Once again I take myself back to the neglected catacombs of my mind when it comes to this one. I remember back to the three months I spent in Leeds (which is odd that I mention it, because I’ve only thought about it twice in the last 15 years, once to reminisce about Holland when I went to Café Poffertjes and now. It had very little bearing on my life otherwise), and a Moroccan place was one of our Friday night haunts. I have no idea what the place was called, but I do remember it was downtown, it had cushions and it was beloved of my oldest friend DDD and Timmy Magic (his old Uni flat mate) because of the hookah pipes on offer. I remember partaking myself, and yes- you could taste the flavours.
I’m getting sidetracked. I remember one such Friday evening, when we were tucking into pigeon tagine when members of seminal Leeds band The Jack Klugman Orchestra had come out as well. They were named after the main actor from the 70’s crime show Quincy which was shown on TV in the daytime around that time. They were either students or unemployed so got to watch a lot of terrible daytime TV. They also used to play in the same venues as the now super famous Kaiser Chiefs, and local opinion on the indie band scene (DDD was a photographer and spent a fair bit of time on the band scene- even though he was primarily a B-boy and techno man) had it that they were far superior. One of their best songs was Delboy and Rodney a tune about how the drummer had been sold a dodgy Russian telephone by a man in the pub that didn’t work. Fantastic stuff. They were a great bunch of lads but never went far. I was in contact with one of them for a few years after and apparently everyone was bitter that the Kaiser Chiefs went on to be what they are now. Ah, what could have been…So for that reason if I think of Moroccan food, I have a weird association with cushions, the Leeds art rock/indie scene in the early 2000’s and Russian telephones.
Anyway, today I went to Tajin Moroccan Cuisine, one of the easiest places to find that I’ve visited so far, just off Keelung Road near to Taipei 101. I had invited someone to come along however real life got in the way and I found myself dining alone, which is no bad thing, as Jay Rayner said in a lovely article I read once that the greatest thing about dining alone is the people watching, and I couldn’t agree more. People watching in Taipei can be hilarious.
As I entered, the amazing smell hit me and I was reminded of an Eddie Izzard sketch where he remarked why fruit and vegetables are the first thing you see in the supermarket when you arrive. It sends a message to the brain that says “This is a fresh shop, I will do well here”. So true. The place is pretty small, but the decoration is great, and fully shows off its Moroccan heritage. Everything is fully halal (I have no idea why I seem to enjoy myself so much in places that are halal- do I have some of the blood? Who knows) and it was pretty hard to choose from the menu as everything was bloody marvelous. I went for the second meal deal which didn’t include the starter, but I had Lemon Rabat Chicken tagine, orange blossom yoghurt for dessert and Moroccan mint tea to drink. The waitress made a slight mistake in that she forgot I had ordered the dessert and drink, but I’ll forgive her because the main was top notch and so was the chat with the owner, who I believe said his name was Mohammad. Very interesting guy, fantastic English and flitted between English, Chinese and the occasional phone call in what I think was Arabic seamlessly. It was lunch time and they close at 14:30 and I asked if he was going for Zuhr (afternoon prayers) he said “Oh, no- it’s the only chance I get to go to the gym”. Ha!
The chicken was as tender as it could be, you are probably familiar by now how the tagine works, so I’m not going to into that, but just take it from me it is good. I paid extra to have cous cous, horrible stuff on it’s own. The yoghurt worked really well with the main (even though it took about 20 minutes to come-not her fault), very refreshing, and I could have eaten it all day. The mint tea, I drank too fast but it ranks highly on my odd drinks from around the world table which doesn’t actually exist, but if I was to make one it would be up there with purple corn juice from Peru and salty tea from Bhutan. That sentence would look weird to anyone reading this that is unfamiliar with my blog.
There is an option for a two people tagine set, and I think I’m going to bring Mrs. Bao here for a significant occasion. A really great experience which I think caters to local Taiwanese and foreigners well and hasn’t sacrificed anything to local tastes.
As I left to catch the MRT to go to my old job to say hello and get some help on a bit of research I’m doing, lyrics entered my mind.
Delboy and Rodney,
Delboy and Rodney….
I’m officially over half way through my challenge now and still not been to some of the more obvious heavy hitters. Looking forward to what else I can dig up 🙂
Menu:
Address: No. 3, Lane 144, Section 2, Jilong Road, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106
Best way to get there: Hmm probably Taipei 101 MRT and walk about 10minutes.
52 Cuisines? 