April 23, 2014 Last day in Marrakech Restaurant Le Bougainvillier

April 23, 2014 Last day in Marrakech  Restaurant Le Bougainvillier

We spent a slow day in Marrakech get our bags packed and filling a box with 20 kg. of stuff we could not carry onto the flight from Marrakech to Madrid, due to a booking error by Ryan Air.  At around noon we walked toward the square to look for some lunch and to go to Naiome’s store to discuss with him our decision to ship some of our clothes back to Albuquerque, stopping at a spa near the apartment so Suzette could make a reservation for a body scrub and massage at 5:00. 

We had decided to carry on our luggage so we would not need to wait for our luggage in Madrid so we would have a better chance to make the Madrid to Dublin flight on Ryan Air.  Naiome checked freight fees on DHL and the Post Office. 

We then started walking toward the Jemaa al Fna to look for a place for lunch when just a few feet past Naiome’s store Willy and Suzette saw a lovely small restaurant in an open patio named Le Bougainvillier located at 33 Rue de Mouassine in the medina.

We decided to stop and had a lovely meal at Le Bougainvillier, located near the Maison de Caftans du Maroc.  I finally realize what pasilla de poulet is because Suzette ordered it; it is phyllo dough wrapped around a combination of chicken, potatoes, and lots of herbs like turmeric and fenugreek with a little chili baked and then garnished with cinnamon and powdered sugar.  The hacked chicken had a lovely yellow color and flavorful taste. I can only imagine what the dish tastes like with the traditional ingredient, pigeon.

I ordered another tagine; this time with kefta and quail eggs.  Kefta apparently are small meat balls of beef, no bulgur wheat in the middle.  The tagine was flavored with a thick tomato sauce. The restaurant served fresh baked rounds of stiff corn bread, sort of like Johnny cakes with olives.  Willy had a Berber dish of beef and vegetables also cooked in a tagine.  His was cooked enough to have softened the joints of the ligaments included in the dish with the meat, which made the sauce of his dish very flavorful.

 

We saw that the Bougainvillier had a TV and Willy mentioned that he had seen a sign saying that Bougainvillier planned to show the soccer game this evening.  We asked if they were going to show the semi-final game of the EUFA cup between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich this evening.  When they said, “Yes,” we told them we would see them for dinner.

After lunch, we walked the thirty or forty feet to the Maison de Caftan du Maroc and tried on Willy’s altered shirt and Suzette’s altered dress.  Willy’s was fine but Suzette’s arms had not been shortened and the zipper she requested had not been added.  The cousin fitted her arm length again and said everything would be ready by 7:30 p.m.  The cousin handed the dress to a lady for delivery to the tailor, who came out in a minute of two to ask about the buttons on the dress and length of the zipper.  Suzette gave him her instructions and in a couple more minutes they had wrapped Willy’s shirt and we were on our way home.   

We went by Naiome’s shop and discussed with him our needs for a box and selected a roll of appropriate tape to seal the box.  He said he would send over a box and the tape in fifteen minutes and Shahim showed up with the box and taped the bottom of it so we could fill it.

We spent some time packing and resting. When I awaken from my nap Suzette had gone and Willy and I had a cup of tea on the terrace.  When Suzette returned we went to an ATM and then to the Maison de Caftans du Maroc and picked up Suzette’s dress.  When we returned to the Bougainvillier, Willy had arrived and taken a table in front of the T.V. and was sipping mint tea.  Most restaurants do not serve alcohol.  Instead they serve lots of mint tea.  

We decided to eat lightly.  Willy ordered a plate of spaghetti with pesto sauce. Suzette had a Panini with cheese, a toasted sandwich and I ordered a pizza with merguez sausage, onions, mushrooms and roasted eggplant.  We each ordered a coke with ice and felt like we had officially begun or return trip to the States and Dublin respectively.

The game was good but not great.  Madrid won 1 to 0.  The great game will be the next one in Munich, when Munich must win by 2 goals to pass on to the finals.  Willy thinks that the winner of the Real Madrid v. Bayern Munich will win the EUFA cup because both of those two teams are better than both Chelsea and Atlantic Madrid, the other two teams.

After dinner we walked back to the apartment and Naiore called and came by to weigh the box.  We paid him for his services and the freight and he seemed pleased with the payment.  He has been a wonderful guide and made us feel at home in Marrakech, which has made all the difference in our ability to see the sights and enjoy our visit.

My impression of the Moroccan economy is one that has a very strong traditional agricultural and subsistence living base of persons rooted in that traditional culture and economic base with an osmotic wall linking that traditional economy to a strongly Westernized information based economy.  You see the traditional economy everywhere in the countryside with donkey carts full of goods going to market and men and women wearing traditional dress riding burros and even in the city such as day laborers and porters who are the beasts of burden for the merchants in the medina.  On the other side of that osmotic barrier are the merchants such Naiore who have lived in the West (in Nairoe's case N.Y.C. and London) and learned to negotiate the business methods of the Westernized world.  an example of the second category are the merchants who own fabrication plants and make beautiful hand made goods for sale to the tourists in the market.

One of the formulas for success in the Moroccan economy appears to be the ability to negotiate both sides of the osmotic barrier.  To deal within the traditional culture to get the best that culture has to offer and then to sell it into the Westernized culture to tourists or become a wholesaler to Western retail businesses or a restaurateur or hotelier.   This is what Naiore and T.R. have mastered.  The ability to cross the osmotic barrier seamlessly and do business on both sides optimally accrues to them the benefit from the huge cost differences between the two.  They are essentially buying goods and services at the traditional Moraccan economy levels and selling the finished goods they manufacture at the premium prices paid by Westerners in dollars and Euro levels for quality hand made goods, such as shoes, hand bags, handicrafts and clothing.  We followed this model at Pier 1 in the 70's with goods from Asia and Africa with buyers who would source the goods in the local economy, usually through local buying agents, then ship the goods to the U.S. and build a retail import store around those goods with typically an 82% markup instead of the more traditional 50%.  

We then went to the terrace on the roof and ate the last three pastries and drank the last bottle of Raposeira Brut Rosé (http://www.cavesdaraposeira.com) and talked some more.

Finally, Suzette got tired before we could finish the sparkling wine so we decided to go to bed and make mimosas for breakfast in the morning.

Bon Appétit