Food Review: Cafe Moroc

Cafe Moroc is an exotic eatery in Toronto.

If you're open minded about eating in a room filled with lavish fabrics hanging delicately up and down, left and right, then come check this place out.

Unfortunately, I didn't experience the dinner "party", but had their lunch special during Summerlicious. 

From the entrance, the exotic feel encapsulates you with their foliage on either side of the doors. 

Then as you move pass the front "cafe-ish" area, you walk into an Moroccan dream: Dark, drapery and delicate.

The feel of the place was very new and exciting. From the beginning, it already made my experience here very fun and exciting. 

The Food Experience:

Appetizers to start we enjoyed a Moroccan Maftoul & Harira

Maftoul is a hand rolled "morrocan cigars", crispy pastry stuffed with spicy beef, cashews and raisins and topped with Chipotle aioli. This was a VERY tasty appetizers. Nothing seemed too spicy until the aioli touches your tongue. But without aioli, the dish would not be the same. I love that it was 2, because it was a taste explosion in your mouth.

Harira is a hearty tomato based broth, with chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils and a blend of Morrocan spices. This soup was tasteful matched with the Maftoul experience. The different ingredients each had a solo performance in your mouth but at the same time, bringing them all together to work well as one tasty soup.

The Entree: Mango Salmon

With salmon, I always hesitate to order because I am very picky about how cooked I would like it to be. I know that I can't get it just a tad under cooked (food regulations etc), but in the end, it's really a leap of faith when I decide to order salmon. This time around, I was satisfied. With the combination of the flavourful rice and veggies, the mango salmon was delicious. The salmon was nice and flaky and not at all dry. 

Spiced Cinnamon, Caramel and Apple Cheesecake (photo above). For me, cheesecake is a great dessert. But in saying that, it's also best made by North Americans. I'm sorry, it's just how I feel. This cheesecake was too light, too cheesy/creamy in a bad way and too soft. That's not how a cheesecake should be made. All in all, I did not like it.

The other dessert we had was more authentic, as its described in their menu, "Morrocan Treats". It was basically Meringue. And after you take a big or medium bite out of it, it became very sticky and chewy in your mouth. It was... okay, but definitely not something I would order again. 

This being my first time to this restaurant, but also having it on my radar for quite some time (it always being included in Summerlicious), the hype of it was rather half good half okay. The space and atmosphere captured a very enticing dinner atmosphere for dates or intimate dinners with close friends, and the first 2 dishes were good... but.. I'm all about desserts and they just didn't make any good punches with either desserts. 

Overall, I will have to rate it 3.1/5