Marrakesh

Marrakesh

235 E53
NY,NY 10022


Food 3
Ambiance 4
Service2
Overall 9
Good for I'm thinking.......


So the first thing that should have tipped me off that there might be something odd about this place is that when I sat at my table I noticed that the table next to me had ordered Mexican and Morrocan plates and that both were coming out of the same kitchen. When I had entered the restaurant ,  I had noticed a sign for a Mexican restaurant next door. What I did not realize is that it is all one happy restaurant. The Moroccan menu has a spattering of typical Meditteranean ingrediants and throws in a bevy of Italian American foods as well. The restaurant itself is a cozy Moroccan tiled basement. Nothing grand but also not ridiculously basic.
The kind of space where if the food is fantastic would rapidly become a well cherished gem.
Unfortunately .....what Marrakesh wins awards for is  great cheap food at hefty portions...the most expensive thing on the menu was 15 dollars ,which for an restuarant in the bowels of the eastside is a feat.
We started with a mix of hummus and baba served with whole wheat pita and some morrocan mint tea. The tea was perfumed sweetness . Thankfully,it helped wash down the horrid aftertaste of tahini loaded hummus, tasteless baba and storebought and unheated wheat pita. My main was the chicken couscous while my sister had the lamb kebab. The couscous was a well seasoned mash of seasonal vegetables on a bed of couscous with diced grilled chicken on top. Although it was tasty, it was odd they took the time to stew their vegetable but not their meat. The lamb kebab was standard street fare,a bit gamey, but edible nonetheless. We did not try dessert as the place looked ready to close. In fact they had looked ready to close from our entrance at 8:30 that night. The waitresses seemed to enjoy hanging out in the kitchen,as far away as possible from the spares number of patrons and peeked out every half hour or so to see if we had finally vacated the premise.
That night my sister and I suffered the consequences of our exotic travel abroad.
Apparently the world is just not ready for Moroccan-Mex cuisine.



The Quest continues....