We'd lost a bit of weight prior to Fes. Too many pastries and too much magnificent bread quickly reversed that.
Here are the highs and lows.
The Bread Man Cometh
Our first night in Fes we sat on the balcony of our "hotel" and watched these guys sell enough bread to feed the entirety of Fes twice over. This was clearly where you got the good stuff from.
During the following week we worked our way through each of their offerings over our morning coffees and then most afternoons went back for a top up on their sensationally more-ish onion mssamen. The highlight however was an interesting flat bread made from what tasted and looked like broken rice. When smothered in honey this was heaven in bread form.
However our greatest ever rapport failing unfolded here. Everyday the same serious man would serve us and everyday he would seemingly get grumpier and grumpier at having to serve the two foreigners whose only method of ordering was pointing and then indicating the wedge size that they would like with their hands.
This man did not crack, not once.
I think deep down he loved us. Even after I dropped some coins in the rest of the bread.
And that's not him in the photo by the way. He would never smile or laugh like that.
The Khlii Fear
After watching a man who makes his living out of eating strange food react to Khlii like this... 4 minutes 30 second in
...we had to hunt it down.
Khlii is sort of like the Maroc equivalent of beef jerky that's been cooked and then preserved in animal fat, oil and water. And after four weeks in Southern Morocco without any luck it was suddenly everywhere once we'd hit the North.
After a couple of days in Fes we finally plucked up the courage to try it and ordered a Khlii omelette tagine for breakfast. It was sensational.
It's cooked in all of its preserving concoction and the result is an omelette that's drowning in fatty, oily goodnees and punching through it are the amazing, salty little bits of meat. How Zimmern didn't like this we're not sure. It is very nearly our food highlight of Morocco. We had it a second time for good measure and it certainly doesn't get any worse.
Sexy Pancakes
These are cool. Light, eggy pancakes that are cooked on that strange, oblong, football shaped thing. Like a thin, silky blouse laid upon a buxom breast. Now that's food porn. LOLZ
The Failure
The much vaunted camel burger at Clock Cafe. Having heard and read a heap about this "monstrous" camel burger, the "gigantic" camel burger, we were v excited. Oh how we'd waited for this.
We entered a place filled with way more westerners than our instincts would normally allow and ordered an item from the menu that was more than half of our daily spending budget in Morocco. But. BUT! It was going to be worth it. This thing was going to taste great and two of us were going to struggle to get through it.
Needless to say our expectations were high. So when a burger was presented to us that would qualify as a kid's burger in Australia my hopes quickly diminished.
The burger itself was just OK. However it would just be considered a decent burger back home.
There are reasons why we have instincts. We felt like average western turds for the hour that we were in that cafe. And they were just feelings.
The Redemption
Let's head in the complete opposite direction following the failure above. During our first night in Fes we headed to a little non-descript sandwich shop and squeezed in with the 'in the know' Moroccans for two sandwiches loaded with stuffed spleen and stuffed pancreas, that were absolute taste and flavour explosions and cost just one fifth of the cost of one of those pathetic little burgers at Clock Cafe.
I write this in the hope that people (like us) who search the interweb for good things to eat in Fes stumble across this blog and skip the Clock Cafe Camel Con and instead spend their hard earned dollars on food that is five times the quality and a tenth of the cost of other more well known options.
Harira Heaven
We have a new best harira of Morocco. Sorry guys - the second best harira in Morocco...
Tucked into a little side street off Tala Saghira (down the Bab Boujeloud end) is a man serving up bowls of this Moroccan staple that coat your ribs in the cold Fassi nights. Great stuff!
Yoghurt Things
Homemade, slightly soured Moroccan yoghurts that are similar in texture to silken tofu. Good but not entirely to our tastes. However at 30 cents a pop you can't really go wrong.
Various Random Pastries
There was a lot of pointing and hoping when it came to ordering pastries in Fes. The best came from a man with a pram loaded with triangle shaped pastries filled with almond meal paste or rice and covered in honey. The rice ones were unexpectedly the best. V good.
