Out of Essex - Marrakech. Part 2.

If you read Part 1 of my Marrakesh travels, you may remember it left us with the cliffhanger....how would stuffing myself with the very cheap but delicious local street food affect my delicate Western stomach. Surely I was asking for trouble? But, with none more surprised than myself, and without putting too fine a point on it......everything in that area was functioning correctly. Heartened by the non developing situation - I left the comfortable confines of my Riad, and ventured out onto the street to get ripped off haggling (badly) in the maze of Souks and to eat more local street food from even more horrendous looking vendors.

Lunchtime found myself and the girlfriend weighed down with various shopping bags, and striding in the midday sun into an area of town known as Riads Zitoun. We were looking for a restaurant in the Place Des Ferblantiers, strangely enough, the Lonely Planet guide informed me that it was actually called Restaurant Place Des Ferblantiers. You'd think with such a common sense naming convention the place would be a breeze to find. But, this being Marrakesh - the restaurant has no sign or name on it. I stand in the square and study the map intently - turning it this way and that, I'm standing here - so that building is behind me, so that building in front - must be it....there are what could loosely be defined as 'restaurants' on every corner - just to add in an extra element of confusion. They all look rough - plastic chairs, makeshift grills, packed with locals....no tourists. Daunting. Finally I spy tagine's in one, the Lonely Planet guide raves about the tagine's....that's why I'm here. We have a winner.


I hesitatingly enter, and try and make eye contact with whomever I order some food from in this joint, there's a few people milling around the grill area, they all look like customers to me. Finally I spy an employee and manage to order two tagine's in a mixture of pidgin English and atrocious French. Of course I have no idea what kind of tagine I'm getting, for all I know it's sewer rat. We sit at a table, surrounded by locals busily munching away - they all seem to be sharing one Tagine between two. I'm aware that myself and the girlfriend are the subject of some speculation with the diners.....no doubt commenting favourably on my excellent bearing and fine chiseled features - or perhaps more likely, how best to steal our possessions and dispose of the bodies....I have no idea. I avoid making eye contact and concentrate on radiating confident, invincible vibes.

The waiter appears and dumps some of the excellent flat-bread on the table, and a few minutes later two tagine's are deposited as well, the conical lids are whisked away and oh wow..... that's what I call a tagine. Large pieces of Potato and carrot are arranged in a conical pile over large chunks of Lamb - it's steaming hot and smells gorgeous - I wade in, all thoughts of my surroundings banished. It's really good.


It's all going swimmingly, I'm a complete glutton, so I stuffed my food in no time at all - I'm lazing, back against the wall, clutching my belly and smiling in a contented yet benign fashion at my fellow diners.....I see what can be best described as the classic old crone peering at us from the street outside through the grilled window. Perhaps she's not looking at us, maybe she's looking for someone else. She enters, sits down in an empty chair next to my girlfriend who is still munching away happily on her tagine, smiles and proceeds to plunge her hand in, grabs a chunk of Lamb and begins to eat it noisily. My Girlfriend looks aghast. Hello, thinks I - this sort of thing doesn't happen in the Butlers Wharf Chop House, how do I deal with this?. Not being equipped with the language skills to utter "Excuse me, mind getting your paw out of my Girlfriends Lunch?" I did the next best thing and started laughing instead. The Girlfriend also saw the funny side of it with a 'Guess I'm finished then' - we got up to leave....the locals were all grinning, no doubt amused to see how we'd react.

The price?, 25 Dirhams per Tagine. (That's around £2.50) Old Crones hand in your grub is thrown in free.

Much later the same day, with the evening fast approaching, we once again made our way to Djemma El-Fna, the huge central square that becomes a vast open air restaurant every night. I wanted to ignore the food stall reps, and eat at a stall I'd seen the previous night that appeared to be packed with locals. I wasn't entirely sure what food they sold, but it had to be good.
We found the stall on the corner without too much trouble, and were waved and shoehorned into a space on the communal bench between the other diners.


