Mourad

Cuisine	Mediterranean
Price	$$$$ (51-100)
Rating	6/10
Last Visit	Oct. 5, 2022
Location	SFBA: San Francisco: Downtown + SoMa

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General Notes

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Upscale Moroccan restaurant, situated not too far from Montgomery station. Most of the food was delightful, although there were certainly a few items which missed the mark a bit. Definitely pretty pricey, though if you order the right things you could definitely construct an amazing meal without breaking the bank -- the couscous and eggshuka come to mind. A lovely option for a special occasion, though I probably wouldn't return in normal circumstances (it's still pretty pricey, and I'm not entirely sure it's worth the money)

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Positives

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> The service is delightful, maybe even a bit too over-attentive. You'll feel like you're being treated like a king here.

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Dishes Tasted

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• ★☆☆☆ Mango Opus -- mango juice, ginger beer, lemon, za'atar, pineapple flower. A bit too sweet and somewhat one-dimensional, not a particularly interesting drink.
• ★★★★ Short Rib -- summer squash, gypsy pepper, nectarine, bone marrow. So amazing -- tender, flavorful, and the three accompanying sauces compliment the beef beautifully.
• ★★★★ Couscous -- mushroom, blistered cranberry, pumpkin seed. Surprisingly delicious -- I expect couscous to be more of a supporting cast, but this tasted amazing. The couscous was buttery + flavorful, and the other components added much needed textural contrast + acidity.
• ★☆☆☆ Basteeya -- duck, apricot, rhubarb, mecalef, almond, verjus. Each individual component was pretty good, but I was personally not a big fan of this dish. It tasted ... strange.
• ★★☆☆ Duck Liver -- preserved lemon, melon, dill, sumac. Decent (it's hard to make duck liver bad), but a bit uninspiring. The starch underneath was pretty soft / moist, not the best pairing for duck liver mousse.
• ★☆☆☆ Tomato -- early girl, sungold, fig, serpent cucumber, urfa. Pretty uninspiring, and doesn't have much flavor. They've painstakenly removed the skin on all the tomatoes ... but it's unclear why.
• ★★★☆ Milk Bread -- selection of house butter. Quite nice, I like the touch of flaky sea salt on the top. Comes with three different house butters; I don't remember exactly what they were, but there was a fruity one (pomegranate?), a sweeter one, and a more spiced one.
• ★★★★ Eggshuka -- hen yolk, shakshuka, smoked potato, alliums. Probably my favorite dish of the night, the flavors are delightful, the texture from the crispy alliums adds a nice touch, and it goes super well with the milk bread.