Tajine Tafraoute Project

The initial excitement turned into confusion when some of the tajines were not served in the clay pots. Apparently, a weird-looking clay pot is not a necessary feature of this delicious dish. But I wonder whether it makes it better.
In any case, all the tajines I tried that night were vegetarian (I am pretty sure), and they all were very tasty. However, I have no (Moroccan) baselines to compare this experience to, so I am not sure how informative this is.

Seduced by Moroccan cuisine though, I am planning a trip to Tangierino sometime soon. I will let you know how that compares with the SF place.

Often the vegetarian option is just as appealing as the alternative. Lasagne. Butternut squash ravioli. Eggplant parmesan. Other times I encounter a veggie version of a dish that is usually fine in its own right, but lacks the glorious splendor that graces the non-veg dish offers. This was true for the mighty Tajine in San Francisco. Mine was a fine blend of peas and artichoke hearts in a tasty green, creamy broth. But next to the meaty version, complete with clay hat and a multi-colored dream coat of vegetables, mine was, well, the color of envy.

Like Liane said, we didn’t get the special tagine hats at our end of the table. I’m not sure what dish feature earns the traditional tagine presentation, but regardless the dinner was delicious. While i can’t remember what we got by name, I can remember the 4 items (for Liane, Ev, Andrea, and I to split) all being clustered, as I pointed them out to our waitress with my palm instead of a finger.

Perhaps my favorite was the peas and artichoke, foreground in the picture of Liane. Couscous was good, but i tend to find it dry so i mixed it with the peas. In fact, i mixed most things with the pea dish since I liked it so much. I would recommend this place in particular to mixed crowds of vegetarians and meat-eaters, as the dishes are bound to please all palates alike.

Tajine in SF made for a delicious experience. As an aspiring vegetarian, I was particularly grateful for the three fully vegetarian tajines on the menu, in addition to the appetizers — (1) a tasty split pea soup with cayenne that, for lack of spoons, we quickly transformed into dip with the available bread, and (2) some sort of quiche-like pie (bastilla?), savory but with powdered sugar — this was so good that I considered ordering a second for my entree but ultimately opted for variety over certain deliciousness.

Tajine was out of one of the veg tajines, so we had, I believe, veg tajine with artichoke and peas, cous cous with veggies (usually not a fan of cous cous but enjoyed this for whatever reason — perhaps it was the turnips), and also a meat-based tajine with poached eggs and garlic. All of this was wonderful, though I don’t think anything I ate was served in a tajine. Not that I minded.

As one who was present at the groundbreaking of the Tajine Tafroute Project, I’ve been invited by Anna to weigh in on the experience. Maybe because I have a slipshod memory for the details of meals, I’m very gung-ho about the notion that context is everything. I’m going to go along with Douglas Bauer who writes, in his introduction to Death by Pad Thai, “For what makes the subject of food the scrumptious stuff of story is not the perfect balance of the recipe or the genius of the chef; it’s the narrative of what’s humanly at stake as we sit down to eat; what thoughts and emotions are stirred, revived, put into play, by the table we’re called to, by those who call us to it.”

For me, then, my first tastes of tagine–yes, Anna was kind enough to allow me to dip my spoon over the table in our cramped quarters and partake–have many associations. The story I was writing at the time, called “Urban Planning: Case Study Number Six,” which is roughly speaking about a city in which food conquers all; Morocco itself, which makes me think of my friend Ross, who traveled to Morocco many times, coming within a hair’s breath of marrying a Moroccan woman, once getting into a verbal sparring match with a snotty Moroccan princess; and Anna’s stories about Tafroute, about her experience of eating a snake, and about fire-eating. For me, these things are inextricable from the eating of tagine.

Also, I must note that this was the second night in a row that I had eaten at Amanouz, so I felt a little bit like a regular. Given that Northampton is bursting at the seams with restaurants, you might think that I’d be a bit reluctant or resentful when Anna steered us toward this place, but I embraced it. For such a tiny place, the menu was pretty extensive, plastered all over the walls so that your eye had to rove to make sure you weren’t overlooking any options. The night before I’d come alone with a notebook and ordered a spicy angel hair pasta merquez, or lamb sausage dish that had proved the perfect muse for my urban planning piece, especially washed down with a glass of white wine. My page was filled with scrawl that went outside the lines, forming stairways up and down the page and by the time I stood up I knew I had the bulk of the story down in the notebook. Exiting into the cold night I found myself wandering until I spotted the window of the Bikram yoga studio that I remembered reading about on the website. As it turned out, the class was scheduled to start in fifteen minutes, too coincidental to pass up by thinking logically, and so my first experience of hot yoga took place with spicy lamb and white wine rocking in my stomach like something stowed aboard a ship during a storm. Somehow I got through the hour-and-a-half class without passing out or puking.

