Happy Monday my friends! I’ve kind of missed y’all.

After our whirlwind of a week exploring Marrakech and the edge of the Sahara, the Kiwi and I are back in Europe and back to business as usual, except that, you know, we’re in Paris. We’re installed in our cute little apartment in Montmartre, the Kiwi is all set up to work, and I am all set to go explore…

But it’s a cold and rainy Monday and most places are closed. So I think I’ll stay right here on the couch with my hot cup of tea and fill y’all in on our African adventures.

If you stick with the traditional foods and traditional preparation methods, I think it is impossible to have a bad meal in Morocco. A bold statement I know, but the thing is that the traditional foods are so incredibly basic that they are really hard to mess up.

Unfortunately we didn’t have that much time actually in Marrakech to explore all the eats because we were out in the Sahara being fed by our Berber guides, who were wonderful cooks, and having an adventure.

The places we were able to check out though were just outstanding.

Seriously, some of the best I’ve ever had.

The first night after we came back from the dessert we headed to Dar Belkabir. Tucked just off the main square and ridiculously inexpensive, this traditional eatery offers up a few different tajines {I went with the beef and prune} and the Couscous Royal, a Moroccan specialty that is definitely not for vegetarians {it has chicken and sausage}. Needless to say, my carnivore was a very happy man.

The next day we headed to Diaffa for lunch. Diaffa is bit more upscale, but still reasonably priced by European standards {16-20€ for a main}. It’s  housed in one of the oldest buildings in the Medina and, besides the Madrassa, is easily the most beautiful building we saw. The food wasn’t half bad either {understatement of the week}. The Kiwi’s cockerel with candied lemons was fresh and moist. Not really knowing what it was, I ordered a quintessential Marrakech dish, the Tangia Marrakchia. All I knew was that it wasn’t a tajine, so I was a bit surprised {and a bit intimidated} when our waitress walks out with the biggest tajine I’ve ever seen. How on Earth was I supposed to eat all of that myself?! The intimidation/surprise must have shown because she gave us a knowing smile and then made a production of removing the lid to show just a plate with four lime wedges. We all had a chuckle, and then she went back for the food–a clay pot that had been cooking over a fire for hours and contained the most tender beef I’ve ever eaten. Ever. Really we can’t recommend it enough.

other Marrakech advice

If you’re interested in doing a camel trek out in the Sahara, this is the company we used. Had we had time to do a three day one we might have used Omar {the camel guys it seems}, but this two day one was the perfect length of time for us. The drive is long {7 hours each way} but beautiful and the time on the camel is blessedly short {because camels are actually really uncomfortable to ride}, but the campfire, the drums, the singing, and the stars made it such an unforgettable and amazing experience.

We stayed in a Riad {little palace} near the city wall pretty far north of the main square. It was a bit of a walk to get back each night, but we were really in an authentic neighborhood. No tourists there. That said Les Lauriers Blancs was absolutely beautiful and the owner was just the sweetest. She even got up early to make us breakfast on the day we were leaving since we had to leave before they usually started serving breakfast.

Go shopping. We got nearly all of our Christmas shopping done on this trip. {Surprise family!} If you’re up for haggling the souks are the place, but we headed to the Ensemble Artisanal where a bunch of co-ops have set up workshops. The prices there are set {but extremely reasonable} and you can watch them at their work. One bunch of smart ladies even got you to do their work for them.