Souk Cuisine - the food-shopping

Souk Cuisine (soukcuisine.com) - This was the first cooking class I've taken while abroad - and I absolutely had a blast!! I would definitely look for similar classes in my future travels. What particularly interested me about this class was that it included a food-shopping excursion in the souks. (In fact, I'm splitting Souk Cuisine into two posts, one for the shopping and one for the cooking, because I took loads of photos and thought many of them were worthy of inclusion.) So let's get started, shall we?

We meet in the main square by Café de France. The group is about 12 students. That's Gemma, the program founder, in the black jacket. She's originally from the Netherlands, and actually, half the class turn out to be Dutch as well so she must get good word-of-mouth in her homeland. The lady in the white is her helper. She's French and also - randomly - a documentary filmmaker. (I've unfortunately forgotten her name! Something like Marie-Laure or Marie-France?)

They pass out shopping lists, shopping bags, two little purses of money, and we split into two groups for ease of navigation in the close quarters of the souks.

The first stall we visit is a mint vendor. Ah mint - so omnipresent in the food and drink. It's definitely a characteristic Moroccan herb. The vendor has several varieties of mint, as well as younger and older versions of the most common. I have never seen such massive piles of mint in my life! And sold in such giant bunches!

The next stall sells black, green and pink olives, preserved lemon (i.e. brined or pickled), and other unidentified jars of goodies. Preserved lemon is another characteristic Moroccan flavoring. (I think I might try to make my own when I get back home. Maybe they'd make nice Christmas presents?)

Next, we visit a stall that sells homemade harissa, a Tunisian chilli sauce. I love that the owner has bottled his sauce in old water bottles.

A small tub is passed for us to sniff. It actually smells more vinegar-y than spicy. And I could be wrong, but I think the harissa also has some tomato paste in it. (According to the Wikipedia entry, that's not a common ingredient). [Postscript: At lunch, there are little dishes of harissa as a dip for the bread. I bet it'd also make a killer pasta sauce.]

Next, a spice shop. We have to sit through a lot of old wives tales about the magical powers of spices like mustard seed (will stop snoring, clear sinuses!) and a local specialty, argan oil (will cure acne, make your hair shinier, fix your heart problems!) but I seize the opportunity for a little private procurement. I get a bag of ras al hanout, a spice blend that contains any number of things, among them cinnamon, cloves, cumin, pepper and nutmeg. I know it's in tagine, and I've definitely seen Tyler Florence and Marcel from Top Chef use it. The spice shop owner also tells us that you can put a teaspoon in coffee grounds to make café arabe.

We pass this old guy selling tomatoes on a blanket, and we stop for 3 kilos. Talk about old school. He has a rusty old scale, with a number of iron weights to measure your purchase. Fantastic!

This lady is selling garlic and salt. We select a few cloves, but ultimately can't agree on a fair price and we abandon that purchase.

We buy parsley and coriander (a.k.a. cilantro) from this guy selling fresh herbs. We only need half a bunch of each so, in the manner of children dividing a cupcake, the seller splits the bunches and we pick which one we want / perceive is larger. The cilantro looks completely different than I'm used to - the leaves are much smaller and frond-like, looking almost like dill, and there are small purple flowers - but it smells exactly the same. Interesting!

I see this guy selling goats' feet off a card table. For culinary uses? Voodoo? I never find out.

We head over to the main produce market area. It's absolutely chaotic - much more so than it looks in the picture below. The sellers are hawking their wares, and there are swarms of pushy little old ladies, poking and squeezing the vegetables, selecting their purchases, engaging in some minor haggling (though everyone's a local, so it's not nearly as bad as for the tourist-y souvenir stuff).

We walk around, trying to see which vendors have the best produce. We're instructed to look for small carrots, eggplant and zucchini (presumably because smaller almost always means sweeter and more tender). We meet up with the other group, also here for produce. It takes us a good half-hour to get the five or six things we need, and Gemma has to do a little group-wrangling to keep us on schedule. All vegetables procured, we split off into two groups again.

We take a quick tour of a dim little bakery, and buy some still-hot bread for our lunch. I believe the oven was wood-burning, but I wouldn't swear to it.

I love that you can still see the finger marks in the flattened rounds.

One last stop at a corner-store-type place for supplies like oil, sugar, flour, etc. The birds steal a snack while the owner is occupied.

