Restaurant Aicha

From the train station of Meknès, I walked to the old city where I would be staying for the night. There were two Russian ladies who decided to walk with me since they are staying in the same riad. I had a gross miscalculation of the distance to the riad as I mistakenly saw 25 minutes but it turned out to be 45 minutes. So I, together with the ladies, walked all the way there with our luggage. I had a backpack with me, so it was easier for me to move around. The ladies on the other had luggage and it was tough to drag them all the way there. Especially with much of the roads under construction. I’m pretty sure they feel bad for going with me but I also happen to be their guide to the riad so they couldn’t really complain. Long story short, we managed to find the riad and checked in immediately.

I got some rest for a bit before heading out for lunch. I was expecting to check in here earlier in the morning but we wasted a lot of time walking. Anyway, it was already time for lunch. From the looks of it, Meknès is a much more peaceful place compared to its neighbor Fès. Most people would be here for a quick day trip and people would seldom stay here. As a result there weren’t as many choices here in the medina compared to Fès. That is not to say there wasn’t any good choices here. I found this place called Restaurant Aicha. It was a small and quiet restaurant. I was the only customer at that time but I didn’t take that as a bad sign. I knew there weren’t as many visitors here.

I got a dish called rfissa. This is a dish which has Berber origins. The Berbers are an ethnic group who live in this region of Morocco and Africa for that matter. It is certainly better than having tagine yet again. This is another unique dish which apparently it quite popular during celebrations. At first glance, I thought it was just chicken curry however, closer inspection revealed that has some noodle like component. Apparently it is very thin strips of bread mixed in with the chicken and lentils. The flavor wasn’t particularly strong. So it was a bit difficult to describe. I don’t know how often people eat this but if it shows up in the menu then maybe it is good. I also had some harira soup to push it down. I really like that soup, I’d probably try to make it one of these days.

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