Escape to an Exotic Part of the World
DESCRIPTION: As soon as you enter the doors of Marakesh restaurant, you leave the unassuming world of strip malls and enter a wonderland for your senses. You're seated on a lush couch with low ornate table and your hands are cleansed with rose water [Don't worry. Al though you can eat with your hands, eating utensils are provided]. The sometimes overwhelmed [if it's very busy] but eager to please waiters start your adventure into Moroccan cuisine with spicy soup [served with the most awkward-to-use spoons], a platte r of salads and garlic pita bread with fresh hummous. My personal favorite course follows: "Bastilla, " a phyllo dough pie filled with shreaded chicken and topped with powdered sugar. The main entree [you can only choose one, remember this is family st yle!] is cooked tangine or kabob style. Ch i cken, lamb, beef, and salmon are your choices of meat. It's followed by the other courses of cous cous, fruit, delicious pastries, and mint tea. If you visit Marakesh on Friday or Saturday, you will be ente rtained by belly dancing [and if you're adventurous, you can join in!]. The best time to arrive on those days is about 7:45 or so. That way you can watch during your dessert. Expect to spend a few hours here. Just relax and enjoy the experience. You wil l either leave completely stuffed or just pleasantly full, as the same amount of food is served whether you are a party of 2 or 3. Call ahead to see if reservations are needed for the day you are interested in. Sometimes there are special events or larg e parties of patrons and you won't be able to get a table. ******** The directions on Marakesh's site are a bit vague. It's on Rt. 46 E. Past the Holiday Inn and past the overpass. It's located on the right side in a small strip mall called Pacific Pavili on, next to a school uniform store. Keep an eye out for it because if you miss it, it's a long way before you can make a u-turn.t
DATE: 2000-05-19
FOODRATING : 10
SERVICERATING : 6
AMBIANCERATING : 10
OVERALLRATING : 8
RECOMMENDED DISHES : Chicken with Hot Sauce

Perfect party place
DESCRIPTION: I wanted to throw a dinner party for a group of friends and I was trying to think of somewhere cozy and special. I thought of Mamounia. I had dined there before and enjoyed both the food and the atmosphere. It turned out to be a perfect choice.
DATE: 2006-05-24
FOODRATING : 10
SERVICERATING : 10
AMBIANCERATING : 10
OVERALLRATING : 10
RECOMMENDED DISHES : Lamb with prunes and brochettes trio

DESCRIPTION: One of my favorite restaurants, but be sure to go in a group of three or more (the larger the better). Service is excellent -- the staff is courteous and attentive. You will feel pampered. The waiters are very good at pouring liquids from great heights, whether it's the water for washing your hands or your peppermint tea. Most of the feasts offer each person a choice between soup and brik. The soup is better, but you should try the brik once. Perhaps you can convince someone else in your group to order it and give you a bite. The B'stilla (phyllo pastry, ground chicken, powdered sugar, and cinnamon) sounds weird, but is one of their best dishes. Don't miss out by ordering a feast without it! It's worth the sticky hands.
DATE: 1999-09-10
FOODRATING : 8
SERVICERATING : 9.5
AMBIANCERATING : 8
OVERALLRATING : 8.5

An evening's entertainment
DESCRIPTION: Make a reservation at Marrakesh and you don't need to make any other plans for the evening. Dinner here requires a good 3 hours and is an experience unto itself. Your 7 courses are predetermined, with the lone choice being whether to have lamb or beef for your 3rd course (...or is it 4th? Who can remember?). If you're not into adventure you might want to stay away, but if the idea of sitting on low, backless banquettes and sharing food with your fingers for 3 hours while a belly dancer twirls above you sounds appealing, then make a reservation.
DATE: 2003-07-07
FOODRATING : 6
SERVICERATING : 8
AMBIANCERATING : 10
OVERALLRATING : 8
RECOMMENDED DISHES : There are few choices. Just sit back and go with the flow.

Marrakesh means
DESCRIPTION: Atmosphere was good; food, entertainment and service were just average. Marrakesh doesn't accept Credit Cards, which they don't tell anyone until the end of the event, so dozens of people waited in line at the ATM machine. What a terrible inconvenience, especially when a party of 20 (at $40/person) is expected to carry this amount of cash! Further, with a cash-only business and this type of business model (fixed-price), I find it hard to believe that all that income is being reported to the IRS. It is really very shady.
DATE: 2005-03-20
FOODRATING : 4
SERVICERATING : 4
AMBIANCERATING : 6
OVERALLRATING : 4

