liquid was cauliflower soup - fantastic. If regular cauliflower tasted like this it would outsell oranges. Perfect for a cool evening. The green liquid was pea soup, also very good, but just a bit behind the cauliflower. The orange-ish liquid was squash soup, decent, but a distant third behind the other two. We were off to a great start. Next came a lamb tagine with couscous, carrot, squash, potato, caramelized onion, chickpeas,  raisins and light gravy. Wonderful lamb, and the best couscous I've ever eaten. I was thinking, "I could really get used to this." Finally we got a chocolate tart that was extremely rich and creamy - Judy announced it to be the best chocolate tart she's ever eaten. This meal was right up there as one of the best meals we had in Morocco. 

Bread and three kinds of soup (cauliflower, squash and pea).

Lamb tagine with chickpeas, onions, carrots, couscous, etc.

Partially eaten chocolate tart.

That night we luxuriated in the coolness of the night with the edge taken off by the fire in our room fireplace. 

Hassan, our guide, was going to pick us up at 9:00 a.m. the next morning for a tour of Fez, so we sauntered up to breakfast about 8:20 a.m. and wandered about the rooftop terrace in the cool morning air with the bright March sun beginning to take the cold edge off.  Fez was visible all around us, with old Berber ruins on a ridge above us. I was taken back by how large the medina was. Below us was the beautiful riad courtyard - we, now saw it bathed in natural light for the first time. Breakfast included banana, pear, kiwi, strawberries, eggs over-easy (that turned out over-hard), a heavy pancake/crepe and some thick bread. Then of course, fresh squeezed orange juice, which became a staple at virtually every meal in Morocco. We had a three-headed tagine at the table with salt, pepper and cumin. This was how we found most of the spices presented in Morocco, rather than in shakers. Just take a pinch and sprinkle it on. We learned that cumin was served a lot. I had to get used to it. 

The courtyard of the riad.

The inner courtyard (center), Judy sitting down for breakfast to the mid-right, and Fez visible in the distance.

The courtyard (center and right) and Fez proper (outside the medina) at the top and the old Berber walls, top right.

Lounge area on the upper terrace.

Far side of upper terrace, looking back toward dining area (the courtyard opening is just visible in the center).

Riad Laaroussa (pink walls - center) as photographed from the Berber walls outside the medina. 

Breakfast orange juice, pear and thick crepe.

Kiwi, strawberries, pear and banana.

Over-hard eggs and tagine holders for salt, pepper and cumin.

The courtyard from below.

The courtyard from a different angle.

A beautiful door off the courtyard.

That evening, after touring Fez, we decided to eat at the riad again because our first meal was so great. In an email when we first signed up about a year before, Cathy and Fred, the owners, asked if we had any preferences for meals. I'd seen pictures of camel meat in the market and said I would love to have a meal with camel meat. They responded that camel is not normally something they do, but that they would try to do it when we visited. Our first night we were told that the cook had gone into the medina that day and had been unable to find any camel meat. I was thrilled that they'd remembered my request. The second night after we trudged in after dark, we were informed they'd obtained some minced camel meat from a restaurant that serves camel burgers and that it would be part of our meal. Our first course was samosas, something I didn't associate with North Africa, but now know it is part of the cuisine. They are triangular pastry, either fried or baked, with fillings that can vary from meat to vegetarian. We had some with meat and with just vegetables, none of the fillings really stood out. The minced camel meat was cooked in small patties. I've had camel before and had visions of meat stalls filled with various camel cuts and trying some camel hump, filet or ribs. I was extremely pleased that they'd gone to the effort to get the mincemeat, but it was not what I'd been hoping for. Next we had a chicken tagine with olives. As with all the chicken we ate in Morocco, it was overcooked, but it had some nice gravy. I found myself disappointed every time we got chicken. On the other hand, I was always excited when we got lamb, as we had the night before. Finally, we had a lemon tart that was very good. The graham cracker crust was pretty thick and the topping quite tart - I loved it. Judy couldn't help but compare it to the chocolate tart and anything but chocolate tart was going to fall short. So this meal, though good, didn't measure up to our first night.

Vegetable and meat samosas.

Camel patties

Chicken tagine with olives.

Lemon tart

The next morning we got started earlier. Hassan picked us up at 8:30 a.m. for a trip to Volubilis, Moulay Idriss and Meknes. We were a little early for the normal breakfast, but they put out a nice simpler breakfast of raspberries, oranges, pears, bananas, fresh-squeezed orange juice, a spongy pancake, jam and thick bread. 

Breakfast. The spongy pancake and jam not shown. The bananas were small and often looked kind of dark, but they were always perfect inside. I loved the Moroccan bananas. 

That was our last meal at the riad. We ate a large lunch and did not eat dinner that night. We left Fez at 8:00 a.m. the next morning for an 8 hour drive to Merzouga. The riad provided some fruit for us to go. Riad Laaroussa was amazing. I would love to go back and I would recommend it to anyone going to Morocco. 

Barbary Ape or Macaque - Morocco

One of my favorite stops in Morocco was in the Cedar Forest southeast of Azrou in the Middle Atlas Mountains where we saw and interacted with Barbary apes, also more appropriately known as Barbary macaques. It is the only species of macaque found outside of Asia and the only primate in Africa north of the Sahara Desert. It is also the only primate found in Europe (we saw the only wild population in Europe in Gibralter about a decade ago). 

