Tajine

Nice ambience but the dishes we ordered were not worth $ 35 each. It might be worth visiting once in a blue moon though.

Like most, the reviews here and elsewhere on the interwebs made me cautious in my approach to Tajine. However, it turned out to be a cute little place with some delicious food and a friendly server. The hummus appie was a little bland, but the beet salad was wonderful with a nice balance between the sweetness of beet and the tang of a lemony dressing. The kafta (sp?) tajine was also very tasty. The mint tea is very refreshing.
Yes, there’s no alcohol, but I suspect this is either b/​c it’s a pain in the arse to get a liquor license, or the owners are Muslim. Not a huge drawback. Not taking credit cards, however, is a knock against them.
The mystery male figure (owner?) was there, as mentioned in other reviews, and just sat near the back at a table the whole time we were there (about 2.5 hours).
I’ll definitely go back and see if the service can be repeated. If so, it might be a keeper.

My wife and I just dined here and were very, very happy. No reason for less than four stars in our opinion. Granted, we arrived after a snow storm and there was only one other party (who was just finishing up) so the service was naturally attentive.
So to start out we liked the fact that the water was without ice cubes. There seems to be some controversy about this, but this is just what it’s like in Europe etc. — why the American obsession with having a glass chalk full of ridiculous amounts of ice and a small amount of water seems strange. It’s not like it’s not cold (there is ice in the pitcher anyway), and you avoid that ice-​smashing-​into-​your-​face-​and-​teeth thing that can happen. And it’s not like you can’t ask if it’s a hot summer day or something.
I digress. :)
Anyway, the service was extremely personable and very sincere, and that counts for a lot. We ordered the Moroccan mint tea and it was as amazing as one would hope (my wife is from Paris and Moroccan cuisine is a large facet of French culture). She has also been to Morocco.
The ambiance was nice and not overbearing, good layout of seating, dim but not so dark you can’t see your food, and just the right temperature for the season.
The main thing was that the food was mostly very authentic to real Moroccan cuisine and was very well done. The meat was moist (did they fix the issue from a recent 2-​star review?) and the couscous was just right. Yes, there’s a lot of butter in it (as another reviewer complained about). That’s just how they do it. If you’re used to making couscous out of a box from Whole Foods then this isn’t where you want to go. Stay home. The dish (chicken couscous) was also moistened with juice from the vegetable and meat — it was just the right amount — it was not soggy or dry — just right. The chef is obviously skilled, but he’s doing couscous his own way. Usually you have the beef and/​or vegetables on one side and the couscous on the other side and you you mix them together yourself and ladle the juice on top (with or without hot sauce). In this case, though not technically authentic, the chef just does it for you — but the important thing is he gets it right and it’s really, really good.
The portion size was perfect, and even large seeming. We shared an entrée and a soup and were quite full and satisfied. For dessert we had selection of homemade Moroccan pastries (yes, they make them there, like the bread, actually, which was also awesome) and they were not cliché kinds of pastries that are over-​sweet because it’s dipped in tons of honey. These were sweet, yes, but in a balanced way, and they had actual flavor and fragrance. You could really taste the spice.
Why not five stars? The harira soup, to be authentic (and taste better, frankly) would probably need to be a meatier flavor. The chicken and vegetable soup was delicious though.
The place is definitely worth a visit.

I’ve been to Tajine three times now. Each time, food was good, music was very enjoyable (volume low enough so one can have a relaxed conversation), and the service was attentive and friendly, answering all questions and fulfilling special requests.
The bread alone was a treat, with a unique texture and flavor (due to olive oil and a touch of fennel seed, I think).
The soup was incredibly flavorful.
The couscous itself was excellent, its grains tender but properly separate — unlike at a lot of places where couscous is done IN liquid instead of steamed in such a way it can absorb flavor.
The entrees seemed a bit small for their price, but were delicately flavored, especially the fish.
I wish they would open for lunch on week-​ends!