And that's it for the shopping! We lug our now-quite-heavy bags out of the souks, to the riad where we will be cooking!

Mama Ti Lee

Occasion: Dinner with Winnie
Location: Mama Ti Lee, a derb off rue Riad Zitoun El Jdid, just slightly to the south of Le Clos. We were worried about finding it at night, but a boy somehow divined our goal and led us there.
Edibles: three-course prix fixe, details below

Musings: Negotiating Marrakech's medina at night can be tricky and a little scary. Mama Ti Lee, like our riad and Dar Cherifa, is in a derb - a little neighborhood of about ten to twenty buildings that all lead into a dead-end alley. There are only a few sporadic streetlights in the derbs, and they are also pretty deserted - two corners and you can be all by yourself, even if the main street you turned off is very well-traveled. And maps are no help - even the most detailed map we had showed a few street names, with lots and lots of unnamed paths with multiple little crooks branching off them.

I guess Mama Ti Lee is the only tourist destination in the immediate area, because a pre-teen boy figured out where we were going and started leading us there, almost before we understood what was happening. There was a bit of a nervous moment at the restaurant when I handed him a tip, and he insisted on getting more. We ended up giving him the equivalent of about three dollars, but he still looked a bit disgruntled. (We wondered if he might still be hanging around when we were done with dinner, maybe with a few friends for extra persuasion.... but no, we left the restaurant and found our way back to the riad without incident.)

And now, the restaurant.

Mama Ti Lee serves modern Moroccan cuisine. [Postscript: Which, in the grand scheme of the trip, ended up being quite refreshing and novel. We didn't eat anything comparable for the rest of our visit.] Based on the food and stark, industrial décor, Mama Ti Lee would fit right in in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. The menu is very small. The prix fixe is three courses for 210 dirham (about $25), and there are two choices per course. That's it. Mama Ti Li does not serve alcohol.

Winnie and I got one of each dish, and here's how it went:

We were first served an amuse bouche of cheese madeleines with cherry tomatoes. I thought the texture was a bit rubbery, but the flavor was good.

The first course was roasted tomato tart, with arugula and honey-balsamic dressing...

... and eggplant "caviar" with ricotta, confit garlic and fig. (By the way, let me just say how nice it was to go from Spanish to French, and to be able to decipher menus and order precisely. My conversational French is fair to middling, but my food French is *excellent.*)

For me, the eggplant was the superior dish. Really nice textures and flavors. The tomato tart was fine, but the pastry was a bit tough.

The second course was rouget with tapenade and potato purée...

... and deep-fried cigars of shredded lamb shoulder in pastilla dough, with apricots, nuts, salad and cumin yogurt. I preferred the lamb to the rouget, but both were excellent. There's something about the savory-sweet balance in Moroccan cuisine that I'm really liking. It doesn't ever overpower the protein or make it taste dessert-like; rather, it's a fantastic added dimension of richness and body to the flavors.

Dessert was a coffee and white chocolate tart...

... and a parfait of orange gélee, orange blossom cream and streusel topping.

This course needs work, I think. The tart shell on the coffee tart was like cardboard - really tough and hard, almost impossible to get through with the spoon. You really needed a knife, and that means it's bad pastry. (Assuming the same person made the madeleines and the pastry for the tomato tart, he or she could use a refresher course in baking.) Also, the white chocolate on top tasted slightly greasy and heavy to me. The parfait needed less cream and more orange, and the orange should have been left alone instead of jellied.

Desserts and other minor critiques aside, I think Mama Ti Lee is doing really interesting food with considerable skill, and it's a great modern dining option in the medina. (There are other fancy modern restaurants in Marrakech, but they tend to be located in the new part of town.)

Dar Cherifa

Occasion: Lunch with Winnie, after some pathfinding adventures in the medina.
Location: Dar Cherifa, just to the west of the souks, in a derb off rue Mouassine - not that you'll be able to find a street sign that identifies it as such
Edibles: lunch of Moroccan salads

Musings: Sort of a cafe and art gallery, with a small shop and a roof deck. It's just a stunning building, with tall, soaring walls and arches surrounding a sunlit central courtyard. Intricate carved wood and plasterwork *everywhere.*

After snapping photos up, down and sideways, we settled down to order lunch. Le Clos' substantial breakfast ensured that neither of us was terribly hungry, so we went with those omnipresent Moroccan salads - a nice, light lunch. This time, we got: peas and carrots; green beans; fried eggplant; marinated olives; zucchini salad; and stewed lentils. We also got a basket of this hard, chewy wheat bread that was covered in cracked wheat.

