The lure of Moroccan food in faraway places

This week or food writer El Glaoui, discovered a place where camel tagines sit next to reindeer on the menu. Here is his report:

You have to smile at the articles written about Moroccan cuisine and the differing claims by so called experts. Recently we found several different opinions. One French writer said it was a dull style of food and if he never saw another tagine it would be too soon. On the other hand, a Finnish writer announced Moroccan cuisine to be... "one of the most diversified cuisines in the world" I suppose coming from Helsinki where there used to be a restaurant that sold 16 different types of porridge, couscous would seem exotic!

One of the things many people like about Moroccan food in Morocco is the freshness and the seasonal nature of the food in places like the R'cif souq. It is also incredibly inexpensive.

But travelling out of Morocco it is always interesting how the sight of a "Moroccan" restaurant will bring on a bout of nostalgia. It can, as we have discovered, be a financial shock. That said, let me introduce you to a restaurant in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.


Restaurant Fez has been open for little over a year, and proved highly successful. We came across this snippet in a food review. There are some interesting mistakes such as "So for a taste of Middle Eastern cuisine you can find something to suit you here." last time we checked Morocco was in Africa.... but lets not get hung up on that - Here is what the food reviewer had to say:

At first when looking at the choice of pastillas, tagines and couscous, I was not quite sure what all these dishes were. But the staff were helpful in explaining what they meant. Pastilla is a sort of sweet and salty pie with a crunchy pastry topping. Tagines are named after the special pot that they are cooked in and are slow braised stews, which pretty much guarantees that almost any meat will be served nice and tender. The tagines are served to your table in a traditional Moroccan tagine dish, which does add a nice little touch to your dining experience.

‘Too much’ food to choose

The Kemia Bar is sort of a Moroccan ‘tapas’ which was recommended to us to have while waiting for our starters – you can also have that as your starter. The choice of starters was not too wide. From the dishes I tried the Chermoula Scampis which had plenty of garlic. This suits those who love their garlic, as I do, but otherwise this might not be the dish for you. For the main course there is a choice of about 20 dishes, which was a little overwhelming for someone coming to the place the first time. The rarity on their menu is the Camel tagine (although these days you can find frozen camel in some food stores), which had caught my eye even before my visit to the Fez. The meat was, as described, very tender and the mix of spices really did work well with the dish, at 24 euros it is the most expensive dish on the menu. But if you like to try new culinary treats then this one can be recommended. After this it was nice that many of the desserts were light and refreshing, so the Minted Pomegarante Yoghurt was a pleasant way to finish the meal.

However, much as the camel tagine sounds interesting, the fact that the average price per person ( without any drinks) was 50 Euro or around 560 Moroccan Dirhams, convinced us that shopping in the souqs in Fez, or a camelburger at The Clock, was a better thing to do.

In the end we decided to wait until we are back in Morocco for the camel - when in Rome, as they say, so we ordered the Savuporo tagliatelle with gorgonzola kastikkeessa - for those of you whose Finnish is a bit rusty that is smoked reindeer tagliatelle with gorgonzola sauce. The Moroccan chefs, Souad and Karima, do great things with reindeer.

Facts:
Location: Töölöntorinkatu 2, 00260 Helsinki.
www.fez.fi

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news