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Tag Archives: Restaurants

Auckland in Three Meals

06 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by winifredcreamer in New Zealand

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Food, Museums, Restaurants

We stopped in Auckland on our way back to the US. We didn’t need to, there are direct flights from Brisbane to the US, but we saved a mint, so decided to do it. We arrived on Monday afternoon and left on Wednesday morning, deciding to take a brief culinary tour during our stay.

We began with dinner at Masu, a Japanese restaurant in the downtown area (Federal St.). The decor is comfortable, with wooden tables. Diagonal beams hung overhead suggest the roof of a house. The menu includes sushi, kitchen specialties, and a robata grill. We chose items from each section, with black cod cooked on the grill as our main dish. It was all delicious. As I am a dessert lover, I don’t mean to diminish the buttery sushi, the crsipy, spicy calamari, or clams steamed in buttery broth, but what really stood out was dessert. When is the last time you had a truly delicious dessert at an Asian restaurant? Masu really delivered in this category. The chocolate hazelnut pudding arrived in a small wooden box, with umeshu ice cream (made with Japanese plum liqueur). A server sprinkled green tea powder on top of the baked pudding at the table. Spoon out hot pudding with a crispy bit of topping, followed by a bite of ice cream–what flavor! I scraped out the corners of my little box, glad there wasn’t more, because I would have eaten it.

We took Uber back and forth from the city to our hotel by the airport, and the process went smoothly once I learned not to order a ride until I was in an easy-to-find location.

On Tuesday, we began with lunch at the Depot Eatery and Oyster Bar, once again arriving in the downtown area via Uber. There are no reservations at the Depot, but we were seated immediately, right around noon. Taking advantage of our location, we ordered a dozen raw tuatua clams, followed by a small plate of charcuterie, then venison cheek on creamy polenta. The charcuterie was both delicious and a bit unusual, including rabbit rillettes, cherry relish, wild pork salami, and locally made bresaola, served with fig and fennel seed toast. Best of all were little batons of head cheese that were rolled in crumbs and deep-fried; hot and crispy on the outside with melting meaty flavor on the inside.

The day was overcast, and we opted for a walk to the Auckland Art Gallery. There was Maori art, art of the western canon, and a surprisingly engaging exhibit, “Guerrilla Girls: Reinventing the ‘F’ Word – Feminism!.” The Guerrilla Girls are a collective of artists who point out inequality where they see it. They make posters to plaster in public places with titles like “Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get Into the Met. Museum?” The poster lists statistics about the representation of women in the Met’s collection, where it turns out there are far more female nudes on the walls than work of any kind by female artists.

By this time, we were getting museum fatigue and took a break for tea. Refreshed enough to continue, we headed for the harbor, strolling the pedestrian shopping precinct in central Auckland. These few blocks are full of international brands, with the occasional tourist souvenir shop butting in. We window shopped our way to the water. Two huge wharves have been converted to hotel and restaurant venues. We found our dinner spot, Euro, out on Princes Wharf. Our reservation was early, since we’d be getting up at 4 am to head for the airport. Our third restaurant meal was as interesting and as delicious as the previous ones. Jonathan couldn’t resist a few local oysters, and the two first courses were excellent. We started with “scorched” steak tartare, a delicious nearly raw chopped beef covered in a cloud of tiny kumara (yam) chips. Next came duck ham, slivers of ham draped over a pastry tube of delicate duck liver mousse. We cleaned up every bit of it. Jonathan went on to a main dish of crispy beef cheek while I held out for dessert. When I asked our waiter what to choose, he suggested he bring me something, which turned out to be half portions of two different desserts, cheesecake cigars with ginger ice cream followed by tapioca with pineapple curd, panna cotta cream and so that it wouldn’t resemble pudding, shards of white chocolate and dried pineapple fanning out of the top like the sails of a ship.

Our culinary visit to Auckland showed there is lots of fresh shellfish and well prepared seafood. There is also excellent meat and specialty products from local producers. Add some New Zealand wine and you have menus that focus on New Zealand products with delicious results. We don’t usually eat out, so this visit was a real treat, and we were more than satisfied with each of our stops.

