The little old supermarket on St. Charles Avenue in the University section looks like the perfect place for a restaurant. For decades it was a Piggly Wiggly. Then it hosted a succession of food operations, some of them specialty food stores (notably the second location of Foodies) and a few restaurants, all of them offbeat and welcome.
The tenant for the past few months ago serves the food of Northern Africa. Little Morocco is owned by the same people who run the excellent Café Granada, a Spanish restaurant on Carrollton Avenue. Almost from the day it opened, I began hearing good reports about Little Morocco, which figures: the college crowd is more accepting of unusual ethnic restaurants than the population at large.
It wasn't very busy this night, though, but that allowed me to spread out at a bigger table. I began with harira, which could be called the vegetable-bean soup of Morocco. It was red with tomatoes, aromatic with onions and cilantro, thick with chickpeas. They serve it in a generous crock, very hot, a little spicy but not too. Good start.
I saw a bunch of intriguing entrees, but I always go for the classics in my first visit to a restaurant. In a Moroccan place that would be couscous, the granular pasta with the texture of undercooked grits but a much different, less sticky texture. I ordered it with lamb, thinking of chunks. What I got was a lamb shank, falling off the bone, flavorful and tender. It imbued the couscous with flavor, possibly from steaming over the hot lamb stock. Also in there were more chickpeas, peppers, carrots, and parsnips. If the server hadn't disappeared for a little while I would have called for some harissa--the Northern African red pepper paste used in sort of the same way we use hot sauce.
Not much for dessert--just a date-stuffed pastry that was good enough. I should have had some coffee to see what they do with that. Would I have to chew it?
This location, despite its visibility, seems to have a hard time keeping a tenant. This is the second restaurant this year. I hope it stays, even though we already have a Northern African restaurant in the neighborhood (Jamila's, two blocks away on Maple Street.
Little Morocco. Riverbend: 7457 St Charles Ave. 504-301-9184.