The lunch was nothing special - the salads not as complex or deftly executed as those from Le Marrakchi - but it's still worth a trip to see the building and the local artwork.

Breakfast at Riad Le Clos des Arts

Occasion: Breakfast at our riad.
Location: Riad Le Clos des Arts, in the southern part of the medina, in a derb off rue Riad Zitoun El Jdid - not that you'll be able to find a street sign that identifies it as such (leclosdesarts.com)
Edibles: avocado smoothie; fresh breads and pastries; stewed apple and pineapple (which the bees found irresisible!); a little jar of this divine homemade yogurt with just a hint of vanilla

Musings: That yogurt was really unbelievable - mild and delicate-tasting but really fresh, and silken on the tongue. I was told they make it daily.

The riad also has a woman who does the baking. For today's breakfast, we had some chewy crêpe-like pancakes and an orange-and-honey cake. Just lovely.

I've never had avocado for breakfast, but the smoothie really hit the spot. Not too sweet or too thick, but sort of hearty and filling.

And best of all - the customer service! Winnie and I didn't really get going until about 10:30 and we were sure we'd missed breakfast. We were cheerfully informed by Paulina that breakfast was on our schedule and it was immediately set up for us on the roof deck.

Really, Riad Le Clos is an oasis in the bustle of the medina. It's clear that the owners, Massimo and Giorgina, love what they do and take great care to provide a beautiful, restful and luxurious vacation experience for their guests. [Postscript: Of all the riads and hotels we stayed in, Le Clos was by far my favorite. I'd enthusiastically recommend it to anyone visiting Marrakech.]

Le Marrakchi

Occasion: First dinner in Marrakech!
Location: Le Marrakchi, in the northeast corner of Place Jemaa-el-Fna, the big square in the southern part of the medina (lemarrakchi.com)
Edibles: assorted salads; lamb tagine with figs; couscous with raisins and onions [Note: Le Marrakchi does openly serve alcohol, presumably with a license.]

Musings: The first thing I noticed - the incredible view of the square at night.

We started with the salad assortment. Moroccan salads, interestingly enough, usually involve cooked vegetables, though served at room temperature. The assortment at Le Marrakchi included a tomato salsa-like thing; marinated zucchini; cucumber salad; spiced potatoes; lentils; stewed eggplant; some sort of sweet gourd; stewed peppers; and spiced, cooked carrots.

For our main, we had lamb and couscous. The scent of the lamb that wafted out when they opened the tagine was incredible. The picture below looks the way it does because we immediately dove in without a thought to taking a picture! The taste absolutely delivered on the promise from the aroma. The lamb was falling-off-the-bone tender and I really liked the earthy sweetness from the figs.

And let me take a moment to wax rhapsodic about the couscous. It was just SO light and fluffly - leagues better than anything I've ever had stateside. (The parboiled stuff in a box - which I have cooked, served at dinner parties, and previously enjoyed myself - is forever ruined because now I know how it's supposed to taste.) It's the same kind of revelatory feeling I had when I tasted really good steamed rice for the first time.

[Postscript: I later learned from Giorgina that the proper way to prepare couscous is to steam it for 1½ to 2 hours, over a sort of simple vegetable court bouillon. It's occasionally taken off the heat to loosen any lumps by hand, and to massage some olive oil into the grains. No wonder it tastes so much better! Time and effort are hard to fake.]

The food was just plain wonderful. Le Marrakchi violates all my rules for travel eating - the "Tourist Central" location; the stereotypical local food (though they have the good sense to do it simply, without pretentious flourishes); not patronized by any locals at all. But I loved it. Whodathunkit?

Part II, 3/29: We came back here for our last dinner in Marrakech. We ordered the same salads and couscous, but got the chicken tagine with lemon and olives, and the keftes (meatballs in tomato sauce with egg). The chicken was not as good as the lamb, or as good as the chicken tagine from Dar Ilham. I found meatballs were smidge dry and tough, as they were the other two times we had this dish. Maybe that's just how it's made?