7.2.19 Auckland towersm
7.2.19 Albert Park-002sm

 

 

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Wonders in Wellington

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by winifredcreamer in New Zealand

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Tags

Animals, Museums, Restaurants

Wellington is not a large city and though it is hilly, the downtown is along the water and easy to walk. Even driving on the left it wasn’t too difficult to navigate. We’ve always been able to find parking and figure out how to pay for it. There are about three coffee shops on each block and not a Starbucks among them (There are only two or three in all of New Zealand). Coffee is served strong, no need to ask for extra shots!

We’ve now been to Wellington twice–both great days. We had to begin with a day of doctor visits. Fortunately, the morning visit was shorter than expected (!) and we had time to visit the Zealandia nature park. It’s a green fold in the land just above Wellington center. I don’t know why it wasn’t developed, as there are suburbs all around. It’s about the size of Central Park in Manhattan and a section of the park is walled and fenced to keep out non-native species. In New Zealand, there are no native mammals, so everything from cats and dogs to opossums and stoats are predators. Native New Zealand animals, including kiwis, never learned to hide from ground predators. There’s even a ground-dwelling parrot in New Zealand. They’re all endangered. We saw tuataras sitting at mouth of their burrows. They look ordinary but are the only surviving descendant of an ancient line of reptiles. For an animal-centric view of this country, read “Notes from New Zealand: A Book of Travel and Natural History,” by Ed Kanze.

There are bird feeders at Zealandia, where we saw Kaka, one of the native parrots. These clever birds have to operate a handle to open their food dish, both to keep them engaged and to keep the other birds from stealing their food pellets.

The walk was lovely and not difficult. One area was closed off to protect the nest of a Takahe, an oversized purple gallinule that is only found in New Zealand (endemic). I overheard a staff member excitedly chatting with a visitor–the egg is due to hatch in a week! We get so excited about the little things.

Our second trip to Wellington was entirely by choice, focusing on the Maori collection at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, called Te Papa. The Maori exhibit was fascinating. The sculpture is highly detailed, it is a shame that photos aren’t permitted beyond the entrance. There were some massive canoes, all highly decorated, along with sculpture, clubs, and tools.

From the museum, we crossed the Sea to City Bridge, an art piece on its own, and window-shopped on Cuba St. This is a lively neighborhood of restaurants and shops. Around the corner, we bought a loaf of multi-grain sourdough bread at Leeds St. Bakery just before it closed, and finished with lunch at Florinda’s where Jonathan’s tuatua pasta (pasta with clams) was so delicious that we decided to go clamming the next day.

Our final stop on both trips was Evans Beach. I found a web site that shares places around the world where you can look for beach glass, and I looked up Wellington. Our beach in Te Horo has lots of driftwood but not much glass. Evans Beach in Wellington was said to have beach glass, so we made our way there. We didn’t find a beach, just a few rocky stretches connected by cement walls holding up the highway. We found a less-developed stretch where we could pull over, but most of the shore was rock. The tide was low, so I went down to look at a gravelly spot–and there I found a great spread of beach glass! Jonathan was surprised that I found anything. It was such a surprise that we made a return trip the second time we were in Wellington to return the larger pieces and pick up smaller ones that I can use in my jewelry-making. Wellington is truly a something-for-everyone place.The Wellington waterfront from Te Papa.

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Beyond the beach in Aruba

29 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by winifredcreamer in Aruba, Paula

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Parks, Restaurants

When we arrived, I thought we might spend two weeks making our way from beach to beach around the island of Aruba. We have been happily distracted along the way. My sister Paula and her guy Wayne are with us and wanted to see the California Lighthouse at the north end of Aruba. The lighthouse is on most tours for the view out over the blue, blue water to the west and crashing waves to the east. We got a kick out of the tour vehicles that drove up. One minute there would be eight tiger-striped jeeps with whooping passengers. Next came four wheelers on balloon tires and then The Party Bus, a retired school bus with a hippy paint job. Whether they screeched to a halt or eased slowly into the parking lot, every group had their own personality.The sky was brilliant blue and the guys cutting the tops off drinking coconut were very busy. All this tourism wore us out, so we headed home to rest up by the pool.

