Marrakech – Jemaa El Fna

What a vibrant square, Jemaa El Fna!

At day light there are a considerable amount of orange stalls to choose from, acrobatics, fortune tellers, henna painters, little monkeys, snake charmers, people walking trying to sell you glasses, mobile phones, paints, …; people who just wonder and people who just stare and if you are lucky you will also find a man who uses a scale to make his business (bless him!).

One of the best ways to observe the square is to find a seat in one of the many panoramic restaurants around the square… and well, we are hungry!

We entered a busy one, called Snack N’Zaha and climbed to the top floor, found a seat and what to eat?! TAGINE! A typical moroccan dish, cooked slowly over several hours in a clay pot.

I went for chicken tagine with vegetables and olives, for 30Dh, equivalent to 2£. It was delicious and very healthy!

Here is the picture of a Tagine we ate in a restaurant called La Perle Du Sud. I had Lamb with prunes and almonds for 90Dh (quite a sweet sauce I must say). Michael had Tajine of Kefta with eggs for 80Dh. The bread and the smashed olives were so good!

Our friendly spanish host Lorena asked us if we want to eat fish where the locals go. We said yes! So we ended up sitting at this table in the souks, the same table where 2 locals were already eating and on the other side there was this intensely-silent-and-very-serious-lady. A few words from Lorena and she suddenly starts serving us food, which I can only describe as if she was serving it “from under the table”: a soup bowl, grilled fish and bread to dip in watery tomato, all for 70 pence! It was all so delicious!

We had been so careful to not eat vegetables that haven’t been cooked up to that moment. We just hoped that a revolution wouldn’t start in our tummies…

At night time the atmosphere of the square changes! There are group of people in a circle frenetically playing and singing in arabic; the stalls with food set up and the smells invite you to sit. It is possible to go from one stall to another and have a full meal. The stalls are numbered so it is easy to remember which one you have been. It was pleasant to sit and observe the buzz of the square…