Beware Marrakesh
DESCRIPTION: As another reviewer states, Marrakesh is really shady. There's very little difference between going to Marrakesh and being mugged. Because they have no cash register and payment is cash only, patrons really have no recourse after the fact because there is no record of the transaction. The set menu of 7 courses is supposed to cost about $30 per person, plus tax and tip. Our waiter gave us a bill for $50 per person just for the meal (he had a separate bill for drinks), then he added another 28% for what he called a "DC entertainment and service tax." All totaled, he tried to extort more than $150 more than what we owed. We spent nearly 45 minutes arguing with him and it ruined our evening. We almost just paid it to get out of there; had he tried to rip us of by $20 or $30 bucks, we would have done, but $150??
DATE: 2006-05-05
FOODRATING : 4
SERVICERATING : 2
AMBIANCERATING : 2
OVERALLRATING : 2
RECOMMENDED DISHES : Do not go there

Great food
DESCRIPTION: One of the best pizza places in Oklahoma City, if not the best pizza period.
DATE: 2005-08-08
FOODRATING : 10
SERVICERATING : 10
AMBIANCERATING : 6
OVERALLRATING : 10
RECOMMENDED DISHES : Greek Pizza

Great food great service
DESCRIPTION: Believe it or not I oprdered pizza from this guys at 4 Am and they were kind enough to turn the oven back on and deliver it to my house.
DATE: 2005-08-14
FOODRATING : 10
SERVICERATING : 10
AMBIANCERATING : 8
OVERALLRATING : 10
RECOMMENDED DISHES : The greck pizza my favorite

Not clean, but tasty.
DESCRIPTION: You know, I used to eat here a lot about ten years ago, but I haven't much recently. The stromboli is good, as is the pizza and they have my third favorite gyros in OKC. It's kind of dirty, but the people are nice.
DATE: 2005-09-14
FOODRATING : 6
SERVICERATING : 8
AMBIANCERATING : 2
OVERALLRATING : 6
RECOMMENDED DISHES : pizza/gyros/stromboli

Morocco in the Mall?
DESCRIPTION: Had it not been a rainy day with bad traffic my husband and I would have never stopped in Silver Spring, MD - funny how fates work. This was my first experience with Moroccan dining and what a wonderful experience it was. We tried one of the Morroccan feasts to give us an overview of the various foods on the menu and left very satisfied. The service was great, the food was great, and we are looking forward to making the journey back to SS for another Taste of Morocco.
DATE: 2006-02-04
FOODRATING : 10
SERVICERATING : 8
AMBIANCERATING : 6
OVERALLRATING : 6
RECOMMENDED DISHES : Chicken Bastilla

Overpriced and Disappointing.
DESCRIPTION: I just returned from Casablanca Restaurant in Old Town Alexandria, VA, and it was a tremendous disappointment. I was in Morocco a couple of months ago and now wanted to taste Moroccan food again. So, last Friday took my family to A Taste of Morocco in Arlington, VA, and today went with some friends to the Casablanca. The first experience was great and my family loved it. However, Casablanca was not what I had expected. Both the food and the service were bad. We ordered the $20 per-person fixed menu. The soup was bland and almost cold, and the beef kebob was very tough. Although the chicken was tender, all the food was bland and lacked the spices that give Moroccan food its special taste. The mint tea was watery, and seemed not to have been prepared from fresh mint leaves. For dessert there was only one kind of sweet and there were no fruits. As for service, we had to wait for about 30 minutes before the soup was served and later had to hurry up eating the Bastilla because the server brought the main dish too soon after bringing the Bastilla. We had to specifically ask for bread, and the server never brought the Coke refill he promised. There was no belly-dancing show, contrary to what we were told when we made the reservation (the story: the belly-dancer had a car accident earlier today and none of the replacement dancers were available). Despite all the above, the bill already included a 15% tip, which I do not feel the server deserved. Overall, the food was not worth the price and the service was not worth the t
DATE: 2003-12-29
FOODRATING : 4
SERVICERATING : 4
AMBIANCERATING : 4
OVERALLRATING : 2
RECOMMENDED DISHES : None.

A Great Time
DESCRIPTION: I went with my wife and two friends, one of which is Moroccan, and we had a great time. We made reservations for 8:30 Saturday night and got there a bit earlier in time to see part of the 7:30 belly dancing show. When she was done there was a gentleman playing the keyboard...not so bad. Our server was friendly and unlike the last review, we received out food pretty quick from when we ordered it. All of us enjoyed our soup, we did add some "hot sauce", I was told it was made from pimentos. It added a good bit of kick. The belly dancer was great, smiling and had good skills to an untrained eye like mine. Afterwards the band came on and played Moroccan music which I thought was great, the belly dancer made a repeat appearance also. Many people joined in with the dancing and seemed to have a great ti
DATE: 2004-01-11
FOODRATING : 6
SERVICERATING : 8
AMBIANCERATING : 8
OVERALLRATING : 6

Tourist Trap
DESCRIPTION: This restaurant was something fun 20 years ago. Now it has torn chair cushions, lousy food, mediocre service and is just an all out disappointment. It's been a while since I have been there, I will admit, but the last time we were there we felt so ripped off that when I saw it listed tonight, I just had to add my 2 cents. It was extremely expensive. We can get some truly fine meals in Old Town and other parts of Northern Virginia for this kind of money.
DATE: 2004-03-19
FOODRATING : 2
SERVICERATING : 4
AMBIANCERATING : 2
OVERALLRATING : 2

