It is completely a perfect free-form Saturday. The fam and I have were already out early to visit some friends that will be living part-time in town. We took the two to a disappointing restaurant last night that we were sure would be a huge hummer! I had read numerous reviews in local trustworthy sites that gave this restaurant raves. It’s a Moroccan place, the Marrakesh, that is waaaay tacky from the outside (turns out, equally on the inside). Now, that is never enough to keep me away from a possible diamond-in-the-rough; DeLeon’s (a fabulous local Mexican deli) is a case in point. The comments that pulled me to want to dine there were about the generous fun character the owner/server was. Phrases like, “plan on spending the evening”, “we always take out-of-towners here when they visit”, “we love this place”, pulled me in. I wanted some of that.

Our friends are vegetarians so we phoned ahead to find out if they would have a range of options. We were informed that they had plenty of choices so we decided this would be the place we would go. We made reservations and were excited! really. I had heard so many things about this place that I envisioned the place to be dark and dusky. I imagined tired rich tapestries draping the walls and low tables bordered with faded richly woven pillows. I expected the waiter to be jovial and kind. I expected to eat a buffet of food with my fingers relishing each morsel and scoop. I expected hot teas and exotic beer.

Sigh. One thing most people know about me or attribute to me is my optimism. It’s true. But here’s the thing, I choose to be optimistic because I truly believe that is the only way to experience life fully. Yet, there are those times when a situation pulls me to just want to whine and vent a bit before I go back to my usual “rosy picture”. The whole dining experience was mostly a disappointment. The place did have tapestries on the walls and low tables but the entrance reminded me of some bad 80’s home with random Middle Eastern relics. We joked that we probably wouldn’t want to see the place in the daylight. So far this is all fine, like I said; we can sacrifice some atmosphere for good grub.

We were seated once our guests arrived; three of us on the floor, two of us on the cushioned bench. Our guests weren’t used to icy snowy roads and were looking forward to alcohol of some sort. A beer would be great. (Strike 1). After waiting about 10 minutes we were given towels so we could all rinse our hands under some warm water poured into a bowl in the center of the table. This was kind of cool. The dinner started with soup, moved to salad, then an appetizer, the main course and finished with dessert. We were all to pick our own individual main course. As it turned out the only vegetarian courses were Vegetables with Couscous and Vegetables with Rice.

Soup was good, a small but nice lentil. Salad was a sort of vegetable relish you ate by scooping it up with chunks of bread. yummy. Next, came the appetizers. My husband and I got a very interesting ground chicken and egg dish flavored with cumin/cinnamon hints, baked inside phyllo dough and sprinkled with powdered sugar. It was good; a sort of Moroccan Monte Cristo. They were out of eggs so our vegetarian friends were offered a second serving of soup or salad as an appetizer. (Strike 2). All of this was broken up by intervals of fifteen minutes between courses where we had no food at all in front of us. (Strike 3) This created ample time for actually noticing things like the fact that the cushions were completely falling apart, literally busting at the seams and foam pieces were falling out. The bench was interesting in that the underside of the small round table nearly met the top of the cushion which meant you had to put your legs off to the side, not under the table. (Strike 4-wouldn’t have been a strike if the food was better and wait shorter).

It didn’t get much better. We did enjoy ourselves. We joked about the tackiness anticipating the next course to be the glimmering jewel that would redeem the evening. Our waiter was a jovial kind man as I had hoped. He joked with our vegetarian friends calling them, “Discovery Channel.” Like, “Hey, Discovery Channel you like hiking on the weekends, huh? I know your type.” He was entertaining. The thing is the food never wowed and the second bowl of soup was just a little weird. We were served plenty of tea which was tasty enough although my husband later pointed out (correctly) that it had a faint taste of soap. I think this was just a character of the tea though, nothing really negative. The baklava, as a finish, was good. I even licked my fingers.

I won’t hurry back to the Marrakesh but I think it could redeem itself. I believe if my husband and I had visited and gotten the same meal in a timelier manner we would have probably enjoyed the evening. I think, overall, it was the long wait times and sad vegetarian options that really killed it for us. Perhaps… maybe… I set my expectations too high.