The east side of Aruba is honeycombed with caves. Many of these are part of Arikok National Park. We stopped at Fontein Cave to see the rock art.   Some of the stone is twisted in fantastic shapes. We also visited Quadiriviri cave, where an interior room with a hole to the surface is reached by walking down a dark path. A bat emerged from among those sleeping on the ceiling.

On our way out the south entrance to the park we passed the island’s wind farm, a row of turbines that catch the strong wind coming in from the east. Driving back to Savaneta we passed a number of houses with decorative painted trim. Houses range from tiny cottages, workers housing from the oil refinery days, to large walled compounds with beautifully landscaped gardens.

The hotels are a world apart in Aruba. Just north of Oranjestad is a signpost to the “low rise” hotels and beyond that, another sign to the “high-rise” hotels. These face Eagle Beach and the adjacent beaches and are the center of the Aruba tourist industry, where all-inclusive resorts, package tours, and destination weddings are held. Guests sign up for one day adventure tours, parasailing, kite surfing and other activities. When we went snorkeling at Boca Catalina, along the tourist coast, we saw all this going on just off the beach all at the same time: jet skis, kite surfers, windsurfers, parasailers, catamarans full of snorkelers, a two-masted sailboat, and a flat dredge-like boat leading a group using self-propelled devices to motor through the water in their snorkeling gear.

The cruise ship terminal is in the middle of Oranjestad and traffic slows to a halt when ships are in, up to three at a time moored and looming over the small downtown. One day on our way back from birdwatching, we saw three ships of very different sizes, from a Tradewinds vessel that holds about 200 passengers to a Fortune of the Seas that holds 4,000. We met a two men at the birdwatching site who had arrived that morning. Their ship was leaving again at 3 pm and they were trying to squeeze in some birdwatching and a trip to the beach. When I said we were only in Aruba for two weeks, they laughed at “only,” as their stop was “only” seven hours.

Oranjestad is mostly a single main street along the water, though we found interesting stops a block further inland as we searched for parking. The largest lime kiln still standing in all the Caribbean is the feature of a now-neglected park. The walls are almost two feet thick. A lot of coral was turned into lime for cement here.

Not far away in a restored colonial building is a shop called “Cosecha,” which means “harvest” in Spanish. They carry items made locally and of local materials. There were some lovely things to see and the young woman managing the shop was pleasant and able to talk about the artists.

No trip to Aruba is complete without a visit to one of the fish restaurants, and we decided to give Jonathan a break on cooking to go to the Flying Fishbone. Not only is it down the street from our house, it was part of the directions to get here. I didn’t realize that the tables in demand at the Flying Fishbone are the ones in the water. Yes, the tide comes in and surrounds the legs of the tables up about 12 inches. The restaurant provides racks to hold shoes, though part of ours was submerged–it was high tide at 8 pm. Since Aruba is very warm, even at night, sitting with my feet under water resting on the sand was not uncomfortable. The high tide tables are not the only feature, our seafood was delicious and generous. We had another meal at home of the shrimp, fish, mussels, and scallops that we carried off when we were done. We only had room to share one creme brulee among the four of us. During dinner there was a bit of disturbance at a nearby table when a crab scuttled over the diners’ feet. As we got up to leave, a circle had cleared around another table and people were peering into the water at the base of a post. A waitress told us that there is a moray eel that’s become habituated to the diners and comes out to scrounge. The diners are not used to the eel, however, and there was lots of eek-ing and peeking.

 

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Get in the car.

06 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by winifredcreamer in Scotland

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Archaeological sites, Birds, Restaurants

These may be the scariest words on the planet for someone approaching a right hand drive vehicle for the first time. The day before we left Edinburgh, with our rental car awaiting us in the morning, we took a driving lesson. One hour each behind the wheel with Michael, the most unflappable person I’ve ever met. We each had our hour of white-knuckle driving on the left hand side of the road, learning about merging, roundabouts (there are two kinds) and standard speed limits. We survived our lesson and went to the airport with trepidation. Some of the things that you immediately do wrong are to look the wrong way, attempt to enter a roundabout going the wrong direction, go to shift with your right hand and turn on your wipers instead (gears are on left). Then there’s driving too close on the left, and too close on the right, both at the same time!!! Roads are often narrow, I swear standard lanes are narrower than in the US.

