It May Be Touristy, But It's Fun!

Our first dinner in Morocco was at Dar Yacout, a place recommended by our friends John and Lisa, who had been there less than two years prior.  

Some info I consulted on restaurants in Marrakesh referred to the restaurant as a favorite with tourists, in a slightly condescending way, but we loved it.  The trip to the restaurant was worth it alone, as we zipped through the narrow, winding streets of the casbah, dodging cars and trucks and motorscooters and pedestrians as though we had entered a wildly perverse game of frogger.

I will save my observations about the craziness that is traveling on the roads in Marrakesh for another post (today we go to the Atlas mountains, so it will be interesting to see if there is road sanity outside of the city.  Color me skeptical.).  Carol and I are pleasantly surprised, however, how clean and beautiful the city is.  As she noted, I guess we were expecting some Arabic version of Yangon, but instead we got Phoenix with crazy drivers.

Anyhow, the outside of Dar Yacout is not much to look at, but the inside is a beautiful, huge house (palace?  riad?).  We were ushered up a beautiful circular staircase, into a  dark room of people, candles, tables, fountains, music, and promptly sat down for a drink.  It was my first Moroccan beer -- aptly named "Casablanca."  Carol had a gin and tonic.  Many Muslims might not drink, but they are sure happy to sell it to you.

Rose petals in a fountain

My bride, and our couch for a pre-dinner drink.

Dinner and music.

Columns and huge candlesticks

are everywhere in the restaurant.

A decorative piece.

An unusual looking light.

Once we were led to our table, waiters kept appearing, bringing food, and Moroccan wine.   You start with almonds and olives.  Then, the first course is the salad, which is like nothing we've ever seen before.  Instead of bring you a salad, they bring many plates, each with its' own individual vegetable, with some vegetables prepared different ways on different plates.  There were diced olives, eggplant, carrots, tomatoes, and more.  I'm pretty sure, even with the picture, there is no way I could remember it all!  There are a couple of phyllo pastries stuff with meat.  Then there is the Moroccan flatbread as well.

Our Moroccan salad -- ten plates of fresh

variety.  Mostly vegetables.  All good.

Next came the chicken dish, cooked with lemon and olives.  Nice and most, it fell off to the touch.  The main course was lamb tajine, which is brought out in a large tajine, and then ceremoniously dished out at your table.

Chicken, lemon, olives

The food reveal

Looking at the waiter gives

you a sense of the size of the

serving tajine.

With lamb as the main meat dish in

Morocco, we will be very happy here.

The Moroccan wine was pretty good.  I'm not sure I would drink it on a regular basis, but in Marrakesh, with the food and everything else, it was perfect for the night!

This is the masonry work of the circular

staircase.  This wall is hundreds of

years old.

By the end, we were quite tired, returned to the hotel, and promptly fell asleep, dreaming of geometric shapes, palm trees, ten plate salads, and lamb!