Once again, the bread arrived, the tomato salad arrived and we were asked what we wanted - no menu, I could make out merguez sausages - so went for those. Up they came sizzling and hot, combined with the bread and tomato salad, fantastic. But, I spied that the oriental looking diner next to me (He was Japanese it turned out) was eating something else entirely...some kind of stew perhaps. Taking my queue from the old crone earlier in the day I reached over and carefully picked the choicest piece of meat out of his food and ate it in front of his eyes whilst smiling at him. No, that image is absurd. I'm British. Of course I didn't plunge my mitt into a fellow diners food, it's just not the done thing. Instead, I said to him "Excuse me, what's that?" pointing at the stew type dish. To which he replied in excellent English "I don't actually know, it's good, try it if you like" Not having to be asked twice, I plunged a bit of bread in - and wow....kind of a sweet lamb and onion stew? no idea what it was but I instantly said to the guy on the grill - "I'll have one of those please" It arrived within minutes and myself and the girlfriend ate the lot in no time. I wish I knew what it actually was though - if anything just to have a go at re-creating it at home. The price, for two 50 Dirhams (£5)

Our last and final memorable meal was at our Riad (Hotel/Guesthouse). I'd read on the tripadvisor review that the food was excellent. The only stipulation that you order your food in the morning so their cook could get to the local market and buy the ingredients. It doesn't get much fresher than that, and I was really looking forward to a Moroccan home cooked meal.

We ate out under the stars, our table being on the top floor of the roofless riad courtyard. For starters, I had ordered Briouat, which were triangular pastry filled with either minced beef or cheese. My Girlfriend ordered Pastilla - a kind of pastry 'pie' which traditionally has a pigeon filling but in this case contained chicken.

The starters arrived and they were huge. The Pastilla was about 4cm thick and as big as a dinner plate. A whole stack of Briouat filled the other plate. These were starters?
Our waitress explained that Briouat are a speciality of Fes - another Moroccan city, and that Pastilla is traditionally only served at weddings or for honoured guests. In the case of a wedding, they make one as big as the table we were eating on. (Around a Meter wide!)
Slightly daunted by the size of the starters - we tucked in and yes, it was very good, the Pastilla especially being extremely sweet - but having a savoury chicken filling, it was to say the least extremely unusual. But very tasty.

We ate far too much of our starters, as when our Tagine main courses appeared I knew I wasn't going to get far with it. Once again huge portions, mine was Lamb and my Girlfriend had beef with couscous - it was extremely good, you could actually discern the Ras El Hanout spice in it - but far too much.
Bloated, dessert arrived in the shape of Moroccan pastries - Our waitress told us that once again these are normally served at weddings -interestingly, the strength of the almond taste telling the guests how wealthy the happy couples family is....almonds are expensive, the more - the better. By this point we were way too stuffed to eat more than a couple of these.
The cost of this home cooked meal in the Riad? 300 Dirhams apiece (£28 each). So, still a bargain by anyones standards.
So, that's what we ate in our few days in Marrakech - and amazingly despite eating at some places, which from appearance at least would no doubt turn a UK Food Inspectors hair white - neither of us had dodgy stomachs. We had a great time, the food is dirt cheap, fresh and exotic - so if you get the chance, go. Just make sure to avoid grilled 'cock' (see part one) and old women's stray hands in your dinner.

Out of Essex - Marrakech. Part 1.

I've just arrived home from a trip to Marrakesh. I've never been there before, but had heard quite a bit about the food. I own all three Moro cook books - and a lot of their recipes are Moroccan influenced so I thought I knew what to expect. I'd heard that 'street food' was the way to go, the large majority of the restaurants being either 'touristy' or poor International style Pizza jobbies. Basically, as always when I'm abroad....I wanted to eat what the locals eat (within reason of course).

So, bearing this in mind, and getting over the initial culture shock of leaving London and arriving three hours later in what to my mind looked like a cross between downtown Baghdad and Mogadishu as seen in BlackHawk Down, we made an initial foray into the maze of alleyways and streets looking for some lunch.

