ZAGORA
Verdict : 6/10 (Taste all right, but poor in quantity)
On 31 January 2008 D and I went to Zagora Moroccan restaurant in the Birmingham town centre for dinner.
This is our second visit to this place. To be honest, I don't remember much about the first visit, which happened more than 2 years ago. The only think I remember is that the Chicken Couscous that I ordered was excessively salty and I felt almost sick.
On the occasion we visited, they were offering two course meal for £9.95 between Monday and Thursday. When we arrived at 8 o'clock it was empty, but two groups entered at the same time we entered, and we remained only diners during 1 hour we stayed there.
The décor I guess is Moroccan, with sofa like seatings and decorative cloths hanging on the wall. There is a large flat screen on the wall, as now we find in increasing numbers of lower and middle range restaurants, and it kept on showing a woman dancing belly dance; not particulary of good taste. If you are man, you may not mind, but if you are not, I am not sure if you want to eat while watching woman's bottom swinging on a large screen.
They were offering à la carte menu, but we decided to go for £9.95 menu. There are choices of 4 starters, and 8 mains including Tajine, Couscous and Kebabs. They sell wines and beers, but you can bring your own as well. Now that I think, I did not see any Halal sign.
I was afraid that the service should be slow as there was only one waitress, but, contrary to my fear, the service throughout was quick. The starters appeared in less than 10 minutes after we placed the order.
In the photo above is Briouat Chicken, which is a kind of spring rolls in Moroccan style. The filling is chicken mince with saffron, according to the menu description. Sincerely I did not sense any saffron, but it had very strong chichen perfume and tasted pretty good. I tasted also powder sugar and spices that made these completely different from the Chinese spring rolls.
The other starter we chose was Salad Zealouk; mash of grilled aubergine, spinach, coriander, tomato, garlic and oil. Grilled aubergine mash is popular dish also in Greece, Turkey, Iran and elsewhere in Middle East, but this one had slight hint of curry which made it distinct from the similar dishes.
They provided us a bread basket with about 6 pieces of baguette, and we ate this salad with it. It does not look appetising, but it was pretty nice, too.
The main dishes arrived after 5 minutes after starters were cleared.
This is Zagora Brochettes consisting in one lamb mince kebab and one chichen brest kebab. The accompaniment here is rice, but I could chose from rice, chips and couscous.
The lamb was rather dry and there is nothing to write home about, but the chicken one was pleasantly spicy and grilled just right to keep the meat still moist. The rice, however, let me down, as the grains were still slightly hard in the middle. The salad leaves to fill the empty space of the plate were rather funny.
By the way, as you see, these photos were shot with flash. I usually don't use flash in restaurants, but at this occasion a group of 8 people seating next to us was taking continuously each others photos with flash, so I took advantage of mixing myself with them. Ha ha.
The other main dish was Tajine Marrakesh, which appeared in a small tajine with lid (the lid was removed by our waitress).As accompaniment we had againt the choice between rice, chips and couscous, and we got chips on a separate plate.
As this was rather simple dish of lamb meatballs cooked in tomato sauce with spice, it could not go wrong. The white thing at the middle is an egg. It tasted all right, but it is a kind of thing you and I can cook at home with minimum effort.
One think that struck me was the smallness of portion for all the dishes. A briouat is about half the size of an average Chinese spring roll, so three of them make more or less 1.5 Chinese spring rolls. The tajine also was in small portion, about a small bowlfull (if you notice the sizzling steak plate holder below the shallow tajine, you can see how small the quantity was). As I am not a big-eater by any standard, so for most of the people who don't drink much wine or soft drink during the meal, I am afraid this meal does not give them much of satisfaction, even if not so much to leave them hungry. I am not sure, however, they serve in smaller portions only as part of set meal deal.
We had also had one bottle of beer (Stella; there ran out of Moroccan beer), and the total bill came to £22.50. It was £25 after adding tip. It is not expensive, but with this much I could have got more satisfaction in some other places I know.
Zagora Moroccan Cuisine
4 Fletchers Walk, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HJ. Map
Tel. 0121 233 2484, 0121 236 1388
http://www.zagora-restaurant.co.uk/
