When you walk through the doors of Casablanca Moroccan Restaurant, located at 2333 Washtenaw Ave., Ypsilanti, you are immediately transported to Morocco.
The design of the restaurant evokes Morocco with Mediterranean tiles, tapestries, and lounge areas that boast unique community tables adorned with beautiful pillows.
Casablanca continues the tradition of presenting new ideas, and it could be the one that survives, as it’s the first complete and professional package to open there.
Most importantly, they roll better dishes out of the kitchen than any of the previous tenants.
Morocco is a cultural crossroads, and that’s reflected in its food with identifiable elements of Iberian, Mediterranean, North African Jewish, and Berber cuisine.
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Sweet and savory is the name of the game in Morocco, and the country is proud of its breads, so it makes sense to start with the appetizer portion of the bistilla, a national dish of layered phyllo, saffron-sauteed chicken, omelet, and almonds fried in orange blossom water subsequently mixed with honey.
The cake-like dish is then generously topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar.
Like in the bistilla, most Moroccan cuisine draws from the extreme ends of the sweet and savory worlds.
Also ahead of our entrees, we asked for two baskets of Moroccan wheat bread to dip in the harissa appetizer.
The sauce is the color and consistency of thick tomato paste but provided the biggest flavor of anything we ordered with its dried chilies, garlic, olive oil, cumin, caraway seed, and preserved lemon.
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The chilies, salt, and preserved lemons all vied for the most attention, and that is more than fine.
The seffa mdfounda entree followed the Moroccan flavor script with saffron and herb-sauteed chicken that Casablanca mixes with sautéed onions, raisins, honey, and vermicelli, then coats with cinnamon and powder sugar.
The use of ghee in cooking the chicken was a surprise and my first experience with it in a dish native to a country west of India, though it makes perfect sense in nutty and aromatic Moroccan cuisine.
As in the harissa appetizer, the preserved lemon played a role in many of the 10 Moroccan entrees Casablanca offers, including the chicken tagine with olives I ordered.
A tagine, we learned at the table, is a cone-shaped, earthen cooking pot native to Morocco.
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Mine arrived holding half a chicken on the bone cooked with saffron and other aromatic herbs and contrasted by a heavy preserved lemon presence.
The chicken came on a bed of rice mixed with sauteed onions.
The menu offered several good options for one of my vegetarian dining partners who chose the vegetable tagine.
It arrived with large chunks of roasted red pepper, onion, sweet potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, parsley, and cilantro along with the most kick of any dish provided by a red chilie pepper sauce.
Each entree - the tagines were around $12 and the seffa mdfounda $17 - came with soup or salad.
My co-diner seemed impressed by the crushed lentil soup, which he said was better than most.
For drinks, we ordered coffee.
Casablanca made their version just right.
The menu also offers traditional Mediterranean dishes like schwarmas and shish tawook.
The spices, which flavor the dishes, like the ras hanout spice mix (over a dozen spices in different proportions, which commonly includes cardamom, cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, dry ginger, chili peppers, coriander seed, peppercorn, sweet and hot paprika, fenugreek, and dry turmeric) are imported and authentic.
We tried multiple dishes from the menu, including the falafel sandwich, hummus, baba ganoush, zaalook and sweet lamb curry.
The falafel sandwich, an amazing combination of house-made falafel, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, tahini sauce and hummus, all wrapped in pita, exceeded expectations.
The baba ganoush, mashed charred eggplant, was perfectly seasoned with a smoky taste and a smooth, airy texture.
The zalook, eggplant with tomatoes in a dip-like serving, had a bit of a kick, but in the best way possible.
If you’re looking for authenticity, Casablanca is the place to be.
Owner Abdul Mani is the former manager at the popular Ali Baba’s in Ann Arbor and said he and his wife, Kimberly Blevins, had their eye on this location for several years because of its proximity to large employment centers in Ypsilanti and Eastern Michigan University.
The manager/owner, Mohammad Mohammad, is hands-on, ensuring satisfaction for each customer, assuring that each dish placed on the table is properly presented.
Mohammad was inspired to cook by his late father, a good cook, who taught by example.
Mohammad, who emigrated from Jordan in the 1980s to attend the engineering school at UM, has a business partner in the Casablanca venture from Morocco.
Mohammad began his career working in food service at Domino Farms and has now moved up to owning and operating his own restaurant.
Before opening Casablanca five years ago, Mohammad owned a grocery store, specializing in fresh fruit and produce for almost a decade.
He learned from experience that his passion was to be in the foodservice industry.
The Moroccan influence of Mohammad’s business partner results in food that is unique to the area and true to its roots.
The menu at Casablanca is expansive and adventurous.
There are plenty of options to choose from, for those that are experienced with Mediterranean cuisine, or for those of whom have never tried Moroccan or Middle Eastern selections.
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The menu offers small plates and large plates to encourage guests to sample the large variety of cultural influences of the cuisine of Morocco.
The food here is amazing.
Everything is delicious and well prepared.
The ambiance inside is really inviting and relaxing.
The staff and the owner are super friendly and accommodating.
It is hands down a wonderful experience for all.
When you step in you're transported to Morocco.
Family friendly 5 course meal.
Made us feel like royalty.
Pace yourself throughout the meal.
This is one of my favorite places to go for a night out!
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tags: #Moroccan
