Tangier, Part Three

            I opened my eyes on Saturday morning and smiled. I was in Tangier, the loveliest city on earth, and I had a nice long shower and a big fluffy towel to look forward to. We all met on the hotel’s terrace, which had a refreshing view of the strait of Gibraltar, the satellite dishes stretching out over the medina, and the mountains rising up to the south. We feasted our eyes on the ocean until our stomach’s protested for a feast of their own. Thus began a search for Moroccan pancakes, known as ghaif in their square form and milawi in their round form. (There could very well be additional differences, but to me the shapes are the only particularity of each!) Our search quickly terminated at the site of a street vendor offering more varieties of milawi than I’d known existed. Plain, chicken, lamb, cheese, and egg milawi were coming off the griddle, worked by a pair of Moroccan women and served by a man who was eager to answer our questions. He only knew Arabic, so we pointed to the bowls of various toppings and asked, “Schnou hadi?”, What are these? Most of the words we knew: lus – almonds, licheen – orange jam, zeitoun – olive paste, zubda – butter, ‘aasl – honey. Pointing to the last bowl, our culinary guide said, “Coco!” A quizzical look at the bowl revealed that it wasn’t coconut, nor was it chocolate, so we asked him to repeat himself. “Coco, coco!” he said, gesturing enthusiastically at the dish. We still didn’t get it. One of the women hurried over to a corner and then back over to us, stretching out a handful of peanuts. “Coco!” she said, pointing to the peanuts, adding a new contribution to our Moroccan Arabic vocabularies.

            The choice was difficult, especially considering the bins of Laughing Cow cheeses also available, but I decided to try one milawi with olive tapenade and another with the almond paste. The vendor grabbed a hot pancake, deftly spooned the almond butter into the middle and spread it evenly with one motion before folding the milawi twice and cutting it down the middle. Another got the same treatment, but with olives, and they were each wrapped in paper and handed to me piping hot.

            These two pancakes were undoubtedly the best breakfast I’ve had so far. Toasty and crisp, thick and toothsome, the milawi themselves were as good as the fillings they wrapped around. The savory tangy olive paste was the perfect foil for the sweet thin almond butter. Filling and satisfying, we were well-fueled for a search for the elusive tomb of Ibn Battuta, a medieval traveler who hailed from Tangier and ended up as far as Timbucktu and China, travelling three times the distance covered by Marco Polo. We walked along the uphill road past the kasbah and into the ritzy modern part of Tangier, with beautiful overlooks of the strait and Spain. Ibn Battuta’s tomb escaped us, but mashi mushkela – we headed back to the center of town, Grand Socco, for a look at the Spanish cathedral. It was closed for lunch, but mashi mushkela – there was a lovely, calm, and verdent cemetery around it that we were happy to spend time in. After a spell we headed downhill towards the port, walking along the bustling riverside and searching for the Tanger Inn, a café where the famous beats like Paul Bowles and Jack Kerouac rested their elbows while sipping espresso. It was closed, but mashi mushkela – we knew that just a few blocks away was the enticing smell of fresh hot pizza.

            With just an hour before we had to catch our train, we took a table in a small restaurant specializing in pizza and Lebanese food. Pizza battled falafel in a fight for my order, and the 7 dh falafel sandwich won, along with a plate of smooth and tangy baba ghanoush. The pizza smelled delicious, but I hadn’t had falafel for a while. It was served freshly fried snuggled up with tomatoes and lettuce and wrapped in flatbread, with a little dish of yogurt sauce on the side. It was the perfect lunch to end our international trip: French baguette sandwiches and pizza the first day, Moroccan pancakes and Lebanese food the second. We amused our taxi driver with our limited darija on the way to the train station, before bidding goodbye to him and to our new favorite, beautiful city.