so last night was our final farewell before my father in law and his wife jen headed off to snowier pastures in norway. They have been in london for about a year now and its the most time we have ever been able to spend with them, going for meals, or visits to markets, or shows ( so MANY shows), days out in kent ( usually cancelled due to the rain!). Its been a great year and we truly have done so much together, mostly g and i sharing many of our favorite haunts, and sometimes them doing the same...
well last night was our "last supper" together for a little while, so we met up at theirs before the meal ( waiting for poor g to get through london traffic with the car) and then went on their favorite local. - Sahara Restaurant. It is a lovely little moroccan place where as you walk in you do feel instantly transported to a colourful place where entertaining and family and food are definately priorities. We snuggled up into our little booth and were greeted almost instantly by the gnet i woul dpresume was the manager he took our drink order - the usual for us- a beer for dad, a bottle of red for jenny and i, and water for us all.
No sooner than our drinks arrived some nice little nibbles arrived, a lovely brown moroccan bread, some olive oil and harissa for dipping and very tasty spiced olives- green and black. It was all yum and a very welcome treat to our hungry tummies. :) The harissa must not have been the spice for me as i was soon consumed by hiccups which were looking increasingly unlikely to go....
Just as we were finsihed our nibbles and conversation was moving along nicely... the started appeared. We ordered a platter for two to share, but to share between the 4 of us. It was LOVELY! an amazing selection of 2-3 meats and several veggie items, along with a lovely tomato and onion salad, and a nice warm cooked spinach dish. We all agreed it was definately worth it and enjoyed every last morsel....
not long after that our mains arrived - i am not sure if i have expressed it but they had almost impeccable timing. - just as we would finish one dish and have some good chat when it was just the right time - not too soon and not too long a wait... they would arriv ewith the next course...
and our mains! WOW you could easily see and smell why Jen and Dad went back time and again... it looked lovely and Jenny was right... in our chicken tangines the chicken was so well cooked - PERFECT that it fell away easily form the bone. I have never tasted a cooked date, but the ones there would be enough to bring me back on their own. they were exsquisite. they were quite sweet and reminded me actually of a butternut squash or the like when they are slow cooked and wind up quite sweet. about half way through the main i was stuffed. Jenny and Dad had had the same dish and jenny was of course liek me and struggling to. So g quite happily joined in and helped me with my chicken.
I have to say i was pleasantly surprised at this point when g decided to order pancakes for dessert. its not very often my hubby decides to have a sweet and extremely unoften when none of the rest of us are either.... but i think he had decided to go for the full experience of Sahara and have a dessert too. When they pancakes arrived they actually looked the american variety - light and fluffy with butter and honey on top. they were each about 5 inches in diameter and must have been tasty as he had no trouble munching them down.
After dinner - which my stubbern father in law paid for- ( such a nice treat - but at our age we dont like for him to do all the treating all the time), we ddecided we all wanted just a bit more of eachothers company and wandered along to the king edward pub ( we think thats what it was called!) for a last round or two. by the time we were all kicked out after last call we were pretty wiped but not quite ready to say goodbye, so we went up to theirs for a cup of tea ( my father in law made us all a lovely cuppa :)) and we proceeded to chat into what was quote literally the wee hours of the morning...
such a lovely evening. great company and conversation, yummy food, and good wine.
If you are in the area of notting hill/ westbourne park road then it is definately worth a try. they advertise £12 bottles of wine ( and their house red is authentic morrocan and very tasty indeed) and tapas from £2.75. I think you can book on top table ( though we walked in and were seated straight away), and they have also won a few customer service awards.
