Tagine and sheesha pipes February 18, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Cafes & Restaurants , trackbackA friend down from Birmingham gave the excuse for a group to meet at Mogador, a Moroccan restaurant on Queensway, in the heart of London’s Arab district. The wine came from the Lebanon, a slightly over priced but very drinkable heavy red. From memory, it was a Ksara, but I forgot to look too closely at the label and someone else ordered. Surprisingly, there was no arak. The aniseed spirit is not something I’d miss, but disappointing to our Iraqi friend.
We started with a selection of meze, excellent tabouleh but fairly standard. About half the party moved on to the kebabs, and I decided on the Moroccan special, a lamb tagine. It came in its own scalding hot tagine dish, and was as sweet and succulent as this stew of lamb with prunes and apricots is meant to be. The meat fell apart and melted in the mouth, while the liquor around it was a delicate, aromatic soup.
I’m not sure who ordered the triple tray of baklava and other sweets, but I moved on to a melon flavoured sheesha pipe and persuaded a few of the others to partake. As a convinced non-smoker, its not something I do often, butI’m rather fond and they’ll soon be a thing of the past when smoking in public places becomes illegal in England in the summer. I’m eagerly awaiting smoke free pubs, while sad that water pipes must also disappear.
And so the evening went on with mint tea, more drinking and the floor show. We were fairly sure, on the authority of one of our party who is Polish, that one of the two belly dancers was also from that part of the world. She managed to persuade the woman at the next table to join her, though I’m afraid I’d need something rather more potent in my pipe than melon tobacco to give that a try.
There are many similar restaurants in the area, and I’ve no idea if this is one of the better ones. It was certainly good last night.
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