So all of this was part of my foray into tagine. Those sensations, still somewhat fresh, and on top of it Anna’s tales of herpetogastronomy and pyroacrobatics, of specialty dog restaurants in Vietnam, of documentary projects and seductive Nicaraguan revolutionary feminists. We talked about all of these things and more over several days, but a blurring takes place where all of them may have transpired on the sidewalks of Northampton in light, persistent rain, punctuated occasionally with startled expressions from Anna that such a place could exist at all.

Place: Tangierino (Charlestown, MA)

Tajine Partner: Nadja, very close friend

How I found out about it: Word of mouth and online: Tangierino is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Boston.

Dinner this evening was a (very) late birthday present for Nadja. I had wanted to take her to the Chippendale’s show in Boston — what could be better than beefcakes in sailor suits stripping down to American-flag-print boxers while lip syncing to “America the Beautiful” remixed to a house beat? Or watching a star-struck housewife get face-humped by three tool-belt wearing studs? — but, after clicking through three Ticketmaster screens (each of them added another ridiculous fee) and trying to decipher those impossibly stretched-out words for “security reasons,” I threw in the towel.

I made reservations for Tangierino, which is reputed to be one of Boston’s best restaurants. It’s certainly the most well known Moroccan place around. We stepped inside: dim red lighting, sheer canopies, maroon couches arranged around low-lying tables. It felt exactly like any Westerner’s conception of Morocco: sexy, exotic, lots of pillows.

After a ten minute wait — we sat on comfy chairs near the front, the bar was too crowded — we were led to our table and seated next to each other on a couch. (Note: don’t come here on a first date, unless you’re prepared to get cozy.) The glass covered table was scattered with rose petals. A man came to our table with a silver basin and poured rose-scented water over our hands. Fancy.

We ordered two drinks off the extensive and innovative cocktail menu: my martini-style Sex in Agadir was good but a little on the sweet side, Nadja’s minty Rocks of Gibraltar was better. We split the Chicken B’Stilla appetizer: two triangular pastries filled with chicken and toasted almonds, topped with powdered sugar and served with a side of yogurt dip. It wasn’t too sweet or too thick, just enough to whet the palate, a little tease before we dug into the real headliners of the evening: the Tajine of Lemony Chicken and the Tajine of Chicken Couscous. (We skipped the third tajine on the menu, the Tajine of Wild Salmon).

This would be Nadja’s first tajine. I tried not to build it up too much, but failed rather miserably. I was confident: waiters were delivering a steady stream of tajines, and if everyone was ordering it, it had to be good, right?

Nope.

I poked at the “lemony chicken,” which was hidden beneath a generous portion of pommes fries and a smattering of green olives. A brief archaeological dig with my fork — where were the vegetables? The tender, falling-off-the-bone meat? — revealed nothing more. Just chicken, fries, and olives. I doubted that the chicken had even been cooked in the clay pot: the tajine was a serving dish, that’s all. Just for looks.

The chicken breast was thick, juicy, and had absorbed a mixture of spices: but it still lacked the “bursting with flavor” quality that is the tajine’s trademark.

Nadja was faring much worse: “This reminds me of food in Zambia.”

Her tajine: a chicken breast wedged next to a serving of couscous, on top of which someone had spread a thin layer of what appeared to be chunky-style pasta sauce. A waiter brought over a different, more liquid sauce (”for the couscous”) but Nadja’s excitement was short-lived, as the sauce did nothing to improve the bland flavor.

We switched. She liked mine better.

Her tajine was barely edible. The couscous tasted like cardboard. The bits of vegetables were tasteless. I rearranged, I stirred, I drenched the new mixture in sauce — anything to make it palatable — but it remained stubbornly bland. The chicken had a pleasant, moist consistency, but hardly any flavor.

Desert was an improvement. My chocolate souffle was rich with flavor and served with a side of vanilla ice cream.

We wanted to smoke a post-dinner hookah at the Casbah Lounge next door, so we waited for an open table. In the meantime, we got a little Chippendale’s show of our own: a belly dancer. Usually, I’m all for belly-dancing dinner entertainment, but this was a little weird, because the dancer — whose skirt was stuffed with bills — was actively seeking tips, and if she caught you watching, she’d target you. Given that our couch faced out into one of the only open spaces in the restaurant, we were forced to awkwardly avert our eyes for a long period of time. Not easy when someone is shaking her butt right in front of you.

After 45 minutes of waiting, and several fruitless inquiries about our “spot” on the waiting list, we left.

Bottom line:

The tajine is the decor here, a serving dish to fit in with the Moroccan theme. Reminds me of why I’m moving back to good ol’ NYC.

Rating: 3/10 (I’d give the Tajines a 2/10. But the drinks/appetizer/deserts were great)

Restaurant Details:

Tangierino
83 Pleasant St
Charlestown, MA 02129
(617) 242 - 6009
www.tangierino.com

Chippendales (I strongly recommend a visit to this site — it’s hilarious.) Read the rest of this entry »