I’m guessing a lot of these reviews came when Tajine had just opened. And while I agree it definitely could use some work (ie: the menu was not very well designed), the food was great. We had the eggplant and humus appetizers, and split a beef and lamb couscous. I also had their Moroccan tea which was delicious. Overall, pretty good food and the lady, who I assume is the owner and chef, was very friendly. I’d come back.

I have to unfortunately agree with most of what’s been written. We happened onto this place one desperate rainy night because the wait at Garden at the Cellar was two hours. The proprietress was very welcoming but service was awkward. We started with a tomato bell pepper salad, which was well dressed in oil, lemon juice and parsley… but not special. The hummus was fresh, but the bread fell flat and the hummus really deserved something better for dipping. We shared a fish tajine (tasty but somehow the fish turned out very dry… likely not stewed with the rest of the dish) and a special merguez with couscous. The merguez was passable, but I’ve had comparable from D’Artagnan cooked at home. The best part of the couscous was some amazingly tender and very flavorful braised cabbage, but I probably would not go back just for this. Overall this insipid meal was rounded out by lack of beer/​wine, persistent little flies hovering around our plates throughout dinner (I really really wanted to believe that these were just little fruit flies attracted to the very aromatic… something) and the cash-​only surprise at the end.

My Moroccan Friend, kept telling me about this place for a long time, he took a couple other people here before he took, and I was totally excited for going. And I was not disappointed at all.
We had the eggplant appetizer, very delicious, a sausage appetizer and also we got a special treat that evening because she had prepared a meat pie type of dish during the day and was her first time trying it out in the restaurant and gave us a huge bowl of the pastry. It was to die for, it had all sorts of nuts in it with Chicken and was stuffed inside thin pastry dough with powdered sugar on top. Ohhh so good!
And all this food before our meals had come, and I was already hooked. I had the chicken tajine with white basmati rice, great, lots of flavor lots of colors, and afterwards we had hot mint Moroccan tea, which was nice and sweet and good ending to the meal along with some honey dipped cookies.
Everything was amazing, the food was delicious, our waitress and the owner was just amazing with her service her smile and hospitality. She was so nice she gave us the cookies and tea on the house.
Definitely going back!

Never tried Moroccan food before, but after having eaten here I most probably will not try it again, or atleast never here. This place has very few entrees on its menu, so I presumed that whatever was on would definitely be good. But that wasn’t the case. I was very disappointed with this dish Tajine — its a clay pot that comes with beef and lamb or chicken cooked in herbs and prunes. I for some reason was ready to be amazed by this new dish I was trying. It was a really small portion and it came with a little side dish of rice. It was only satisfactory. A friend ordered soup, and said it wasn’t great. Another friend had couscous with beef and lamb and veggies and wasn’t impressed.
So here’s my take on this place: The prices are high and portions small and service slow!

Service was super slow due to Ramadan (we arrived after sundown). The waittress kept apologizing, telling us that our food will be ready soon. The ambience was so-​so, the meats were dry. The prunes were good. Portions a little on the small side for $ 17 (not including tip).

