Rabat- While I am deeply in love with Moroccan cuisine — Rfissa, Bastilla, a plethora of different Tajines, and more — once in a while I do miss the diverse ethnic food I could access in America. So I endeavored to try out Rabat’s ethnic restaurants, by which I mean non-Moroccan and not of a dominant foreign culture such as French, Italian, or American.
Arriving from California, a state with large Japanese-American, Mexican-American, and Indian-American populations, I am a frequent patron of these ethnic restaurants and thus feel qualified to commentate.
Japanese food is more than sushi
The most — and perhaps only — common ethnic food in Rabat is Japanese. But interestingly, most Japanese food here is made by Moroccans behind the scenes, unlike in America where Japanese or Japanese-American sushi chefs are not a rarity, often rolling and slicing up sushi right in the middle of the restaurant.
I sampled three different types of orders at Sushi House, a chain restaurant found in Agdal and Hay Riad.
With great anticipation, I ordered my favorite dish: poke bowl (pronounced “po-kay”), a raw fish salad on rice. Poke is in fact originally from Hawaii, although it has Japanese influences such as soy sauce. Immensely popular in America, the poke I am used to is often build-your-own in style featuring a large selection of fish — ranging from more common options like salmon and tuna to fancy ones like yellowtail or octopus — with countless toppings, sauces, and base options including yam noodles.
But here, I can only order from certain pre-assembled poke bowls on the menu, and the taste tends to be mediocre. Not bad, but simply not up to my standards.
The innovative sushi-derivative dishes, however, made up for the poke disappointment.
Cross-cultural fusion items like “sushi pizza” and “sushi tacos” sound perplexing, but they are worth a shot. Sushi pizzas are in fact the sushi filling scattered on a base of a thin layer of rice sandwiched between two pieces of seaweed, with the divine crunchiness of a foodie’s dream. Sushi tacos are similar, but with a fried base for those who prefer soft over crunchy.
But for those who prefer to stick with traditional sushi orders, try one of the assortment orders and share them with your friends. Sushi House serves the dish on fancy boat-like trays with intricately carved dragon heads or multi-national flag banners to accentuate the diversity of cultures found there.
Overall, I would give the taste a 9/10, with 6/10 for the poke bowl but 10/10 for the creative sushi-esque fusions.
Mexican Food Dazzles Despite Lacking Authenticity
Unlike Japanese food, Mexican restaurants are much less common in Rabat. I went to Eathai, a restaurant in Agdal that serves Mexican and Thai food on separate menus. It is a pricey venue catering for a fine-dining experience. In comparison, most Mexican food in America appears in more affordable chains like the inauthentic Taco Bell or Chipotle’s Tex-Mex, an American cuisine derived from the Tejano people of Texas.
I ordered a burrito bowl with guacamole (an avocado dip) for optimal comparison to Chipotle’s burrito bowls.
To be frank, if someone gives me this dish and redacts its origins, I would not be able to identify it as Mexican. The beans are whole rather than a saturated mush, the fajita vegetables resemble Moroccan salad, and the chicken lacks any sign of grilling.
But that is not to say it is a bad dish. Rice, corn, and bean mix in perfect proportions, the chicken taste juicily tender, and the savory spices balance well with the sweeter choice of cherry tomatoes over regular tomatoes.
I would definitely give this strange Frankenstein creation a 10/10.
Want Something “7aaar”? Try Indian Food
Walking into Clay Oven, an Indian restaurant in Hay Riad, I was instantly calmed by the smell of incense, fragrant and solid. As I perused the menu, a basket of shankarpali (a fried snack) was served alongside a red tamarind sauce and a green sauce made of mint, coriander, and yogurt.
The shankarpali proved to be a perfect balance of greasy and sweet, coupled with sweet and tart notes when I drizzled the red and green sauce on top.
I ordered chicken curry with plain naan (a flatbread) nothing too extravagant so that I could judge the quality of this restaurant without the bias of my personal taste on a more niche dish.
Sadly, my judgment was impaired by the overwhelming sense of “7aaar” — spice.
Let me be clear: I am not faint-hearted when it comes to tasting spicy food. In fact, my spice tolerance is high enough that I can barely taste the so-called “spiciness” in a regular American spicy burger or the generic red hot sauce found here in Morocco.
So, I disregarded the waiter’s warning and thus found myself on the verge of tears, tongue burning, and nose running while I tackled this chicken curry.
To be clear, it was delicious, but I regretfully cannot write about its taste in more detail because I could not taste anything beyond the heat, silently screaming “help me it’s so SPICY!!!!”. I don’t think I will be ordering a different dish any time soon. Clay Oven, after all, is a high-end restaurant with eye-boggling prices.
What I did love, however, was the mango lassi, a yogurt drink that is as iconic in Indian restaurants as lben is with couscous. Unlike the packaged too-thick yogurts or too-watery fruit drinks in stores, this mango lassi is the perfect combination of milk and fruit, enveloping my taste buds with a fullness that smoothes the sting of spice.
In conclusion, I am giving the shankarpali and mango lassi a 10/10 — and the chicken curry a lame “no comment.”
And Chinese Food… Never Mind
The most popular ethnic food in America is Chinese, according to Google data. In fact, it is so common that colloquially we say “I’m getting Chinese tonight” and skip the implied “food.”
Sadly, Rabat no longer has a single Chinese restaurant after its only three — inauthentic, according to my friends from China — shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. That leaves me scouring the supermarket Marjane for the uncommon ingredients to cook my own meal, tomato and fried egg noodle.
Cities like Casablanca have vibrant Chinese communities that run authentic restaurants, so I highly recommend paying them a visit or two. I might be biased toward my motherland’s cuisine, but there is a reason why it is immensely popular elsewhere in the world.
