I’ve got to say that I absolutely loved Marrakesh, and probably my favourite experience of our whole honeymoon was eating in Jemaa El Fna at night. During the day, Marrakesh’s main square is home to performing monkeys, snake charmers, magicians, medicine men, dentists and all kinds of other fantastic oddities. But come dusk, it transforms into what can only really be described as the World’s biggest restaurant.

The dozens of food stalls that fill the square at night start setting up at around 5 o’clock. From a distance you can see the smoke rising from the braziers, and before long you are hit by a combination of all sorts of delicious smells. There are a myriad of ways to fill your belly, with most stalls specialising in one or just a few dishes from grilled meats to eggs, snails to harira, and a few things that might offend the squeamish.

We ate at a number of places, but a couple we’d recommend were stalls 32 ‘Hassan’ and number 1 ‘Aicha’. I’ve been a big fan of merguez sausages since I tried them in France as a youngster. The strong flavours of paprika, garlic and fatty lamb are right up my strasse, and we’d read that stall 31 had the best in Northern Africa. So, we had to try them. And whilst they were good, we also tried the ones at stall 32 next door to compare, and we thought they were better. At both places you get a bunch of them on a plate with a big bread roll and some tomato salsa for under two pounds, but sausages at 32 had the edge because they had a stronger flavour and were served with a spicy tomato sauce. Seriously tasty.

Stall number 1 has a bit more on offer, and is reported to be the best for meat and cleanliness. We ate some great grilled aubergine, prawns, lamb and chicken skewers, and a cracking harira soup which came to about £16 with drinks. Again the meal was served with a big bread roll, and also came with one of the few chilli sauces we encountered. It was a bit like a harissa, but tasted like it was made with preserved lemons as well as garlic, oil and chilli, which went down a treat with the barbecued meat.

We also ate at a few really good restaurants whilst we were there, but for our Dirham the best was Al Fassia. Run by a women’s co-operative, the food is seriously good and both restaurants are rated amongst the best in Marrakesh. The menu is all traditional Moroccan, and I opted for a pigeon pastilla to start, and a lamb and aubergine tagine.

Whilst I probably wouldn’t repeat the pigeon pastilla in a hurry, it was definitely interesting. Filo pastry stuffed with minced pigeon and pine nuts flavoured with cumin and cinnamon, then covered with a pretty thick layer of icing sugar and cinnamon. It was way to sweet for my palette, I had to scrape the sugar off, but the filling was tasty and nicely spiced. The lamb tagine was probably the best I had whilst I was in Morocco. Really deep, meaty flavour, silky aubergine, and like the pastilla it was really nicely spiced with cumin, turmeric, and coriander. I could eat one right now.

I’m only really scratching the surface here, but in the interests of not boring you I’m going to say that’s it for Marrakesh. Next stop, Essaouira. Mind the doors!

To cut a long story short, there’s a guy called Doug who makes the most amazing speciality hot dogs that come in a bewildering and surprising array of flavours. And when I say bewildering, I mean it. Pork, duck, lamb, beef, weisswurst, bratwurst, veal, rattlesnake, vegetarian…I could go on. Doug’s place is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so if you’re an un-escorted newbie, you can pretty much forget about finding it (we were lucky enough to have a couple of willing guides). But, despite the location, the place is RAMMED every day. It’s open between 11am and 4pm, and there’s a queue pretty much from opening to closing.

Photo: MSN

When we got there at about a quarter to twelve, there were already a lot of people waiting. It took us about an hour to make it through the doors  and get a look at the wall mounted menu and specials, but when we did I nearly exploded with excitement. After much debate, my girlfriend and I decided to get 4 to share between us. We went for a duck and fois gras, a merguez and goats cheese, veal and pork weisswurst, and a classic Chicago dog (all pictured).

First up the duck. Now I was fully expecting this to be a gimmick, but I could’nt have been further from the mark. You could taste everything. The duck and fois gras in the sausage, the fois gras mousse on top, and the insane truffle and garlic mayo. Every bite was ridiculous. Too sickly to nail another, but amazing.

Next up the weisswurst. Again a taste sensation. The tangy apple and pork meat in the sausage was well seasoned and wrapped in this creamy mustard and parsley sauce. Then a nice bit of tangy, peppery horseradish cheese finished it off with style.

The traditional Chicago dog was probably the least impressive of the four, but still damn tasty. Your classic frank dog accompanied with fried onions, mustard, tomato, a slab of pickle and a kind of atomic green relish. When in Rome and all that.

Finally the merguez. One of my favourite sausages of all time. This baby came served up with a kind of smokey chipotle sauce that was a cross between a mayo and a gravy , and was topped with this amazingly fluffy and light goats cheese. Again you could taste all the flavours, and the cheese cooled down the chili kick of the sausage and sauce. Phenomenal.

It’s not hard to see why people get evangelical about Hot Doug’s. It’s one of those proper institutions that specialise in one thing, and nails it time after time. It’s also fun and completely unpretentious. In the UK a place like Doug’s would probably fall out of favour as soon as it ceased to be fashionable, which is a great shame as I feel England’s restaurant scene would be a lot richer if there were more of the local neighborhood heroes of the kind I’ve written about in the past few posts.

I’ve always liked the idea of starting a local sausage restaurant, maybe there’s a gap in the market?