Plan an escape to Europe or beyond starting at less than $500 thanks to this KLM Royal Dutch Airlines fall and winter sale.
06.09.2024 - 08:17 / lonelyplanet.com
Sep 5, 2024 • 6 min read
There's a lot more to Moroccan cuisine than couscous and tajines. From cooked vegetable salads and slow-cooked meats to fresh fruits and flaky pastries, the traditional foods of Morocco are mouth-watering.
Midrange restaurant menus can often repeat the same old tajines, so to get more variety you need to feast on street food or dine at one of the growing number of creative fusion restaurants. Home-cooked food is also some of the best in the country, so eating at your riad (guesthouse) can be another good option. Here are the best things to eat and drink in Morocco.
The quintessential Moroccan dish is a stew cooked in a conical earthenware pot that keeps the ingredients exceptionally moist and tender. The most common tajines are chicken with preserved lemons and green olives, lamb or beef with prunes, and kefta (spiced meatballs of ground lamb and/or beef) interspersed with eggs in a zesty tomato sauce.
Where to try it: Dar Hatim in Fez.
Moroccan kebabs are a firm favorite, rubbed with salt and spices, grilled on a skewer, and served with khobz (flatbread) and harissa (hot chili paste), cumin, and salt. Among the most popular varieties are lamb, chicken, kefta, and the flavorful "mixed meat" (usually lamb or beef plus heart, kidney, and liver).
Where to try it: Djembe El Fna Food Stalls in Marrakesh.
Morocco’s national dish – aka seksu – is traditionally served on Fridays; although some restaurants now dish it up every day of the week. The age-old process is time-consuming: durum wheat is ground into fine granules and then rolled by hand. Salted water and flour are added, after which it can take up to five hours to steam to light and fluffy perfection.
Couscous is served with an array of vegetables – seksu bedawi, hailing from Casablanca, includes cabbage, carrots, courgettes, onions, potatoes, pumpkin, and squash – or a mix of meat or chicken and vegetables, all accompanied by a flavorsome broth that soaks into the couscous.
Where to try it: Al Mounia in Casablanca.
This Marrakesh dish has been dubbed the bachelor’s dish, as it was originally cooked by single men who would put chunks of meat, onions, preserved lemon, garlic, and cumin into a terracotta pot and take it to the local communal oven or hammam to slow cook in the hot coals. Nowadays, it’s a dish that everyone should try in Morocco.
Where to try it: Hadj Mustapha in Marrakesh.
Literally translating to gazelle horns, these small crescent-shaped cookies stuffed with almond paste and laced with orange-flower water are found across Morocco, and best served with a piping-hot cup of “Berber whiskey” otherwise known as mint tea.
Where to try it: Pâtisserie Bennis Habous in Casablanca.
A Fassi specialty, though now found across the
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Koji, the mold that transforms soy beans and wheat into soy sauce and rice into sake, is so beloved in Japan that it has its own holiday. And lately, chefs have been finding new uses for the fungus, which has a fruity aroma and an ability to make “anything it touches better,” says Jeremy Umansky, 41, the owner of Larder deli in Cleveland. He uses koji for almost everything: to cure pastrami; to ferment Chinese-style black beans, which are ground and swirled into chocolate babka to embolden the chocolate; and to sprinkle over salads and fries in the form of what the restaurant calls Special K, a seasoning of dried ground koji. “It’s a harmonizer,” he says. Bartenders, too, are taking note. At Nancy’s Hustle in Houston, the bar manager, Zach Hornberger, 32, adds it to the nonalcoholic Silver Brining cocktail, a sweet-sour-salty mix of pickle brine, grapefruit and lime juices, koji and tonic. “It brings this umami background to beverages, and it plays well with citrus, taming the high acid notes and rounding the drink as a whole,” he says. At the restaurant Fête in Honolulu, the bar manager, Fabrice McCarthy, 41, infuses rum with shio koji (a slurry of koji, water and salt) and shakes it into a mai tai to add salinity — the effect, he says, is similar to how salted peanuts make you want to drink more beer. Ryan Chetiyawardana, 40, the owner of the bar Lyaness in London, experiments with koji in multiple forms — for one cocktail, he ferments parsnips with koji, which he says unlocks the sweetness and delivers “a huge tropical brightness.” While koji often plays a supporting role, at Paradiso in Barcelona, it wraps around the entire lip of the glass used for the Fleming, named for Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, another influential mold. For this fungus-inspired cocktail, which includes grapefruit, tequila and miso, the manager of Paradiso’s research lab, Matteo Ciarpaglini, 30, one-upped a classic salt rim with a fluffy cloud of koji, its floral fragrance accompanying every taste. —
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