๐ฒ๐ฆ MOROCCO
๐ 6919 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Central Los Angeles
๐ ฟ️ Street Parking
๐ฅค No Alcohol
๐ 6919 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Central Los Angeles
๐ ฟ️ Street Parking
๐ฅค No Alcohol
If you followed the Eat the World Los Angeles World Cup coverage recently, you probably saw that Morocco was the last nation that was joined. This was because the Moroccan community was hard to track down during the group stage, mostly because of insane kickoff times. When Morocco won their group over Belgium, Croatia, and Canada, things started to get more intense and then reached a tipping point after their round of 16 victory over Spain.
Casablanca Moroccan Kitchens was very helpful in finding the group for the quarterfinal, and the reason that we were able to catch up with them at The Village Idiot for their match against Portugal. Having already been on the to do list for over two years, they were moved to the top after this help. They eventually hosted a party themselves for the semifinal match against France, but unfortunately this was the end of the nation's historic run.
The business got started as a food truck, but now dining at the restaurant which opened in February 2020 right before shut down is a much more pleasant experience. Once you pass the kitchen in front, you enter a dining room that is full of Moroccan fabrics and colors and makes each table feel like its own special nook. If the space is crowded, it still feels intimate.
There is a full ร la carte menu, but they also do three set meals catering to vegetarians, meat lovers, and pescatarians. These allow diners to have an array of dishes in smaller portions, sampling more of what the restaurant can do in one visit. No matter what you order, a plate of bread, olives, and dips (below) arrives before other dishes and will immediately bring you back to any memories you have from Morocco.
Triangles of khobz, a very specific Moroccan white bread that you will see piles of fresh round loaves everywhere you go, are great in the olive oil and balsamic mix but even better in the housemade harissa dip. This is many levels more complex than harissa on its own, with plenty of aromatics and a good amount of heat. You will want bottles of this after tasting it for the first time.
For this meal, the photos below are from a combination of a 3 courses meat lover ($60) and a 3 courses pescatarian ($70). Both options come with some additional choices, you can have tagines or couscous for your final round, and both have some selections of types of meat within their category. No matter which of the three you choose, the first course is a three dish ensemble of a carrot salad, beet salad, and cucumbers and tomatoes.
These three bowls along with the bread course are enough to make you more hungry because everything is so delicious. The carrots are soft and have dashes of harissa, cumin, and herbs. The beets have a similar texture but are combined with feta cheese and almonds. These and the cucumber tomato combo are tossed with a zippy house vinaigrette.
All three are even more delicious than they look, you will find yourself spooning them in until the small bowls are completely clean. Thank goodness each diner has their own and you do not have to share. Even for a carnivore, this meal gets off to a very strong start without a whiff of meat.
Depending on whether you chose the pescatarian or meat lovers set meal, you will next receive a seafood or chicken pastilla, a type of pastry with a thin phyllo dough wrapping. The seafood pastilla (above) is full of shrimp, scallops, tilapia, and garlicky vegetables. Make sure to give the insides a good squeeze of lemon once you peel back the wrapper.
The spices of the pastry come through as much as the seafood parts, making a good combination of flavors that can be pleasantly spiked with the harissa dip if you wish. Parts of the crispy shell will shatter off, but you will find yourself scooping those up to combine with the soft interior bites. A pastilla is usually just as enjoyable to eat because of these textures as it is delicious.
The chicken pastilla (above) is quite different because it also adds the addition of a sweet component with almonds and a dusting of powdered sugar. In addition to chicken and eggs, the interior has caramelized onions and cinnamon. The sweet and savory are fighting in your mouth as you take each bite.
The last course is of course the largest, and typically has been some type of tagine; chicken or lamb for the meat lovers, and a sea bass tagine (below) for the pescatarian. There are some other choices mixed in, but any meal should include at least one tagine on the table, even if it is not served in the namesake vessel that makes the experience so wonderful.
On this night there was a lamb couscous available, so that meat was selected in this fashion to put some more variety on the table. It is hard to tell from the photo above, but this bowl is deep and contains a ton of food which made enough for two during this meal and two portions of leftovers later. The bone of the lamb shank slides right out without effort, and the tender lamb is just as delicious as that alludes to.
Because the tagine is not served in a tagine, the couscous is probably the right move here since the arriving stew is a bit more interesting and flavorful. All of these items can also be ordered separately, and the restaurant has vegetable, chicken, merguez, and kefta preparations with couscous or as a tagine if you want to focus on those exclusively rather than order a set.
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