After much wandering (and getting lost...a lot). We happened upon a....I want to say 'cafe' but cafe is quite a generous description. It looked more like a shop space devoid of any frontage (when I say frontage I mean doors, windows....walls!) and filled with dirty plastic tables and benches, with an ancient chiller cabinet containing meat and a couple of cooks scurrying around some kind of charcoal grill. Basically it looked like a garage....all it was missing was an inspection pit. The place was packed with locals (evidenced by the profusion of mopeds parked on the street).....not a tourist in sight....I reasoned therefore that the food must be good, it certainly smelt good - the smell of grilled meat filled the air.

After a bit of hesitation, (It's hard to walk into somewhere packed with locals when your so obviously a tourist and don't speak the lingo). We stepped over the threshold and I asked in my best English "Hello, what can we get to eat in here then?" - I jabbed a finger at the meat in the chiller cabinet hopefully.

The reply was "Kebab, Merguez, grilled and skewered lamb, beef and quite worryingly 'Cock' (presumably Chicken - but who knows).

Deciding, perhaps wisely to give grilled 'Cock' a miss, Merguez sounded good to me - so that's what I went for. Taking a seat at an empty bench, our host brought some flatbread (The bread in Marrakesh is excellent) and some chopped tomato salad, which had a bit of a chili and coriander kick (I don't know what it's called - but we were served it everywhere). Not long after this, up came up a plate of merguez sausages....and despite the surroundings - it was all good. The little sausages were tasty and combined with the bread and the tomato salad went down well. I stuffed the lot. The Price? 40 Dirhams for two people (that's about £3-30). Bargain I thought as I strode back into the street, to return to the touristic pursuits of avoiding mopeds/donkey carts/bikes/cars and of course, getting lost.....but I've got to admit, I did wonder whether I'd pay for it with a dodgy stomach later.

After a full day of getting lost, our thoughts turned to Dinner.....The Main square in Marrakesh is called Jemma El-Fna, and as the sun goes down it fills with food stalls - it's basically a massive open air restaurant. I was really looking forward to this, so we made our way there in the gathering dark and it was sight to behold. Jam packed with people, stall after stall selling mostly various grilled meats....I wanted to have a good look, see what they sold, possibly pick one packed with the locals (always a wise move)......and that's when the problem with wandering around the square looking a) like a tourist, and b) hungry became apparent.

Nearly all the food stalls employ 'reps' in white coats who home in on you waving menus in your face trying to persuade you to eat at their stall. Now this is fine some of the time, most are quite funny - when they realise your from the UK, throwing in awful puns and British references "English? I'm Jamie Oliver's Cousin - Abdul Oliver.....come and eat here." But some are downright pushy, blocking your way and refusing to take No for an answer. It can get quite tiring and makes it hard to have a really good look, as your constantly fending these guys off.

Finally we decided to eat at Abdul Oliver's stall - if only for the reason he'd made us laugh - we sat at the packed communal benches next to where a profusion of white smoke was rising from the busy grill. We both decided to go for a selection of skewers - Beef, Lamb, and Chicken. The obligatory Flat bread and tomato salad arrived.....then a load of other dishes, chips, olives, grilled pepper and aubergines, some tagine, merguez sausages- all sorts. We hadn't ordered any of it, but presumed it came with the skewers. It was only later when we saw a far more savvy French couple waving away proffered dishes that we realised what the scam was. Too late. In any case, it all tasted good - I ate most of it. My personal maxim being - if your being taken advantage of, you may as well sit back and enjoy it. After that lot instead of the bill being 75 Dirhams each for skewers (£6 or so) - it was 120 Dirhams each, (£10) so we basically ended up paying £8 extra for food we never ordered......but......bloody hell what a bargain! It's not everyday you get fleeced and come away with a smile on your face. Dinner for two twenty quid.

So ended Day One in Marrakesh as we wandered away, full and happy into the warm night air for more dodging vehicles and getting lost. The unanswered question still hung in the air - (perhaps not the best choice of words there)......would eating all this local food from street stalls give us dodgy stomachs? Find out dear blog reader in Part 2.