| rev:text
| - I have no idea why there is so many glowing reviews for this restaurant. I went with a party of 8 in the last few days (16th July 10). Yes, the service is excellent, congenial, menu well explained, atmosphere is nice, cozy, seating comfy, and the Moroccan music is unobtrusive. Yes the food itself is competently done, and beer/wine menu has nice import choices on it.
However, either most of the reviewers have not experienced genuine North African restaurants and just take it as that how it is, or perhaps they are satisfied with paying top dollar for INCREDIBLY small amounts of food.
Having been to North Africa, I know that restaurants give you a really good deal on a large helping of food. And it's very reasonable price wise.
Perusing the menu sitting amongst the party, the urge to have a jaw dropping expression looking at the cost amounts was just about contained for myself.
You can pick a la carte, individual items, or a wallet stunning $51 dollars for 'The Sultan's Feast'. Which evokes giant lashings of food and couscous until you burst. But, lucky I didnt pick that...as you will find out.
$8.75 for pork Briq??! Almost $19 bucks for the vegetable tangine?! I was thinking that the portions have to be MASSIVE for those eyewatering prices. I picked the veggie tangine, as it was the cheapest main on the menu at $18.75. Curiously, most of the others picked the same. Perhaps they felt sticker shock too, but in a large party, one doesn't want to complain about the prices, as one doesn't want to look cheap.
Well...imagine how insulted and ripped off I felt when I was presented with the starter, the Briq (filo pastry deep fried with a filling, tuna is popular in North Africa).
(I should mention...the food coming was SLOOOOOWWW. We were starting to joke that they must have fed exed the food from Morocco! Seriously, it must have been 50 mins. Another reviewer states that this seems to be the norm for Moroccan restaurant's. Maybe it's the norm in Calgary, but In Tangiers it was faster. Just because it seems to be the norm, does not make it excusable. If they only have 2 chefs in the kitchen, too bad, get more chefs.)
A PITIFUL size. I was thinking it had to be perhaps a bottomless plate. But no. All I got was 2 finger sized, maybe 4.5 inches long by 3/4 in wide briq portions, with a few slices of veggies. Well whoop de do. This has gotta be a joke right? The waiter was gonna bring me more? No.
Not a good start. The main course? A 6 inch shallow bowl of veggies, string beans, carrots, that kind of thing. It's usually kinda stir fried or sometimes baked. It had a usual aromatic spicy (not hot spicy) thin sauce.
Shallow bowl. As in about in inch deep. Again, whoopee. $19 bucks for a handful of sliced glorified steamed veggies. I could have got a bag of frozen mixed veg from my freezer, zapped it in the microwave and added diluted hot sauce for largely the same thing.
In conclusion, everything is nice about this restaurant, but the value is staggeringly poor. Even the beer menu has astronomical markups. $5 for a bottle of Fruli, when it costs $2.69 at the liquor store.
Other irritants is the revelation when the staff say that it's traditional to eat with ones hands in Morroco, so no utensils are provided. One gets a hand towel and the hand rinsing bowl. Sure, wonderful and all that to be 'authentic' but it's the 21st century and maybe just leaving some forks next to the bread baskets would have been nice for people that don't want to eat like cavemen. Even the restaurants in Tangiers have knives and forks.
Thankfully soup spoons were provided to spoon out the serving of watery spicy (not unlike swiss chalet) sauce, so I used that to eat my pitiful amount of food.
I didn't complain about the amount of food as did not want to embarrass the others, but I will certainly never go back here again and will warn my friends.
I hadn't eaten much all day and was so looking forward for a belly busting Moroccan portion. Go to Teatro, that's $80 for two people, including drinks and dessert! Hell, I was tempted to go to Denny's! Sure, some 'foodies' may turn their noses up at Denny's but for $8.75 you can get a huge starter, and $19 you can get a 13oz Tbone steak and eggs!
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