It’s a sellou(t)

Place: GURGAON 

The warn interiors are evocative of the
 legendary Moroccan city

Restaurant: CASABLANCA

Moroccan cuisine makes a stylish entry to NCR

North Indian men are notorious for being food ‘loyalists’. Fill them with butter chicken or rajma chawal, and you can work out a much better deal. Deny the same, and suddenly lack of cultural connects become an issue, even if you are from just south of the Vindhyas, not to refer to the wider world beyond. For decades since independence, Delhi’s culinary landscape, even top end restaurants in hotels, had to balance global cuisines with more local tastes. It is very recently that increased travel, and possibly more choices as well as a sense of novelty have widened the acceptability levels, and new cuisines are coming up.

Lamb tagine - yes served in its
ubiquitous platter too

A wonderful beginning for Moroccan cuisine has been made by a restaurant called, what else, but Casablanca. Located at one end of Gurgaon at the new Double Tree by Hilton, the restaurant actually has a Moroccan resident chef, Rashid Choukki, who has planned an extensive menu, albeit with the considerable presence of dishes from all across the Mediterranean. The restaurant is also the first by the global hospitality chain to offer Moroccan cuisine, say the staff! Surely they must mean outside Morocco.

A largish restaurant housed in a separate building of its own, it has about 100 covers, including outside seating. The interiors are welcoming, the décor motifs and hues suitably evocative of the legendary Moroccan town it is named after, complete with lamps - from huge brass ones to lit ones in brightly coloured glass, beautiful ceramic tagines, heavy drapes overlooking a verdant treescape and sofas that invite you sink into their comfortable depths. Add a welcoming drink of Moroccan mint tea, and for a moment one could forget the concrete town outside. There are little cabanas that make for a more private seating, and they are weather proofed, providing heat and coolness as required.

Chicken pastillas - succulent and right spiced!

A beautiful menu invites you to start the proceedings. A novelty is a bowl of delicious almond filled dates, accompanied by small cups of orange blossom flavoured milk. It’s complimentary, and may be a bit of an acquired taste for some. This is followed by stuffed breads accompanied by a hallmark of the cuisine – its varied and delicious dips, including the famous harissa but also the hummus, babaghanoush and zaalouk. 

Prawns pil pil. Again, delectable

All excellent, and you could be forgiven for finishing a meal with these alone. A popular menu choice is the pastilla, a traditional slow cooked meat dish combining sweet and neutral or savoury flavours of onions, herbs and spices, chilled overnight. After adding eggs and toasted almonds, it is covered by layers of phylo pastry and finally topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon.  

While Moroccan cuisine uses a lot of spices, the combination with food is very different from the way it happens in India, and like the rest of the Arabic world, sweet and savoury is a common combination. 

Vegetable cous cous: An excellent veg option

Cold salads, usually differing combinations of onions, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, garlic, greens and seasoning are followed by a tagine, a rich, slow cooked stew, both of meats and vegetables, often combined, that comes in its own pot. On offer are the more usual lamb or chicken tagine, but also more exotic seafood or even quail, rabbit or veal tagines! 

Two veggie options are listed too. The outlet actually offers main dishes after this, but be warned, normal appetites are only going to manage a tagine or a main such as moussaka, an eggplant based dish that is simply too good to be ignored. The adventurous may opt for khlea, dried lamb or beef, samak makli, assorted fried fish, though there are lovely grills as well.

You wouldn’t really have space for desserts if you tucked in earlier, but probably just as well. The traditional Moroccan desserts are fruits, though a variety of sweets, including traditional options such as sellou, but a brisk walk would probably serve you best! Take time out when you go, and let Casablanca weave its considerable magic.