I’d looked up historic sites on our route that would give us a break from driving. Our first stop was about 20 minutes down the road at Castlelaw Hill fort, just off the Edinburgh bypass. Not much of a surprise that we were already ready for a break.

7.31.16 Castelaw Hill Fort-009Even in blustery weather, the site was impressive, three rings of earthen embankments encircling the top of a hill, with occupation going back to the Iron Age, about 800 BC, and perhaps even earlier. There is also a subterranean chamber that may have been a hiding place, a storage space or ritual space. Called a “souterain,” similar rooms from medieval times hid priests after Catholicism was outlawed. (Author Erin Hart makes great use of a souterain in her mystery novel Haunted Ground.) It was a bit drippy crawling in and out of the underground room.

7.31.16 Castlelaw HIll Fort-005
7.31.16 Castelaw Hill Fort-006

We moved on toward southern Scotland. Our next stop was Coulter Motte, a tiny flat-topped hill that used to hold a castle. There’s nothing left but the mound.

7.31.16 Coulter Motte-007
7.31.16 Coulter Motte-008

After this break, we got serious and headed for our destination, Aird Farm B&B in Crossmichael, near our new place in Dalbeattie. We move in tomorrow. The B&B is great, with bird feeders by the sitting room. We saw blue tits, great tits, a Great Spotted woodpecker and many of the usual suspects. https://i1.wp.com/www.psiloswildlifephotography.co.uk/birds/redleggedpartridgesm.jpg

On our drive out for dinner we spotted a red-legged partridge, a very weird dude. (The photo is not by me).

 

 

 

Dinner at the Kings Arms in Castle Douglas poring over the bird book.


It was great to be out of the car for a while, but tomorrow is move-in day including grocery shopping, so I’m going to have to get used to driving. We split the driving 50-50 so that we both learn how to do it. I still feel nauseous when I get into the car in the morning.

 

 

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What happens when you twist your ankle?

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by winifredcreamer in Norway, Paula

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Museums, Parks, Restaurants

Occasionally, people ask how we will deal with illness or injury as we travel, particularly since US insurance rarely applies outside the US. Travel insurance only covers injury during travel. My macular degeneration is considered a chronic condition and therefore not covered (see amdontheroad.wordpress.com).

DSCN4440

Jonathan sprained his ankle on one of our last days in Kjerstad (June 28). We’d already reserved 2 nights hotel in Oslo to have a day in the city. The Oslo airport is a 40 minute train ride from the city, and there is a lot of walking in a one-day visit, so we had to rethink.

We rented a car and each chose a place we wanted to see, settling on the Viking Ship museum, the stave church at the Norwegian folk museum and the Vigeland sculpture garden in Frogner Park. The Viking ships are impressive, even though the gold and other loot was long gone by the time they were excavated.

Jonathan is sad, just like the sad-eared animal.

I’ve wanted to see a stave church since I wrote a paper about them for an anthropology class in college. The oldest portion of this one dates to about 1200. It was originally built in Gol, Norway and when the city was going to tear it down in 1880, the king, Oscar II, had it saved and restored in its current location among many other structures from around Norway in the Norsk Folkemuseum.

DSCN4416Jonathan rested his foot in the cafe while Paula and I did a bit more walking around the Folkemuseum. The costumed people manning the stops were well informed and we chatted with the man in the stave church for a while, the the silversmith and the pottery studio. It was raining in earnest by this time, so we headed to the cafe for a few minutes before leaving.

IMG_0510Our final tour stop was Frogner Park to see the Vigeland sculptures. Jonathan was only able to manage a short walk, though we pulled out our binoculars to look at birds splashing about in the rain.

