Gene Hackman's been there
All I really knew about the restaurant that I was going to last night was that I was getting 7 courses and there were belly dancers. Imagine my dismay when we arrived and people were waiting outside looking ready to enter a club. I don't go to places that are ICE COLD, especially when it's ice cold outside. Fortunately, being in a throng of people was warming. Eventually we made it through the little door within the door-- it was very Wizard of Oz that way--where we got to wait a little more.

Once we got through the initial shock of all the people waiting, and the door within the door, and the internal waiting, we sat down to what I can only call a typical Moroccan meal. Now that I think about it, the meal was EXACTLY like every other Moroccan meal I've ever had. I've never had another Moroccan meal.

The seven courses were all quite tasty. There was some good bread and an excellent coffee cake made slightly odd by the inclusion of chicken, and then a whole chicken, and then things started to get really tasty. There was candied lamb, and couscous with squash, and fruit and nuts, and little pastries with sweet hot tea. I may have been able to continue eating at the pace we were on for about 3 years shy of eternity. My rear end would not have enjoyed the continued sitting, however.

Nearly all of this was finger food, but the belly dancer wasn't. I'm not sure what I had expected here, but I was very willing to sit back and watch the undulating woman. You don't, or at least I don't get those opportunities very often, or certainly not often enough. It was fairly mesmerizing. I was slightly disappointed by the belly, though I admit those expectations were probably a little too high. I guess I just figured someone featured as a belly dancer would have an incredibly belly-licious, um, you know, belly. Hers was nice, but easily overlooked if it hadn't had a spotlight on it. There was a sexy little scarf number and a sword-balancing number, but to be perfectly honest it all kind of blurs in my mind into one giant Moroccan shimmy. Then again, isn't that what Ameritesh or Jamertesh or whatever the place was called, really all about?