In my next life, I want to live with a Moroccan chef. I don't care if I come back as an employer, servant or household cat, as long as I'm in a position to have a Moroccan provide my daily meals. Morocco developed at the crossroads of the spice trade. Through its kitchens passed all the treasures, and pleasures, of the ancient kingdoms, ginger and cinnamon from Egypt, pepper from the Molucca islands, coriander and saffron from India. Awash in the spices Europeans called "tastes of Paradise," Moroccan chefs developed an exquisitely refined sense of the sensual. Moroccan food is both sweet and savory, sophisticated and seductive — the Marilyn Monroe of the world's cuisines.
We in the Bay area are blessed to have three restaurants regularly featuring Moroccan fare. Carino's on the beach frequently hosts special Moroccan dinners. In Tampa, Il Gabbiano, oft-awarded Best of the Bay, turns Tuesday evenings into a celebration of the Moroccan chef/owner's native cuisine. And now, on Treasure Island, chef Karim makes Moroccan cuisine a daily affair. Karim has been in the Bay area for 10 years, moving from one fine restaurant to another (most recently one of my St. Pete favorites, O Bistro). The time finally came, he says, to open his own. You'll find Karim's Bistro ensconced in the Thunderbird Hotel, whose landmark sign has stood since the 1950s, signaling to weary winter travelers that paradise is finally at hand. It still signals paradise, but now, with Karim in the kitchen, of a more gustatory sort.
Karim's Bistro serves the guests of the Thunderbird Beach Resort, so it's open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You'd be hard pressed to find a better tasting, more reasonably priced breakfast on the beach, with a classic eggs benedict, sauced with a silken Hollandaise ($5.75) or a delicate omelet stuffed with fresh spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, onions and feta cheese ($5.75). Lunch offers a well-rounded menu of delicious salads, sandwiches like chicken breasts marinated in garlic, saffron and herbs, grilled and placed in a pita pocket with cool cucumber tzatziki sauce ($6.25) or my favorite, spinach pie wrapped in a crisp, delicate phyllo crust and served with a small salad ($5.50). At dinner, Karim really shines, showing off his Moroccan background and cosmopolitan experience with a menu that touches on all the shores of the Mediterranean.
Karim is a master of sauces with silken textures and refined, well-balanced flavors. Look for filet of beef stuffed with nutty Boursin cheese and served atop a pool of red wine mushroom demi-glace ($16.95) or chicken breast sauteed in a delicate garlic spinach cream sauce ($11.95). Diners with big appetites can treat themselves to a splendid rack of lamb, eight fine chops, pan-seared, finished in the oven and topped with a fresh mint, garlic and honey sauce ($17.95). Or, look for any daily special featuring seafood in a wine and butter sauce flavored with the slight anise taste of Pernod. Delicious all, but for real adventure, venture into "Moroccan Specialties" part of the menu
Karim pulls out all the stops when it comes to his hometown cooking. He marinates his own olives, preserves his own lemons and makes all his own spice blends, securing rare ingredients through his family in Morocco to ensure that the dishes you taste are as authentic as those he was raised on. His menu always contains a stew-like tagine (tah-zhine) and a couscous. On better days, these can be rounded out with soups and appetizers, even desserts like fruits in orange blossom water, to give you a five-course taste of the Moroccan table for a mere $24.95. (Call ahead to check availability.) My favorite dish, which frequently graces the menu, is the signature dish of Morocco, a tagine of chicken ($15.95) that's flavored with preserved lemons, a unique aspect of Moroccan cuisine, and a complex array of aromatics: garlic, ginger, cumin and paprika to saffron, cinnamon and coriander. Karim preserves his own lemons, rubbing them in salt, pressing them beneath a weight and allowing them to rest in their own juices for a month or more. The flesh of the lemon is discarded, and the preserved rinds are used as a flavoring agent, adding a citrus note that is both bright and mellow. This tagine comes with roasted vegetables, couscous — tiny nubs of durum wheat often described as a pasta, steamed instead of boiled, over aromatic liquid before flavoring with butter or oil and seasonings. Another dish guaranteed to please is bastilla, both savory and sweet, of shredded chicken (pigeon is often used in Morocco), cinnamon, saffron and herbs encased in a flaky, phyllo pastry crust and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. ($4.95 as an appetizer.) It rings the bell on my Yum-O-Meter!
Karim's Bistro is small, so reservations are recommended. And don't tell me that its location is too far or the traffic's too heavy. With grand places like Snapper's and Karim's Bistro beckoning, there's simply no excuse for not going to the beach this summer!
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This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2002.
