Sunday, August 1, 2010

Summerlicious - The Sultan's Tent & Café Moroc



We ate at Café Moroc on Saturday for Summerlicious. It's located across from the Flatiron Building on 49 Front Street East. I joined my friends Diane, Daphne and Gabe there for lunch at 11:30.

Summerlious/Winterlicious has been going on in Toronto since 2003 I believe. Ever since the local tourist industry needed a little boost after the SARS outbreak. Over 100 local restaurants offer special lunch and dinner menus to diners at a special price. Normally you get to choose from a selection of appetizers, main courses and desserts. When I go with my friends we often pick different dishes and sample from one another.

Diane and Daphne arrived at the restaurant first. They drove down from Richmond Hill. I came next taking the subway down from my place. Gabe was last (also taking the TTC).

The doors of the restaurant were locked until opening at 11:30 a.m. We had to wait outside with a few other patrons until they let us in.

After they let us in we got a seat by the front window. I looked briefly at the Summerlicious menu before making my selections then wandered off to take photos. The restaurant, Café Moroc, was pretty cool looking. The back dining area was set up to look like a tent in the desert.

When the hostess saw me taking photos she offered to let me have a look at the lounge area downstairs (The Sultan's Tent). It actually wasn't open at that time, but she was kind enough to let me go down anyway. It was pretty cool. I'll have photos posted here soon.

After taking a few shots I went back upstairs to join the others to eat. For the appetizer I had Maftoul which (directly from the menu) is a hand rolled “Moroccan Cigars”, hot crispy pastry stuffed with a mixture of mildly spiced beef, cashews and raisins, topped with our chipotle aioli. It was similar to a spring roll, only with meat in it. My main course was Mango Salmon. It's a pan seared 5-ounce fillet of salmon, topped with mango salsa, served with saffron basmati rice and traditional Moroccan root vegetables. It was pretty good. Though my friends commented it didn't really seem to be traditional Moroccan fare. Dessert was Brulée Royal which seemed to me just to be a regular crème brulée. It was tasty too.

To me the food was just regular. I liked the interior of the restaurant and café though. I thought it looked really neat.

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