Barbary apes in the cedar forest above Azrou, Morocco.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has listed the Barbary ape as endangered since 2009. They used to be found throughout North Africa, from Libya to Morocco, and in portions of Europe. Now there is only a small population of about 230 in Gibralter, an estimated 5,500 in Algeria and an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 in Morocco. In Morocco, there are fragmented and isolated populations in the Rif Mountains and High Atlas Mountains and the balance of the population in the cedar forests of the central Middle Atlas Mountains, where we saw them, containing about 65 to 75% of the world's remaining population. 

After Ifrane we hit an intersection outside of Azrou and turned south (left) on the N13 toward Midelt. We traveled uphill and hit the cedar forest. Near the top of the hill we saw a sign obviously showing that the Barbary apes were present, even though we could not read it, then a little later came upon an open space on the left side where people were selling rocks and fossils. Aziz, our driver, parked in the large parking area there and we crossed the street into the cedar trees were we found quite a few of the Barbary apes milling about. 

I was filled in some sense with wonder at being able to get so close to these beautiful animals, as well as revulsion as I viewed the area they were in was filled with discarded candy wrappers and plastic bags and wishing that more were being done to protect them and their habitat. 

Most of my pictures of the monkeys try to reflect them in their natural habitat. That's how I want to remember them. When in trees they were above the prevalent garbage. It was sickening to see the trash-strewn area the monkeys were inhabiting. How much of the candy from those wrappers are they ingesting? 

The term "Barbary" comes from the word "Berber," referring to the Berber people of North Africa. The Berbers are distributed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River. Barbary, as in Barbary Coast, was the term used by Europeans from the 16th to 19th centuries to refer to the land of the Berber people, what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. 

Sheep's Head - Morocco

In Marrakech we had a guide by the name of Abdul Aissaoui who was fabulous. All through Morocco our guides had taken us to safe tourist restaurants where we were served tagine after tagine with table after table of European and American tourists. The food was good, but we wanted something more unusual, more local. We told Abdul we were adventurous eaters and would like to try something more exciting. He thought about it for a bit and then asked if we would be interested in eating sheep's head? I went giddy. "Yes, yes, that would be fantastic!" He left me hanging a little bit saying, "I'll have to see if I can arrange it." 

Around lunchtime we ventured into the famous Marrakech square known as Jemaa el-Fnaa (or Djema el-Fna or several other variations). I struggled with how to say it. Abdul worked with me and I finally got it down as "Gem-elph-nuh." Later we listened to an Andrew Zimmern episode in Marrakech and he referred to it as "Gem-ahh-el-fen-ahh." Of course, that was easier for me as it had a bit of a rhyme to it and was spoken by an American. We took a slanted road off the square to what is known as Mechoui Alley. It had a row of stalls that all sold sheep across from the olive vendors. Several had cooked sheep heads resting on the top of clay jars known as tangia crock pots.  

Sheep head on a tangia pot. 

Abdul told us that the owner was a cook for the king of Morocco for many years and that he perfected the cooking of lamb. The restaurant is named Chez Lamine Hadj Mustapha (it had a Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence hanging on the wall - the only way we could tell what the name was), and the best I can tell the name means the home or business of Lamine Hadj Mustapha, those three words all being part of the owner's name. I find that Mustapha or Mustafa cooked at the palace for King Hassan II who ruled Morocco from 1961 to 1999. We also learned that if a name has "Hadj" in front of it it means that person has taken the hadj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that each Muslim is supposed to make at least once during his lifetime. 

Judy and Abdul (in green) out in front.

I read on-line about sheep heads and Morocco and I find many variations about how they are cooked and served. The best I can tell our sheep head was steamed for about five hours. A man at the front of the restaurant had a hole in the counter near him which apparently contained sheep heads. He appeared to pull the sheep head out of the hole, then pull off the outer skin. We ordered a half sheep head and did not get to see them split it, but I've read that they use a large meat cleaver. Our sheep head did not include the brain. I've read that the brains are sold separately at a different stall. 

The hole with the sheep heads is just to the left of the man.

When the half sheep head was brought to our table, if I'd not known what it was, I'd not have been able to identify it. It just looked like a mass of meat with different textures. It was also covered liberally with salt and cumin. We discovered that Moroccans love their lamb slathered in cumin. I did not like cumin initially, but quickly acquired a taste for it. 

The sheep head. To the left is what I believe is the sheep horn partially broken off. The cinnamon colored spice is a mixture of salt and cumin. 

Judy and Abdul at the table.

Abdul started pointing out parts of the head and directing us to rip off bits and try them. "There is the tongue, it is very tender, try it." The tongue was tender, juicy and very flavorful. "Try the cheek meat, it is very fatty and wonderful." 

As pieces of flesh are removed the sheep's skull comes into focus.

He pointed to the place to pull off the meat. He said that the head is very fatty and must be eaten while it is hot. I'd eaten pig eye before and found that it was not bad, so I sought out the sheep's eye. The eye socket was deep and hot and the eye was very large. I plopped the entire eye in my mouth and found it very moist and tasty. Abdul was a little surprised, I don't think that he eats the eye. 

The eyeball just pulled from the socket. It was very large, juicy and flavorful.

We picked and picked at the head and eventually the sheep skull came into focus. 

The sheep skull, now mostly stripped of meat.

I loved it. It was something I've never eaten before, it was fatty, flavorful and had tremendous mouth feel. I liked it so much that Judy agreed to go back there for lunch the next day and we had lamb head again. The novelty had worn off and it was not quite as wonderful the next day, but still very good. I did notice the second day that most every table in the place had one or more sheep heads on plates on the table. This will go down as one of my favorite foreign eating experiences.