Morocco by way of India, via Pakistan, with a stop in NYC

Tara starts you off with a small glass of hot tea, with honey and mint. And on a cool November evening, it’s a wonderful start to a meal.

A couple of times our Blue Apron meals have included harissa. I’ve found it to be delicious, and loving spicy foods as much as I do, we started with the Harissa Dip appetizer. Very warm, soft, and flavorful triangles of pita are brought to the table alongside a small dish of harissa. If you’ve never had harissa, it’s basically a thick chili pepper sauce, with herbs, spices, and garlic. The version they make at Tara is very spicy. It was too spicy for my wife, she only had a few bites. But I’m a chili head, and I loved it. It’s not just a dish of tongue burning heat though. It’s deeply flavorful, and this is the theme that runs through all of Tara’s dishes. Flavor, and lots of it.

Harissa Dip

The majority of the entrees are served in tagines. They arrive to the table as basically a cast iron bowl, that’s blazing hot just moments off the stove. Our dishes arrived so hot, that we had to wait a few minutes before we could eat them. My wife’s tagine was bubbling and sizzling when the waiter set it on the table. As I’ve said many times on this blog, I loathe lukewarm dishes and crave hot food that’s actually served hot, so this was a big deal for me.

My wife ordered Chickpeas with Oranges. It’s chickpeas with orange sections, and almonds, in an apricot & prune sauce. I stole her leftovers and had them for lunch the next day. This dish is slightly sweet, but still savory and flavorful. My wife loved it. I loved it. The occasional bite of an orange slice is pleasantly sweet, the slivered almonds add crunch, both nicely balancing the creamy and savory chickpeas.

Chicpeas w/oranges

I ordered the Lamb Meatballs which is lamb meatballs in tomato sauce with two poached eggs. The tomato sauce was delicious. The poached eggs were soft and tender, with a slightly runny yolk. They balanced the toothsome meatballs wonderfully. I hate to be repetitive, but this dish, like everything else we had was absolutely bursting with flavor.

If you’ve never been to Tara Kitchen, or if you’ve never had Moroccan food, do get there and try it. The dishes are unique and a nice change from the same old, same old, but more than that, they’re just plain delicious.