Having been to Morocco twice in the last few years, I couldn’t wait to go to Marrakesh restaurant on Chapel Bar. I have walked past it maybe a hundred times but haven’t yet visited.

My friend The Gastronomic Gorman and I went during our lunch break on Friday as a bit of a treat. It was pay day after all.

We nabbed the table for 2 right at the front, and with the sun streaming through the open window it was the perfect place to be. We could watch the world go about their business and have a good old chin wag.

We didn’t realise how large the restaurant was, it is like an Aladdin’s cave inside, and has the most beautiful lantern decorations.

After ordering a couple of bottles of Casablanca beer, we settled in to look at the menu. There are a few different lunch menus to choose from including Lebanese, Moroccan and fish.

We wanted to try everything, the menus sounded so good.

We went for the Moroccan menu at £12.99 choosing 2 mezze and one main course, and also the Lebanese menu at £9.99 again choosing 2 mezze and one main. If you have read my blog post about Baresca & tapas, you’ll know I love any type of small plates you can share with friends.

First out from the Moroccan was the Hummus and Fatoush, with toasted pitta. It was amazing. The texture of the Hummus, with the fat chick peas in the centre and a generous dose of paprika was amazing. The Fatoush with pomegranate seeds, mint, crisp pieces of bread, radish and a light dressing. It was so colourful and the burst of pomegranate in my mouth was incredible against the rest of the flavours.

With this came the Lebanese mezze, falafel and tabouleh. The falafel was crisp and went really well with the dip. The tabouleh was out of this world. I have never had it, and now I want to recreate it at home! A mix of bulgur wheat, herbs, peppers and tomatoes was really refreshing.

By the time we had finished that, I could have stopped. However we had been incredibly greedy and as well as our mains, we also ordered a Shawerma Chicken sandwich at £5 – wow. It was enormous and I could have filled up on that alone. Slices of garlicky marinated chicken with salad all wrapped up in a crispy Arabian bread. This was so juicy and delicious and I will definitely be heading to Marrakesh if I am in town at lunchtime just need to grab a sandwich.

Then out came the mains.

From the Moroccan menu came a lamb Tagine. The lamb was so succulent and melt in the mouth, with chunky sweet apricots and prunes. Served with couscous it was really lovely.

From the Lebanese menu came the Shish Tawouk. It’s grilled chicken with pilau rice, veggies and a garlic sauce and side salad. Again it was incredible, the flavour of the chicken with the rice was heavenly and the chicken was so flavoursome and moist.

I all honesty it was too much and we ended up leaving a little as we just couldn’t stuff it in no matter how much we tried. If you haven’t been, I urge you to, I can’t wait to go back. One thing to note, the service when taking drinks and food orders wasn’t particularly quick, we were waiting over 15 min to place a drink order. Maybe it was an slower day, but in Morocco the service is slow and this was no different.

On Friday and Saturday nights there have belly dancers entertaining the customers and I would love to see that.