From there we went to an early dinner at Markveien. It was delicious (see Jonathan’s review on TripAdvisor). We headed back to the hotel, having made the best of a day that could have been much more difficult. We were happy to have the car in the morning to get us back to the airport. Our flight was not until 11:40 am, so we had plenty of time to get there and give Jonathan time to walk slowly to the gate. We successfully spent the rest of our Norwegian kronor, to the last one.

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Our last week in Fez

28 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by winifredcreamer in Morocco

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Gardens, Parks, Restaurants, walks

4.23.16 Fez-003

So many loose ends, so little time. We took a couple more of the walks in the guidebook, “Fez from Bab to Bab.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed a tassel seller.

One of the walks took us through the Jnane Sbil, a beautiful garden near the Royal Palace. This month is perfect for visiting, the orange blossoms are out, as are lilacs, roses and all kinds of flowers. The garden is carefully maintained, the gardeners have even created some new small islands within the stream that passes through the garden. We did some birdwatching, and even saw a new bird, a grey wagtail.

Male Grey Wagtail

4.27.16 Jnane Sbil garden-004

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gardener made his own broom.

The gardener made his own broom. It’s like a ‘hidden picture’ on top of the woodpile.

Another day we took a route that included the official Municipal Market.4.26.16 Ville NouvelleWe drank coffee on the roof terrace of the Palais Faraj hotel. It overlooks our neighborhood and after spotting its terrace, we decided to go for a visit. It has a lovely  view over the medina, and the cookies were excellent, too.

4.25.16 Palai Faraj Fes-001Today we walked around the Mellah, the former Jewish neighborhood. We visited the synagogue along with an Israeli tour group. The Mellah not a large area, but some of the streets are winding.

The Ibn Danan synagogue
A portion of the Jewish cemetery viewed from the roof terrace of the synagogue.

On the way home, I noticed that our taxi driver had a dashboard cupholder for his glass of mint tea. I love it.

4.28.16 Mellah Fes-001

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A Moroccan Wine Tasting

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by winifredcreamer in Lyra, Morocco

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Restaurants, Wine

There is a thriving wine industry in Morocco, mostly consumed domestically. It is possible to purchase wine in this Moslem country at the “Cave” or wine cellar at the Carrefour grocery store. (We also heard that the Marjane chain of grocery stores ended liquor sales and found their overall business dropped 20-25%.)

We planned to taste wine in the Meknes area ever since Joyce and Jean-Marie indicated that it was possible to do so. It’s not as easy as in California, perhaps, but a wine tasting is available at Chateau Roslane, located south of Meknes. It is part of the group, Les Celliers de Meknes.

http://www.lescelliersdemeknes.net/en/?Include=About%20us

The property was lovely and we were able to find it with the directions given and phone GPS.

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We tasted some of the best wines Chateau Roslane makes, including La Perle du Sud sparkling wine, a chardonnay and a red blend of shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and merlot. We were disappointed that we could not purchase bottles during our visit, but that may be coming in the future. Who knew that Fez-Meknes area wines would be so attractive? We have only drunk Moroccan wines during our stay and generally have been happy with them.

After the wine tasting it was lunchtime and we were able to stop at a nearby place with an attractive dining room in extensive grounds with an area of lodgings, a large pool and play area. I mention this because it had no identifying sign or name on it, yet was clearly for guests. We were recommended to it by the winery.

 

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Around the ramparts

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by winifredcreamer in Morocco

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Landscape, Restaurants

Our friends Joyce and Jean-Marie joined us at the riad and brought their car, so we took advantage to do some exploring outside the medina. The book “Fez from Bab to Bab” by Hammad Berrada, is a classic guide to the medina and it starts by suggesting a driving tour around the ancient city walls. The French “Guide Bleu” has a similar tour. We started by walking to the parking lot, passing the traditional medina transport:

4.7.16 Bab Rcif area-003smThere are two large fortresses on either side of Fez. The Borj Sud provides a view over the medina and away to the south.

4.9.16 Fes medina from Borj sur Kestrels and jackdaws live in the many nooks and crannies in the Borj Sud. They zip in and out while you are having your photo op.


