I have to tell you a secret: I’m a sushi fanatic. I was introduced to sushi long before it became fashionable, by a friend who had lived in Japan. At the time, sushi restaurants were rare in Paris, and tended to be concentrated in the Opéra and Saint-Germain des Prés districts. We used to go to a little restaurant on rue des Ciseaux, where most of the customers were Japanese – a real treat.
A slightly (very) frustrated sushi addict
Later, with a friend of mine, we would make bets and the loser would invite the other to Benkay, the Japanese restaurant in the Hotel Nikko, now totally ‘de-Japanised’ as the Novotel Paris Tour Eiffel. Benkay still exists, with its panoramic view over the Seine and its large teppanyaki where the chefs grilled vegetables, meat and fish before our very eyes. But I’m not in Paris any more.
My few years in Germany were a great frustration. At that time, at least in the medium-sized town where I lived, there were more Turkish restaurants than Japanese ones. And while I discovered some delicious kebabs, I was craving sushi.
Of course, once we arrived in Morocco, the craving grew. Can you imagine eating raw fish in Ouarzazate, on the edge of the desert? No, of course not, I’m just too happy to have a weekly delivery of fresh fish. The weekly chermoula sardines or fish couscous that my in-laws used to prepare for me when we visited them in Agadir were delicious, but cooked.
Morocco has changed in twenty years. I went north and found my first sushi restaurant in El Jadida, on Avenue Mohammed VI, next to the park.
Then finally Casablanca and its many sushi restaurants, or to be exact, its many Asian restaurants offering ‘Moroccan-style sushi’. Fried, mixed with cheese and surimi. Yes, Moroccans are wary of raw food. Or limited to the same old tuna and salmon. No octopus, no white fish, no squid. Just tuna, salmon and salmon roe. Yes, paradoxically, fish is expensive in Morocco.
Attempts at home-made sushi
Hardly anything Japanese for me. So much so that, thanks to Fouzia, my fish seller at the Marché Central, who sold me the best fresh fish and delivers all over Casablanca, I started making homemade sushi. The paradox is that you can easily find everything you need to make your own sushi: mirin, glutinous rice, wakame, nori leaves and candied ginger are imported and available in supermarkets, and I even managed to find a real wasabi somewhere to replace the green-tinted horseradish that all sushi restaurants use.
I certainly don’t consider myself to be a sushi master, having trained for over ten years in the skilful cutting of pieces of fish chosen that very morning. I can’t find the famous ‘yellow tail’ in Casablanca (which is only fished in Japan), but even without buying a whole tuna, I managed to get some toro from time to time, and above all I enjoyed eating a variety of sushi.
OK, so ‘I, me, my life’ is interesting, but why am I telling you about it?
Before getting to the heart of the matter, let me tell you about Tev and Louis, two French/Japanese youtubers who live in Japan and regularly talk about everyday life there. Japan is more than 11,000 kilometres from Morocco, but the two countries have a lot in common: the two oldest monarchies in the world, an attachment to their traditions and, it has to be said when listening to the videos, a ‘complicated’ administration.
So it turns out that… we’ve finally arrived! A few months ago, Tev and Louis came to Morocco. And they made a video judging Moroccan sushi.
Moroccan sushi better than French sushi, say experts
Having often heard them criticise restaurants, sushi or not, I have to admit I was curious.
I’ll let you watch the video (with English subtitles), here’s the conclusion:
It’s not sushi, it’s ‘fusion’, but it’s very good. And better than a lot of sushi in France..
The two restaurants they went to were:
- Nakata sushi, rue d’Agadir, which advertises on its Facebook page that it ‘also makes cooked sushi’;
- Shiru sushi, Thai and wok, a restaurant with valet parking (so rather upmarket), which has two restaurants, one in Palmiers and one in Racine ;
So yes, seen like that, sushi revisited restaurants can be good. I’m not really a fan of Eby Fry and pizza sushi, but I do enjoy them, especially the tartares and chirashi.
On the other hand, what amuses me is to see the totally uninhibited way in which Moroccans can make use of sushi (or tacos), whereas they cry scandal as soon as you touch the sacrosanct couscous, as Philippe Etchebest (the French Gordon Ramsay) did!
NB: these two restaurants do not appear on Trip Advisor’s list of the best sushi restaurants in Casablanca. And that’s almost to be expected. The top of the list has dropped a lot in quality (confirmed by a Japanese friend) but remains in first place thanks to its history. The prices are very high, especially as this restaurant, which is part of the Four Seasons group, has a liquor licence. Like many restaurants of this type in Morocco, you go there more for the bling than for the real gastronomy.
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