I spent the weekend with my mate Anas, his wife and his family in Morocco. There were a couple of big family dinners. The most impressive things served up at the table was a whole lamb splayed and roasted, served with some amazing home made bread. For some photos see my online gallery.

On the way back we stopped at a real dive of a place. Behind the warehouse fronting the docks in Tangiers harbour where the fishing boats more are a couple of places serving up seafood let into the wall of another warehouse. The fifteen or so tables, surrounding chairs and parasols are of the plastic garden variety. Most of the customers are the dockers and ferry port hustlers with a few of the townspeople sprinkled about.

Anas ordered in Arabic, I asked him what he ordered and he told me that there wasn't a menu, you just told them how many of you wanted to eat. The first thing that arrived was a platter about eighteen inches across covered in prawns, shrimp and langostines that had been fried with a little salt and loads of fresh oregano. I can honestly say I have never in my life eaten shellfish that tasted so good and I have eaten shellfish a lot! This was served with a big round loaf of Moroccan bread, good, but not up to the standard of the home cooked loaves I'd eaten the day before. Once the crustacia had been dispatched the lad working there brought a plate of spicy cold sauce for dipping the bread into which tasted much like a cold harira but without the lamb. A little while later another enormous platter fish arrived, some grilled, some lightly floured and fried with some octopus thrown in. Delicious. All in all the bill came to a wallet quivering 8o Dirham ( 8 Euros) which also covered three bottles of Coca-Cola and a tip for the waiter.