Morocco - The Great British Breakfast

Finding a cafe bar in Agadir advertising "Full English Breakfasts", we feel duty bound to investigate. We take our places on quaint white and yellow plastic wicker chairs and settle back to admire the view: somewhere beyond the traffic hurtling by on the busy street is the beach on which thunderous Atlantic breakers are ending their trans-oceanic wanderings.

After a while a young girl materialises by our side and takes our order. An age passes, and then two glasses of orange juice and a cup of coffee are brought to the table and crashed down in front of us. The orange juice is definitely made from oranges. Whole oranges. The skin, pips, pith and pulp have been rammed into the glass along with the juice. We drink it like baleen whales in reverse, filtering the scant liquid through our teeth and holding out the detritus. The coffee au lait is quite pleasant - beneath its insulating cap of shaving foam.

Toast, jam and congealed camel fat comprise the next course, delivered some 20 minutes after we finish our drinks. Rob, wisely with hindsight, elects to stick with dry toast. We note that there are no scrawny cats foraging around this cafe, perhaps that should have warned us. An hour after we sat down a boy wanders by with a ladder. We speculate he's been detailed to pick a pig from its roosting place.

Breakfast eventually arrives, 3 leeches leaking bright orange grease, 3 rashers of fat and bone, a small stain on the plates that we tentatively identify as a portion of baked beans, a fried egg and a grilled tomato. The tomato was edible. The cafe dog ignored our gift of bacon.

We leave a 10 cent tip and depart in search of food. If memory serves correctly, le Cheminerie, a small cafe where we have eaten before, is nearby...

Le Cheminerie, Agadir

Wary of ordering anything that might purport to be an English Breakfast in Agadir after our experiences at le Cafe Orange Bleu, I took the safe option and requested le petit dejeuner when we arrived at Le Cheminerie. We are served by le garcon jeune, a youth clad from head to toe in yellow, who informs us that we are too late for le petit dejeuner, too early for anything else. Except hamburgers, which we can have at 11, but not until 12 if we want chips too. I smile politely and request le petit dejeuner a second time. The sort of smile that suggest that if we don't get le petit dejeuner, a squadron of cruisers will be standing offshore within the hour ready to shell the place.

My petit dejeuner - quite good in fact - eventually arrives and Rob takes the opportunity to order a hamburger. A hamburger without onions, lettuce, mayonnaise, tomatoes, gherkins, cucumbers or pickled things. Just a hamburger. Rob has had enough of being adventurous. Unfortunately, Rob forgot to specify that he also wanted it without oranges, rice, shredded greenery and miscellaneous red goo. The burger was delivered by the chef, the yellow boy having had to go for a lie down to try and recover from the shock of dealing with so demanding a customer. Rob similarly feels the need to lie down. Why can't he just have a burger, sans garni ?

Created on 01/17/2006 12:25 AM by admin
Updated on 01/17/2006 07:35 PM by admin