I'm not sure if we've ever had this many Moroccan restaurants operating in the city at one time, but with Moroccan Breeze inside Apna Bazaar, Merguez on I-Drive and TajineXpress on Goldenrod Road (not to mention Spice Road Table and the temporarily closed Restaurant Marrakesh at Epcot), Berber cuisine is indeed blooming, much like the plant and tree pollen in my nose. When my stuffed-up schnoz inhaled a waft of burning wood from the parking lot outside of Ataj Moroccan Restaurant near Celebration, I secretly hoped the scent emanated from the restaurant's kitchen.
Not so. In fact, the handsome dining room was largely odorless — probably because we were the only customers inside — but that changed quickly after one of our servers high-poured some fragrant mint tea from an ornate pot into a glass tumbler, and another server placed a large bowl of heady harira soup ($5.99) before us.
"Wow, that smells amazing," said my pal, and we commenced slurping the thick, zesty, tomato-based broth with chickpeas, lentils and chunks of lamb along with shreds of khobz, a round Moroccan bread. "This is the epitome of comfort," I said to my dining comrade, "even if the soup does need more salt." Even better was the zaaluk ($5.99), a spiced dip of cooked eggplant that we couldn't get enough of and that we'd come back for in a heartbeat. Store-bought pita was served with the dip, but the khobz made a far superior scoop.
After being denied chicken bastilla on a visit to TajineXpress this past January (they ran out), I made it a point to order the flaky, sweet and savory pie ($9.99) at Ataj. So it was a shame we took issue with the shell itself. It was just too thin, and lacked the sturdiness of a proper warqa, or brick pastry. The filling of minced chicken scented with cinnamon and saffron was spot-on, however.
What caught our eye next was a section on the menu dubbed "Chhiwat Street Food," offering everything from beef tongue and tripe to lamb liver and lamb brains. On this particular night, they offered hargma ($22.99) — massive, and I mean massive, cow trotters slow-cooked in spices and chickpeas, as Instagrammable a dish as there ever was. Now, if we hadn't eaten in a couple of days, and it was, like, minus 15 degrees outside, this hargma may have been an utterly gratifying dish. As these hoofs, um, stood, though, they were far too fatty for us to finish, the chickpeas and the marrow we managed to extract notwithstanding.
Instead, it was the braised beef tajine ($16.99) that satisfied both our aesthetic and caloric needs. The plume of perfumed vapor that hit my nose when the lid was lifted off the clay vessel was like an antidote to the pollen. When the steam dissipated, it revealed a chunk of beef sizzling in a honeyed sauce along with prunes and apricots. We reached for that bread and did our thing.
Moroccan and North African cuisine is tinged with the flavors of Persia and India, so it wasn't surprising that the kefta kebabs ($14.99) very much resembled seekh kebabs. In fact, we were certain the cylinders of ground lamb were cooked in a tandoor — this space was previously home to Ataj Indian Restaurant, after all. No matter, the meat was wonderfully tender, even though it lacked any semblance of seasonings. If anything, the lamb spoke for itself. I did ask for a side of harissa, but all they could proffer was a Louisiana hot sauce.
After a final high pour of mint tea, we headed back out, the pleasant scent of scorched wood lending my nostrils further relief. Honestly, I was just grateful that, given the season, I was able to nose this place out.