Greetings from Morocco!

Looks like I couldn't keep away. The food here is just too good and I have to say something about it! Landed in Casablanca on Saturday morning, settled in at the hotel and then off to lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place. This is what Mr NoTime (who will make time for a good meal) and I had:

Clockwise from left: Moroccan bread, chilli sauce, yellow rice, lamb tagine and vegetable soup.

The tagine was highly spiced and the first taste of the gravy almost made me fall off my chair! I knew it would be delicious from the aroma, but never suspected how fantastic it would be. The vegetables in it were potatoes, carrots and peas. This next picture is not very clear, but it gives you an idea of the tagine.

Lovely, lovely lamb tagine

The soup was just as delicious. Filled with vegetables and noodles, it was really comforting after the long flight from KL via Abu Dhabi. But non-meat eaters have to be careful. Although it is a vegetable soup, it is not vegetarian as the stock is probably made with the nasty, but most flavoursome bits of whatever animal is on the menu, like the gizzard, heart and liver. I had a bit of liver (can't tell from what animal) in my bowl.

I don't know what you actually add the chilli sauce to. It was very sour and a little hot, but nothing else on the table seemed to need it, so I left it alone.

The Rialto cinema now shows silly Hollywood movies like that Gerard Butler-Jennifer Aniston flick,  The Bounty Hunter

After walking around for a while and doing a few touristy things like taking a photo of the famous Rialto theatre where the film Casablanca was shown (audiences walked out puzzled since none of the locations looked familiar to them; in actual fact the film wasn't shot in Casablanca!), we stopped for coffee. Whether black (noir) or with milk (cafe creme), it is delicious.

Frothy cafe creme. Add plenty of sugar like the Moroccans

The cafes are completely French-ified. You can sit out in front at little tables facing the passers-by, the majority of them in the jellaba (long tunic) but many also in Western garb, although with long sleeves and pants. Casablanca is more traditional that way, unlike a city like Marrakech, which is filled with tourists and where I am writing this now.

I haven't said anything yet about the mint tea, and I will later on because it deserves its own post. It is the most wonderful brew I have ever tasted. No wonder it is called Moroccan whisky.