La Barraca

Occasion: Dinner with Winnie
Location: La Barraca, Reina 29 in Madrid, Spain
Edibles: salad with tuna and anchovies; sautéed mushrooms; seafood paella

Musings: At 10:00, we headed out to dinner. When we arrived, the restaurant was three-quarters empty, as it had been when we'd gone the night before. So why all the rigamarole with the reservations? I find it hard to believe that the restaurant was completely packed between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00, but just happened to be deserted when we were there. I don't know - maybe they were temporarily short-staffed and could only take limited resos?

Anyway... Winnie got the salad and I got the mushrooms to start. Both apps were good.

The feature of the night was, of course, the massive skillet of seafood paella.

The menu calls this a serving for two, but I think it's really enough food for four people. They served us each a gigantic plate...

... and there was still more rice for seconds!

While perfectly fine and workmanlike, the paella didn't rock my world or anything. I think it looked better than it tasted. And yes, my palate was somewhat compromised (more below), but Winnie mostly agreed. (Though, for Winnie, I'm not sure any paella could compete with the memory of the magical squid ink one she had in Barcelona.)

[Postscript: Little did I know, this was to be my last real meal in Spain. By the time this meal started, my system was already out of whack. First, I wasn't the least bit hungry. Which was strange, because I'd spent about three hours that afternoon perambulating around the Prado. Second, I had a low-level headache. I picked at the food and just generally felt listless. By the end of dinner, I could hardly hold my head up and felt really wretched and nauseous. Winnie helped me stagger back to the hotel, and I threw up about five times that night. Ugh. I spent the entire next day in bed, slowly sipping flat, room temperature ginger ale and sleeping a lot. I missed the chance to see Picasso's Guernica, and a return visit to the Mercado de San Miguel. Sniff sniff. By dinnertime on Monday, I felt good enough to nibble on a few things from room service. By dinnertime on Tuesday, I had mostly recovered and we were able to eat out again.]

Taberna Los Huevos de Lucio

Occasion: We'll call it lunch.
Location: Taberna Los Huevos de Lucio, Cava Baja 30 in Madrid, Spain
Edibles: tomato and avocado salad; battered, deep-fried shrimp; callos Madrileña (stewed tripe)

Musings: This place has the distinction for serving us the first mediocre meal of the trip. The tomatoes in the salad were hard and underripe, and there was way too much dressing and cheese. [Postscript: Unlike the fabulous tomatoes in France and Italy, the tomatoes in Spain are about as bad as they are in the US. I base this assertion on three separate instances of tomato consumption.]

The shrimp were okay, but you could hardly taste them under all the breading and sauce. This dish struck me as clumsy, and very American.

The tripe was, frankly, terrible. It's supposed to be a local specialty, and Mario Batali certainly seemed to enjoy it when he was in Spain. But I could only force down a few bites. The different tripes were all variations on the theme of mushy, squishy, and gummy. Kudos to Winnie for eating a good third of that dish so we wouldn't look quite so wasteful.

Total damage was about 30€.

Apparently, what we should have gotten was the soggy fries with fried eggs. Seriously, it was on every table. What is it with the Spanish and soggy fries?

Villa del Pescadito

Occasion: Afternoon snack?
Location: Villa del Pescadito, Toledo 26 in Madrid, Spain
Edibles: fried sardines, fried shrimp, bread and ham

Musings: OK, so maybe sardines are not the most natural follow-up to chocolate con churros. But going to a sardine bar was pretty much my only to-do for this entire Madrid trip. So off we went. [Postscript: And wait until you see what came next!]

On our way there, we found ourselves in the middle of what we first thought was a parade, but turned out to be a labor protest. With all the unrest in north Africa, this made us a little nervous. But we ducked into Villa del Pescadito to wait it out, and the protest eventually moved on peacefully.

Villa del Pescadito is a tiny, narrow little bar with a number of seafood small plates on offer. We got my sardines - scooped out of a tub, raw, and floured and flash-fried by the proprietor's wife. We also got a plate of small head-on shrimp, likewise flash-fried. And, since it was a bar, some Mahou draft beers. (With every beer, you get a small round of bread with a sliver of ham.)

I know what you're thinking - wrong time of day. And it was. This is the type of snack you should really get at happy hour. But we had limited time in Madrid, and already had plans for the evening (the Prado + paella) so we went for it.

Food was tasty; it was fun. The place definitely had a neighborhood bar kind of feel. When we were there, the other patrons were some taciturn old guys - who were undoubtedly wondering what the hell those Asian chicks were up to.

