296 and 297. Moroccan Food and Villa Maria Merlot 2006

Thanks to my roster we never have time off together and that has been one of the underlying issues of the year. In fact, who am I trying to kid? It’s been the most annoying and quality-time-destroying problems that we’ve faced since we left Scotland. That said, when we do have spare time together we try to use it to the fullest and it just so happened that we were both off last Saturday night (although I’d already worked 10 hours earlier that day!) and Isla had been recommended a Moroccan restaurant in the city and made a booking so in eager anticipation of what they’d have on the menu we trained out to Central Station and walked the short distance into Surrey Hills.

It took a while to find Souk in the City but as soon as we walked in we were glad we’d made the effort. The décor was incredible for such a small place and they’d managed to give is a real north African feel via the stencilled and fenestrated screens, tope and grey colour schemes, abundance of cushions and painstakingly detailed glasses, lanterns and borders. The lighting set an atmospheric tone reflected in the sublime Moroccan background muzak and when we sat down one of the waiters came over and showered us with rose petals whilst saying “Welcome to my land.”

The menu was presented to us and even though there were only about 6 starters and the same number of mains it was almost impossible to choose as everything looked phenomenal. In the end we shared a spinach, onion and olive dip with hot bread and a filo pastry parcel stuffed with chicken and nuts. For mains Isla had divine spiced chicken with apples, figs and pear and I had the slow roasted Souk’s Lamb which fell off the bone and melted in the mouth and was served with fragrant rice and roasted apricots.

We washed it all down with the overly fruity but surprisingly light Merlot from New Zealand and despite our better judgement we opted for dessert. We split a crème brulee which was topped with pistachio nuts and it was amazing. Finally we had some Moroccan mint tea that the waiter poured from about a metre from the silver tea pot into the delicate tea glasses. It was delicious and smooth and since I’m not a tea drinker I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. A great meal and brilliant service – I’ll definitely be going back.