Mouthwatering Morocco

I went to Morocco for about a week. I've been before -- Fez which is in the interior of the country. This time I was in Rabat, right along the Atlantic Ocean. Having grown up with the Atlantic to my east, having the Atlantic on my west was a little taste of Bizzaro World. And while I've had pangs and longed for a burger, this was the first true test of veggie year. It first started with my Air France flight. I had called the day before to request a vegetarian meal for the flight and the person on the other end of the phone said it's taken care of. Famous last words. It wasn't. The crew was really good about finding me a salad and giving me extra bread and cheese. After being on the back of the plane, surrounded by young kids who wouldn't sleep and a guy in front of me who had his seat back the entire time, except for take off and landings, we finally arrived in Rabat. It was beautiful. A nice warm day, probably in the low '80s. After we settled in at the hotel, our group wandered down to the medina to grab some dinner.

The Medina. When I hear people say a mass of humanity or the teaming masses of humanity, I think this person has been to an Arab medina. It was a river of people, shops and stall lining the streets, everyone trying to get you into their shop to buy rugs, pottery, leather goods, jewelry, wooden boxes, lamps or even a cellphone. Sometimes the tables are set up smack in the middle of the cobbled street. And the smells -- cooking meat, bread, people who need to shower. You get the picture. It was fun to wander. And we pretty much wandered the medina everyday after work. But the first night in Rabat, we had a Moroccan feast at a Riad. First was the "salads" -- cooked vegetables with some bread. Everything from beets to zucchini and eggplant.


Then there was the tagine, a Moroccan type of stew with braised meat and vegetables. The group couldn't decide between the lamb or the chicken, so they got both. I had two tasty olives from this course.



Now, I should comment on the service. It was excellent. Not only did they carry these huge dishes, the servers portioned out the dishes -- no take a plate and pass it. It did not go unnoticed by the servers that I passed on this course. One asked me in French if I was a vegetarian, so of course I answered him in Arabic and French -- "Nam (yes in arabic), Je suis vegetarianne." When they cleared the plates after the tagines, they brought in new plate and gave them to everyone but me. Now the next course was the couscous course. I was not a fan of couscous until I had it the last time I was in Morocco. Here it is add boiling water and let couscous steam for 5-10 minutes, add flavorings and vegetables and you're good to go. There it is an endeavour that can take hours (I know that because in Fez we had a cooking class on how to make couscous -- it started at 5pm and we ate at 9pm). Everyone was making jokes about how I wasn't getting anything else or how the 2 olives had filled me up. All of a sudden they came with a large dish of couscous and a small, beautiful plate of couscous for me. The large plate had meat under all the veg. Mine did not.



And if that wasn't enough, there was desert and mint tea!



We had variations on this meal throughout our stay in Morocco. I think the best dish I had was fish tagine. They served whole fish and the servers, again, new exactly how to portion it out and serve it was vegetables and the sauce. It was really good.

Aside from wandering the medina, I walked around the Kasbah. It was like a little piece of Santorini, Greece deposited along the coast with whitewashed buildings trimmed with blue. We also say the main historical sights like La Tour Hassan, the tower of Hassan. It's the background of my where's Lynn picture. We also went to Meknes, a historical city with, what is suppose to be, Morocco's prettiest gate entrance and, after setting out on my own, I did manage to get lost in the medina and we also Roman ruins outside of Meknes.



All in all a fun trip, and a great excuse not to be in the office.