[Postscript: The sardines are the likely culprit for my later bout of violent food poisoning. Which makes me sad, because I really did have a good time there. And also mad because, DAMMIT, I NEVER GET SICK when I travel. I had to miss out on three whole meals in Madrid! And I didn't really get my usual appetite back until almost a week later. What a waste!]

Chocolatería San Ginés

Occasion: We'll call it breakfast.

Location: Chocolatería San Ginés, Pasadizo de San Ginés 5 in Madrid, Spain. It's basically in an alley in the triangle bordered by Calle Mayor, Calle del Arenal and Calle de Bordadores. Between metro stops Sol and Opera.
Edibles: chocolate con churros

Musings: Despite my somewhat vague directions above, this place is actually quite easy to find. (Winnie and I found it on the first try, anyway.) They have indoor and outdoor seating.

Wow, they sure don't mess around when it comes to their hot chocolate. The "drink" is so thick that a churro will stand upright in it. It's magnificent, though - bittersweet, velvety and unctuous. Pretty much liquid sin in a cup. I managed a few super-dense sips, but neither Winnie nor I finished our cups. If you don't have a sweet tooth, one order is probably enough for two to share. (But, I mean, don't be cheap - the other person should order coffee or something if you're taking up a table.)

We were contentedly munching away when we saw a nearby table get these giant churros. Of course, I had to get some too. There were a few anxious minutes when it wasn't clear that we were able to properly communicate our order to the grumpy waiter.... but then they arrived. I spontaneously let out a loud cheer, much to the amusement of neighboring tables.

I'm sad to report that the giant churros are not as tasty as the little ones. They're sort of doughy and oily. Not that I let that stop me from eating a whole one. (It's basically a you tiao if you think about it...)

Fortified by sugar and grease, Winnie and I meandered our way to our next goal...

[Note: Thanks to Ana for the rec!]

Mercado de la Reina

Occasion: Dinner with Winnie
Location: Mercado de la Reina, Gran Vía 12 in Madrid, Spain (mercadodelareina.es)
Edibles: prix fixe dinner - details below

Musings: This place was across the street from the paella place we had intended to visit. (They were full up, so we made a reservation for the next day.)

I was actually pretty happy about our detour. There was something about Mercado de la Reina that just *looked* right: it was modern and trendy but not obnoxiously so, bustling and, most importantly, not full of tourists. I had a feeling we'd eat well. And I was right.

Despite how crowded it was, we were seated within a few minutes at the bar in front of the kitchen. A prime view of the action! They've a small kitchen, but it looked well-organized and efficient. Another good sign.

As we were only able to half-decipher the menu, we went with the prix fixe. I tried to order different dishes for us for each course (you know, to hedge our bets) and was successful for two out of three courses. Don't know what happened with the first; fortunately, it was a great dish and we both loved it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, there was the amuse bouche, a crostini with a sort of tomato and anchovy sauce and a bit of melted brie:

A good start. The bread was nice - soft but chewy - and the fish in the sauce was an unexpected surprise.

For the first course, we were both served baby broad beans, sautéed with jamón Ibérico (Iberian dry-cured ham) topped with two sunny-side-up eggs. You break the yolks and let them run over the beans, and yum.... heaven. This dish would be a really superlative hangover breakfast. Bourdain would love it.

For our mains, I got the cod with peppers and squid ink sauce. A really nice piece of fish, with a good hard sear on the skin. I don't think the squid ink sauce added much but Winnie liked it. (Turns out she loves all things squid ink - go figure.) I did like the stewed peppers; I think they really brought out the sweetness of the fish, besides being a somewhat unusual vegetable side for it.

Winnie ended up with these tiny lamb chops with french fries. This dish was a complete wild card - I couldn't identify any of the words in the description. The lamb itself was fantastic, crispy and brown and well-seasoned. I could have eaten piles of them, no problem. But they really could have done better than those anemic french fries as a side.

The two desserts were a cream mousse with flambéed pineapple, and a Cantabrian-style caramelized cheese flan with raspberry sauce. I'm not a big fan of flan in general so I thought the mousse was the better one. Of all the courses, I think dessert was the weakest overall.

But bottom line, I was really happy with our meal. Including some table wine, it was all done for 35€ (or about $50). Mercado de la Reina is a restaurant that 1) I wish was located in New York, and 2) I think could do really well in New York. And you know that's my ultimate compliment!

Along with our earlier adventures in Mercado de San Miguel, it really has been an A+ food day, far surpassing my expectations.