Morocco’s Restaurant in San Jose

This weekend, Grace and I had the chance to try Morocco’s Restaurant in San Jose with our friend Jared. Given it was a wet Easter Sunday, there were only a 3 or 4 other groups in the restaurant. Since the streets were near empty, street parking was easy to find. There is also a huge parking garage across the street. Inside the restaurant, there was soft chatter of other diners over a live musician playing (what I believed to be Moroccan music) with a recorded track. The restaurant’s decor was well thought out. Everything from the fully decorated walls to the tent-like environment on the ceiling makes for a romantic dining experience.

The wait staff was extremely knowledgeable. They explained everything from the various types of Moroccan cuisines along with which dishes that are recommended for first timers like us. They explained very well all questions we had about each dish. He emphasized he wanted us to enjoy or Moroccan experience. Moroccan food is designed to beat eaten family style, which was fine with us.

We started with a Sampler of Briwatts (comes with 2 chicken, 2 avocado, and 2 vegetarian) for appetizers. The avocado in the briwatts was warm, and reminded me of other “avocado heavy” dishes. The vegetarian one was very gingery, so if you’re not a fan of ginger, you may want to stay away from this dish. The chicken Briwatt was on the sweeter side and was the favorite among the three of us.

Next, M’rouiza with the Chicken option (as opposed to lamb). According to our waiter, this dish is tender chicken marinated in a variety of spices. When we got it, I was surprised in how tender the chicken was. You get one whole chicken leg on a plate with very tasty sauce. The meat itself was chicken, but slightly sweet. It reminded me of something my parents could prepare, but only with more flavor. The most unique ingredient we in the sauce was small grapes.

For our second main dish, we had Lamb and Vegetable Couscous. At first, I didn’t know what couscous was, which made the dish sound more interesting. Personally, I eat rice a lot at home, so the couscous dish was a good change in taste and texture. I don’t have much to compare the couscous against, but the lamb itself was just as tender as the M’rouiza chicken. I’m a huge fan of lamb and found this dish to be very comparable to many other high end restaurant lamb dishes.

Finally, we got Ketaf Meatballs. This dish comes with the same veggies from the Lamb and Vegetable Couscous dish and three average sized meatballs. The flavor in these meatballs is literally the most flavorful meatballs I have eaten. With the other two main dishes, we nearly did not order this one. But I am very glad that we ordered this one. This one was my personal favorite and has inspired me to go out and try to replicate these meatballs at home!

Overall, we had a great Moroccan experience at Morocco’s Restaurant in San Jose. The total bill before tax and tip was around $61 for three without drinks. Their official website is at www.moroccosrestaurant.com and I recommend you check out their site before try their restaurant. As of this article, they had a promotion for free beverage tasting or starter plate (which we unfortunately did not know about and could not take advantage).