Good lunch buffet
DESCRIPTION: The lunch buffet has always been good food and a great price - $6.95 or something like that. Has good salad, hummus, usually some sort of chicken, rice, other veggies. Quite a good deal.
DATE: 2004-12-10
FOODRATING : 6
SERVICERATING : 6
AMBIANCERATING : 6
OVERALLRATING : 6

I like it
DESCRIPTION: I read the first review listed and have to take issue with some of the comments. Many Americans seem to want rushed service. Morocco and many other parts of the world appreciate a slow, leisurely meal. This gives you time to enjoy the company, the show if there is one and digest your food. I have been to Casablanca many times. I even took a friend who lives in Morocco there. I have had dinners that lasted an hour and dinners that lasted 3. I have brought many new diners to Casablanca and have rarely been disappointed. The service is always quite charming and the chef is always willing to share cooking tips, an extra bastilla or a recipe. I have not been a big fan of the kabobs there, but the tagine dishes more than make up for that. They are simply amazing. I would recommend Casablanca. In fact, I'm headed there no
DATE: 2005-02-03
FOODRATING : 8
SERVICERATING : 8
AMBIANCERATING : 8
OVERALLRATING : 6
RECOMMENDED DISHES : bastilla, any of the tagine dishes

A Total Rip-Off
DESCRIPTION: My fiance and I love the Marrakesh Restaurant, but wanted to try other Moroccan restaurants in the D.C. area. Casablanca was a bad idea. First of all, the restaurant falsely advertises its prices on the front of the building on its menus. They add about 4-5 dollars more per item once inside. As for the ambiance, we were the only ones there. There was a strange odor, almost like urine all throughout. We were not even offered napkins to put on our laps. Not good. The Bastilla was caked in sugar, with no nuts or raisins inside. The Chicken With Lemon and Olives was brown and did not have any authentic Moroccan taste to it. It was more like a dark colored puttanesca sauce minus the tomatoes. The rice was so bland and stale. And to top it all off, they charged us $30 for the 2 dishes because they gave themselves $5 for the "service" fee. How ridiculous. I would absolutely not recommend this restaurant to anyone, maybe with the exception of those I do not lik
DATE: 2005-04-05
FOODRATING : 2
SERVICERATING : 4
AMBIANCERATING : 4
OVERALLRATING : 2
RECOMMENDED DISHES : None

I enjoyed it.
DESCRIPTION: I am from Alabama and recently moved to the Arlington area. I have tried many restaurants here. Many are over-priced and not worth the time. However, this restaurant was very entertaining. Yes the restaurant has some signs of wear, but it is by no means falling apart. I felt that it actually made you feel like you were there in Morocco. I highly recommend the lamb, it was like eating roast. The belly dancers were wonderful each one better than the previous.
DATE: 2005-04-07
FOODRATING : 8
SERVICERATING : 8
AMBIANCERATING : 8
OVERALLRATING : 8
RECOMMENDED DISHES : The lamb

See For Yourself
DESCRIPTION: My wife (who is from Oujda, Morocco) and I recently moved to Old Town in 2005 -- we've been to Casablanca twice and so far it has been above average. Service is slow, as it should be in this type of restaurant (I don't want to be rushed out), the food is good (I'm a sucker for lamb and cous cous), the entertainment is great, and the ambiance is top notch. Regarding Bastilla--it grosses me out no matter what, even if my wife makes it--sugar and chicken (or pigeon if you're being authentic) aren't meant to be together. If you want great Moroccan food (only), go to the Taste of Morocco in Arlington--if you want to have an overall great time, go to Casablanca instea
DATE: 2005-04-13
FOODRATING : 6
SERVICERATING : 8
AMBIANCERATING : 10
OVERALLRATING : 8
RECOMMENDED DISHES : Lamb with Cous Cous

Not impressed
DESCRIPTION: Even though I had read mixed reviews about Casablanca, I wanted to give it a try for myself. I took my boyfriend there for Valentines Day. I made a point of telling our server it was our first time there and asked for suggestions. He recommended the lamb with honey and almonds. I can honestly say that over 1/2 the dish was fat, I know lamb is a fatty meat but it was a little gross fishing through the fat to get to the meat. The only part of the meal we enjoyed was the salad and the tea. We tried the lamb and the beef kabob was our other entree, it was dry and the "vegetables" were overcooked Birdseye blend. The desert was a dry paste cookie, one was burnt and the other just as inedible. To top it all off the bill was over $100 and we would have had better service and food at a drive through fast food joint
DATE: 2006-02-15
FOODRATING : 2
SERVICERATING : 4
AMBIANCERATING : 8
OVERALLRATING : 2
RECOMMENDED DISHES : salad, tea