Borj Nord is on the other side of the city, past several other gates and old bridges. There is a military museum there, but as has been our luck in Fez, it was closed. From the Borj Nord you can see how far modern Fez spreads from the medina. The new city or Ville Nouvelle, (not to be confused with the new city of the 1400s Fez Jdid), is not particularly close to the Medina. It’s a separate city, not surrounding the old walled medina that is in the foreground below.

4.9.16 Fes medina from Borj sur-006verWe intended to savor the view of the city from the Palais Jamai, an elegant hotel situated on the northern edge of the Fez medina, but it is closed for renovation. We continued along the walls to Bab Boujlud, parked and walked in to the Cafe Clock. The “clock” is a puzzle, a series of brackets supporting brass bowls that caught a brass ball signaling the hour. Behind the facade, water draining from a tank at a constant rate was used to determine the passage of time. However, none of this has worked since the death of the clockmaker in about 1400. The bowls were removed in 2004 for restoration, which has not taken place.

4.6.16-053

The 13 lower brackets hold brass bowls in photos from the early 20th century. Today the cafe is as much a landmark as the “clock” itself.

 

 

 



The cafe has a very nice roof terrace with lots of shaded tables. As long as you can climb the four flights of stairs to get there, it is lovely. After lunch we made our way back to the Bab Jdid parking and the delightfully cheerful Mohammed, chief parking attendant.

 

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Essaouira, city of doors

24 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by winifredcreamer in Morocco

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Architecture, Restaurants

We dodged a few raindrops and ducked into a restaurant for lunch just as it started to rain. We ended up on the third floor in a low-ceilinged room with several other groups of foreigners, French, Spanish and German. We had an especially nice chat with a German woman who was on a two week holiday (she chose Morocco because she wanted someplace close, and warm) while she is between jobs. On her return she moves from Frankfurt to Berlin. Her English was excellent (studied English Lit in college just because she likes it), as was her French.

3.21.16 Essaouira-013sm
3.21.16 Essaouira-015sm

There is lots of shopping in the medina here, and lots of old buildings.

3.21.16 Essaouira-012sm
3.21.16 Essaouira-003sm

Most of all, Essaouira has doors. Here are some of them.

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Surprises at the end of the road

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by winifredcreamer in Morocco

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Food, Restaurants

We arrived at Foum Assaka, the mouth of the Assaka River, to find a beach community under construction, not uncommon in Morocco. We threaded through the streets until the car could go no further, then parked in a pullout. This is the entrance to “Le Rayon Vert,”  the Green Flash. I guess you can see it here as easily as in Key West. 3.16.16 Foum Assaka-009sm

 

3.16.16 Foum Assaka-013sm 3.16.16 Foum Assaka-008smIf you visit with a group, you can stay in a Moroccan tent.3.16.16smWe sat down to a delicious lunch of baked fish and vegetables. The eggplant were baked and the glazed with honey and spices. Delicious and in the middle of nowhere. The secret? Our friends called in advance.

3.16.16 Foum Assaka-005sm3.16.16 Foum Assaka-006sm

 

 

 

 

This was not the only hidden surprise we visited in the Sidi Ifni area.

The next evening we had dinner at the “3-O” restaurant in Mirleft. After driving from Sidi Ifni in the dark, we stopped in front of a pharmacy, with its lurid fluorescent light washing out everything. We got out of the car and looked around, puzzled. Jean-Marie pointed to an alley, unlighted. Then we saw “3-O” painted on the wall, and an arrow. We walked down the alley in the dark to a door. Locked. It has a buzzer. It looks like we are being checked into prison. The door opens and we are in a gallery of contemporary Moroccan furniture. We walk between the rows of tables, mirrors, and sculpture to a doorway and we are then in, a nightclub. Really. Tables and chairs, mirrors, light fixtures, very chic decor. We continue along to a dining room where our table is ready. We meet our host, Didier, who runs the restaurant, the workshop, and the club. The feature of this restaurant, where we also called ahead, is oysters. These are straight from the oyster farms in Dakhla in the Western Sahara, fresh every Wednesday. We had all we could eat and they were delicious, crisp as the ocean. Morocco is full of wonderful secrets.

3.17.16 Rest.3os.Didier-002 3.17.16 Rest.3os.Didier-003

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