After reading what other Unilocalers had to say, I was a little nervous about eating here, but I’m happy to say I was repeatedly pleasantly surprised. The dining experience is far from perfect, and not *quite* worth the medium-​high pricing, but some of the dishes impressed the hell out of me.
My date and I arrived a little late meeting two friends, and the hungry friends had already ordered hummus for the table about 5 – 10 minutes (I’m guessing) before we go there. Even so we had to wait about 15 – 20 minutes for the hummus to arrive. I’m very skeptical that the hummus was made to-​order (I mean, why would you?), and there was only one other party of two in the restaurant, so I can’t think of a good reason why we had to wait so long for our hummus. The hummus came with cut pita bread that was a little stale, and the dip itself was drizzled with a flavorless oil that was probably olive oil but should have had more flavor. As it was, I wasn’t completely convinced I wasn’t just sucking up cooking oil. Not a good start.
Our friends ordered the lamb/​beef/​prune tajine (a kind of dish prepared in underneath the conical clay pot that gives it its name) and the kafta tajine. I ordered the special mergueza appetizer and my companion, a vegetarian, ordered the ONLY vegetarian entrée on the menu, vegetables with couscous.
I told our waitress that I would be having the mergueza appetizer as my dinner, and also sharing the vegetable couscous with my date. Regardless, my mergueza came out before everyone else’s dinner, which of course was kind of awkward. I don’t know if this was a language issue with the waitress, a failure to communicate between the waitress and the cook staff, or what, and it wasn’t completely unacceptable, but it was still a pretty serious faux pas.
The merguez was pretty good, and was served in a sauce of tomatoes and peppers that surprised me with its flavor. It did have a bit too much oil for my taste. The sausages seemed like they’d probably been prepared onsite, and had all the right flavors and textures. It was *almost* but not quite as awesome as the merguez they serve at Algiers in Harvard Square. But that stuff is better than bacon, so I didn’t hold it against Tajine that they couldn’t live up to one of the best foods on the planet.
When the entrees did finally arrive the waitress kept putting each entrée down in front of me before we corrected her and told her who got what. No idea what that was about, no idea why she couldn’t see that I’d already eaten most of my «entrée».
So the service needs some work, yes.
So, the food. I sampled the tajines (thank you kind dinner companions), and I have to say that my mouth almost did a little dance right there at the table. Those dishes really made me happy. I wished I’d gotten them instead. The people who’d ordered them liked them too, but weren’t happy with the level of oil in their dishes either.
The vegetable couscous, my date and I agreed, left a lot to be desired. The selection of veggies was good and varied, but there was almost no seasoning. And to echo what others have said: wayyyyy too much couscous. Also: wayyyyy too much butter in the couscous.
I’d go back for the tajine dishes, but only if I knew the service had improved, and only if I knew that they had improved on their vegetarian options.
A bit more about the service: our waitress spoke excellent English, but she did mention something that may offer an explanation as to what’s going on here. When we asked for some our dishes to be wrapped up at the end of the evening, she said, in passing and not in anything like a snotty way, that they would never do that in her home country. So I’m kind of wondering if maybe the waitstaff (which may only be one person) here is just completely unfamiliar with American restaurant customs and expectations. If that’s all that’s going on here, then maybe a couple visits to some nicer, upscale restaurants to see how it’s properly done could be all it takes to cure the place of its shortcomings.
Oh, and: one of our companions pointed out, after we’d left, that the water had no ice in it. Some argument did ensue among our party at that point whether ice is a default expectation or not. I say it is, especially on what had been the hottest day of 2009 at that point.
D’oh! Almost forgot: when you go to the bathroom, you have to go out into this shared utility corridor, which isn’t so bad but on the way back I realized I had no idea which door I had come out of. A sign would be nice for the slower-​witted and older among us. :)

