After many days abroad, one might think I wouldn’t jump right into another ethnic meal after returning to the USA. Well, you’re right, because my first stop was Taco Bell, but after that set my stomach straight it was time for a meal at Nicky’s Thai Kitchen in Downtown Pittsburgh. Nicky’s sits on the fancy end of the Thai spectrum, which is usually something I try to avoid because cheap Thai is awesome, yet I was willing to give Nicky’s a try.
After a hellish night spent in London Heathrow Airport, we at least had time to look up the best place to eat breakfast. It turned out it was Giraffe, which was some sort of pseudo-African restaurant that wasn’t really African by any way I could tell. Nonetheless, it looked pretty tasty and I was pretty much in a state to eat anything.
The Madrid airport sucks. There. I said it. It does have a cool rainbow spanning the entire building, but otherwise it has nothing going for it. Or at least that’s what I thought when I first rolled through the place. But when I came back again for another layover, I found Deli & Cia, which gave me a reason to not completely write off the place.
Amidst the dirt and grime of Marrakesh’s souks is a bit of a fine dining experience that feels totally out of place. There’s alcohol on the menu and not a beggar to be seen. I know, weird. And unlike other spots that offer both Italian and Moroccan food, I had a feeling that Cafe Arabe knew how to do them both right.
Morocco is rich in movie history and the center of that history is Ouarzazate. So naturally there is a museum called Musee du Cinema because that’s apparently the way you say movie museum in French. And just like all other museums, this one has a cafe nearby for hungry travelers.
At night in the Djemaa El Fna (Big Square) in Marrakech’s Medina, the street food comes to life. Of course, the place is still full of street performers and snake charmers, but the food looks oh so much better. The only trouble is the insane amount of people working in the stalls that badger you about as hard as possible to stop by their stall. My favorite line, though, was “same shit, different stall.” And he was right, it all looked the same, so I stopped by one to see what they had.
Sometimes you get to pick your food, and sometimes you don’t. Usually I try to avoid reviewing places that I don’t choose my meals, but in Morocco I ended up eating at a few of my hotels without a choice. Fortunately, one of these hotels was Dar Amazir in the town of Agdz.
On our way back from the Sahara, we stopped in Nkob for lunch at a spot creatively named Kasbah Nkob. The place had a pretty stellar view of the city and surrounding oasis, but you don’t want to know about that. You want to know about their food. And this food looked almost exactly like it was pulled from the book of generic Moroccan food for tourists. Except for one thing.
While hanging out in Merzouga, we made our way to the Sudanese part of town (actually populated former slaves brought in from sub-Saharan Africa). It was there that we stopped to eat at a place called Cafe Restaurant Nora, which was apparently not named for my cousin Nora but for the daughter of the owner. Whatever. We were actually more excited about lunch than usual (I know, hard to believe), because we were told that Nora specialized in a “Saharan Pizza” (also known as “Berber Pizza.”)
While “riad” may be a common word for “hotel” in Morocco, due to the French influence in the country, “auberge” comes up pretty often as well. So when we stayed right next to the Sahara in Merzouga our hotel was called Auberge Les Roches. Auberge Le Sable would probably have been a more appropriate name, but whatevsies. As with a couple other stops, our hotel was also our restaurant for the night and that could only mean one thing: tajine.