Tangier Moroccan Restaurant

 Hey there! Welcome back to my food blog. It's been quite the summer hiatus, but it has not gone without good eats! I've got leftover Ethiopian in the fridge and deserted my way into a sopaipillo last night. Expect a flood of new entries to come in from around the globe - I'm excited!

I thought I’d start off with a sensation – Moroccan food in Boulder, Colorado. Per a recommendation from a friend to try their food and mint tea, I set out to Tangier Moroccan cuisine this Monday for lunch. The restaurant located on Boulder’s main drag has received rave reviews from TripAdvisor users, which have actually earned it the top spot on trip advisor… dang! I decided to give it a try.

The drab outside next to a Mexican grab-n-go didn’t make it look very appealing from the outside. It was closed when we tried to eat there Sunday evening and I honestly don’t know what brought us back.. good faith I guess. When you enter the doors of the place you are transformed. It feels other worldly. The smells and the floor to ceiling coverings in deep maroon through your senses way off. It was almost too much to enter into!

We were greeted and seated prompty in western-style seats and I quickly ordered a mint tea, which is green tea flavored with mint. You can get it either iced or hot, but there is an overriding grapey flavor to it that makes it unlike any other mint tea I’ve had. Coming from Vietnam where mint green tea is a staple, I admit that I was worried about how this tea would fare. But it was unique and out of this world! Glad it was a bottom-less supply of mint tea too, at that!

Our dishes came out quick. We ordered one lentil soup bowl (bigger than the sun) and one lamb tangine dish with artichokes seasoned in lemon and carrots, peas, and olives. Wow! Simply the best lamb ever! Not too gamey, a huge bone-in piece, and not too fatty or greasy. I was stunned by the flavors in the dishes. Eating the lentil soup, which I happen to love, was very different because of the spices (sumac I believe is used in theirs, as well as heavy fresh cumin). The use of cilantro on the saffron rice really jazzed it up. Also, we devoured a hummus plate!

Anyway, I cannot say enough about how good the flavors were – you’ll just have to try it out for yourself! The meals there are all homemade the cook told us, and can take a while because of that. Our meal came in no time at all, which we were very pleased about as it was around 3pm and we had been hiking all morning. There was something about the mix of spices, fresh foods, and proper use of oil that made each dish simply outstanding in comparison to all other foods we’ve sampled. It just goes to show you that good old home cooking can sometimes take you a long way!