I REALLY wanted to like this place… there is a Moroccan place also called Tajine in San Francisco that is terrific, and when I saw the sign go up in the square next to Zoe’s, I was ecstatic that there would be a Moroccan restaurant going up. At one point, I would eat at Tajine in San Francisco 2 – 3 times a week, as I just couldn’t get enough of their salads, their basteyahs and their tajine & couscous.
Unfortunately… was REALLY disappointed. To start off, upon entering the restaurant, the waitress was in the back talking to the kitchen, and while the owner was sitting at the front, he didn’t make eye contact with us at all, and it took a minute or two for him to bark at his wife (?) to come seat us. Not a big problem.
Then the wife comes out and with a big smile gestures for us to seat ourselves at one of the tables. Great. G & I plop ourselves down at the nearest, brightly lit 4-​top, and with a NUH UH GURL NO U DI’INT look the waitress quickly puts us in our place and tells us that we can’t sit at a table for 4, and ushers us to sit at a cramped wall 2-​top. With 4 other 4-​tops open, and it being 9:30 with only one other table there, and given the «seat yourselves» gesture, one would expect to have a little bit of leeway with the seating. Oh well, at least the food will hopefully be good.
Or not.
We started with the Zalouk appetizer (eggplant, tomato & spices), and while the flavors were fine, it was so salty it was almost in-​edible. The bread that was served with it was at least a day old — it was completely stale and tasted like nothing.
We then moved on to the mains — G ordered the Chicken Tajine & I ordered the cous cous with vegetables. The chicken tajine was a large portion of oily, salty chicken… not much flavor. And served with the ugliest pile of dorm food looking white rice on the side. It looked like uncle ben’s rice that had been sitting around & reheated. The couscous was equally bad. I make better couscous out of a box, by far. It was soggy, had too much water, and tastes faintly reminiscent of wet cardboard. There was a huge pile of it too, way too much for the amount of vegetables on the plate. The vegetables were fine, had decent flavor to them, but only consisted of a sliced carrot, half a sliced parsnip, and a cut of cabbage. I paid $ 14 for this? I’m used to paying $ 8 in San Francisco for a serving of veggies twice as big with huge chunks of pumpkin.
If the prices were 30% cheaper, I might consider coming back to give it another shot, but paying almost $ 50 for two of us, for such mediocre food, I don’t think I can be bothered.
Maybe if they’re still around in 6 months time and have worked out their kinks…

The space in which this Moroccan eatery has recently opened seems to be cursed, the latest victim being the lovely but defunct Serene Chocolates. Tajine seems to be working through some opening kinks, but I do hope it finds its way and stays around.
Service is a bit awkward with the waitress forcing us to reach for hot plates rather than coming around our table, and an older man (the owner?) lurked nearby at an empty table, silently and unsmilingly watching our party of six. Hummus and olive starters were okay but unextraordinary — the star appetizer is the wonderful eggplant. The hot, sweet mint tea is worth trying.
I don’t know if others felt this way, but the first bite of each of the main courses wowed my mouth, with each progressive bite becoming less interesting. So I’d recommend sharing family-​style. The fish tajine comes in a lovely, zesty tomato-​based sauce, and the beef and lamb in plums has a lovely sweetness, even if the meat was a bit fatty and well done. Couscous plates are simply enormous — much larger than the tajines.
They don’t accept credit cards, which I think is ridiculous for a place that serves $ 17 entrees. Overall a pleasant meal, but returning is a low priority.

I went to Tajine on the second day of its existence, and I was very excited because I love both to eat and cook Moroccan food. I don’t mean to be too harsh and they might just have been disorganized since they had only opened the day before, but the restaurant was awful.
For appetizers we had a carrot salad, hummus, and an eggplant dish. These three were the only options then available, though the menu boasted many more. Anyway, while the eggplant was at least edible and the carrots were okay if you added lots of salt, the hummus tasted like it had been bought in a can, as it had barely any flavor and it was way over-​processed.
For our main courses, we tried a kefta tajine (the highlight of the meal, although it wasn’t that great and was way too salty), a tajne of lamb and prunes, and a beef tajine. The lamb tajine was only sweet and had no other flavor (I realize that Moroccan cuisine frequently combines sweet and savory, but Moroccan food also contains plenty of spices, such as cinnamon, ginger, saffron, pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, turmeric, etc), and the beef was plain bland. We also, unfortunately, ordered two couscous dishes– one with vegetables and the other with chicken. The first consisted only of boiled root vegetables (way overcooked) and couscous-​among the blandest dishes I’ve ever tried-​while the other was the same except with chicken. Again, no spices at all.
There were no Moroccan-​style desserts and I made the mistake of ordering ‘black forest’ which was by far the worst dessert I’ve had in my entire life (my sisters did enjoy their desserts-​tiramisu and ‘imperial,’ neither of which were Moroccan). The mint tea which was served for free was actually delicious and the best part of my experience. The service as well was fast and our waitress was very nice.

mmm. So glad this moved in right by apartment.
The tajine of beef and lamb with prunes was amazing and the hummus was very good. We will definitely come back.