The Casbah Restaurant — Restaurant in Calgary

When you walk into Casbah Restaurant, you are welcomed by a warm, intricately decorated environment full of rich fragrant smells. The restaurant is great for date-night dining, as the tables are small and fairly private, tucked around various corners of the restaurant.

If you want to try a variety of dishes on the menu, I recommend getting the "Tour of Morocco", a 4/5 course meal. Both me and my date opted for this option. Where there were options, we chose different dishes and shared so that we could each try as much as possible. I say 4/5 course because the menu advertises this as 5 courses, but 2 of them are served together so it's really 4. We had:

Harirra Soup: a simple soup including chickpeas and lentils in a saffron tomato broth. The soup was flavourful and comforting if maybe a but thin

Khoudra Salad and an appetizer of Merguez: The Merguez is a spiced beef sausage wrapped in phylo pastry and fried. The beef was lightly spiced and the phyllo was perfectly flaky. The salad is a mix of carrots, corn and beets with vinaigrette. Being light and crunchy, this salad was a great accompaniment to the fried Merguez.

For a main, we tried both Tagines. The sweet one included chickpeas, dates, sweet potato, carrot, pecans and pears and we paired this one with lamb. For the savory tagine, which includes peas, potatoes anad olives, we ordered the cornish hen. The sweet tagine was quite sweet, I don't think I would want to eat on on its own. But, when alternated with tastes from the savory tagine, it was delightful. The meats were both cooked beautifully with the lamb being fork tender and the hen was "fall off the bone".

The dessert comes with coffee or tea and seems to vary. On this visit, the dessert was a scoop of vanilla ice cream served over strawberry oreserves, topped with chocolate sauce, crushed toffee and a piece of balklava. The ice cream and toppings were average. The highlight of this was the flaky, syrupy baklava.

Service was prompt and friendly. Before food service, you get to wash your hands with rose water, which is a Moroccan tradition. I found the portions to be on the small side, but given we were eating four courses, I appreciated this as I didn't leave feeling overly full. I will note that the restaurant seems to be very accommodating to dietary restrictions as the menu highlights which dishes are vegetarian and/or...

Ambiance and Decor. I have to say this is the one area the restaurant has done really well in representing Moroccan tradition and culture. The lighting is warm and the decor is inviting and perhaps even exciting. The Food. I ordered an appetizer as well as two mains, one main was the rice dish with a mixture of meats and one was a vegetable tajine with lamb. Out of the two the Tajine was the winner and I'd say those that are looking for flavor in their main should not opt for the mixed meat option as though the chickpea sauce was nice enough, the meats overall weren't that tasty and distinguishable in taste. The mixed meat included one prawn on top which I thought was hardly sufficient. Secondly the meat cutlets except for the thin beef sausage were quite small in size. The appetizer was the beef sausage in a pastry and was good enough with the provided chilli sauce. We were told this was made fresh in house.

Now the service. The owner was welcoming however we were made to stand while the table was being prepared, perhaps a sitting area for waiting guests would be far better experience. Secondly I made it evident in my reservation this was a special meal for me as it was my anniversary. The reservation confirmation acknowledged this in the email. However there was nothing from the restaurant to make the night a little bit more memorable. No effort made what so ever even after the acknowledgement!!

Great customer service is to go out of your way for your guests. So any small effort towards making the evening more memorable for me and my wife would've been much appreciated and would've warranted for 5 stars and two customer willing to come back!

This could all perhaps be due to the fact they seemed a little busy but to make your customer service great would be to pay attention to each guest, especially to those who make a reservation and provide specific information regarding their evening. So little disappointed in respect of this.

Overall, food was decent enough and the decor and overall ambiance was enjoyable.

With green tea and coffee the total was close to $50 each without the tip; I guess we all have different experiences and opinions so perhaps The Casbah won't...

I dont usually do many reviews but this place was impressive. We just went out for a nice dinner tonight. I gotta say I was very impressed. I didnt quite know what to expect.

The decor and vibe of the place is awesome. Quite intimate tables, comfy seats. I saw a few group areas too that looked very comfortable ie almost like a large sectional sofa around massive tables, and looked like a large family was sitting there. Drinks were great. I was initially slightly confused as to whether they served alcohol looking at the online menu, but they do have a full drinks menu with some great sahara/african inspired cocktails and drinks.

Service was top notch. The server took a long time to give us history lessons and information about the food, asking for our preferences and he nailed it. He was very patient and I didn't feel like I was an annoyance when asking 'stupid' questions about the food, in fact he seemed incredibly passionate about it.

I am usually guarded when visiting places like this, where the decor etc are beautiful but more of a reason to go there (ie instagram) than the food... But I can tell you, the food was incredible and authentic. The figs and lamb and a mix of savory and sweet in some of their dishes. We had a Taste of Morocco 4 course meal, and we were full. Lots of great meats and vegetables. The Fez Tajine had big chunks of vegetables and the chicken in that was marinated and grilled to perfection. We also had the Couscous Sahara with lamb and wow that was an incredible dish. My spouse who is not usually a lamb fan was raving about it. The lamb was literally falling apart the moment the knife touched it. The couscous was unlike any I have ever eaten, so so good. Finally the desert was a nice surprise. A 'deconstructed' baklava type desert with ice cream and strawberry/raspberry puree and chocolate sauce. What a way to finish off with a bang.

All in all a great experience, very memorable and I felt like we were on another continent for a few hours. A great vibe and felt like a great escape. We will definitely be back to try out some other stuff!

Thanks for a...