Moltaqa Moroccan Restaurant Yaletown, Restaurant and Bar Downtown Vancouver — Restaurant in Vancouver

Halal goat tagine with saffron and prunes (5/10)

Lemon & olive halal half chicken tagine with saffron (3/10

Lamb shank with apricots (3/10)

After processing last night’s dinner and getting over the bitterness and disappointment of the food experience at this restaurant, I have some feedback. We came to this restaurant in three, two of us visiting yvr for the week. This came on our radar as a late night in-dining restaurant after a long day out. I didn’t realize the prices until we sat down, but decided its raining too hard to walk out and find another place and secondly we expected that the price points would match the quality of the food. We also had high expectations based on the descriptions of the food in the menu that this is an exceptional place. As someone who has never tried Moroccon cuisine I thought they would stand out for the exceptional spice blends and flavour to compensate for their dishes that lack spice/heat. I was particularly annoyed at the end of the night where I received the bill and their was a charge for bread ($5) and coucous that we ordered. The waitress gave the impression that the sides were part of the main course we ordered and was not an additional add-on, we either did not see this on the menu or it had been missed, it would’ve been nice to have been made clear of this. Anyways, the bread tasted like dusted rock and the coucous with the chickpeas so bland. I know for a fact that the salt was lacking in all three dishes because nothing was standing out in terms of the different element in the dishes. As a group, we all did not like our meals, and there was a lot that was leftover as we could not get ourselves to finish it. They were large portion sizes I can give credit to that. The halal goat tagine with saffron and prunes was the closest a desi person can get to your home-made aloo gosht, but please save yourself the trouble of paying these exorbitant prices and visit a local desi restaurant if that’s what you want. Lastly, the prices here are really high because of the alcohol they serve and the area location. If you’re a non-drinker, don’t even show up here, the food isn’t worth the prices. But maybe I do need a drink to forget about these meals, jk. The service was good and we had a nice waitress who replenished our water without asking, and she did ask us if we liked our meals. But this is my first situation where none of us liked our meals and what can you do in a situation like that, lol? It’s an awkward situation to be in. Hence we just accepted this big fat L and vowed to never return. For all three dishes at sides + tip we paid $130. It’s an experience to remember and just laugh because there’s nothing...

I am gonna start with the good points, the atmosphere is nice, authentic design, authentic clothes, and nice serving plates. The hummus was perfect and so delicious (probably the only thing that I might go back to eat there). The music playlist was also nice, all the Arabic songs I loved and memories with, and that was all.

We were party of five, and have reserved a table. When we got there, we were offered a table next to the bar and every now and then, servers were moving around to serve the drinks which usually is not that bad. Also, furniture was super nice and so authentic so it was not a big deal, until it was! Every server started to get so attentive to cleaning the table that it became annoying. It was like they were staring at our eating and followed the spoon in our mouth so they would take the plates as soon as they were empty! I could have overlooked this if the food was good, however, the meals were served separately and they took the lid of the plates, so the food was cold when we started to eat since we wanted to start all together not 5 minutes apart.

The meal we ordered did not come with rice or bread and we had to order them separately. This is a first for a middle eastern restaurant. The rice portion was fine, but they brought two small sizes of bread for one meal and 2 big ones for another meal, and when I asked the head server why would they serve different portions for the same food she said “Who brought you this”, the answer is obvious! One of your team! I didn’t go to the kitchen to get my own bread so I would get the bigger one!

And it was not the only time the server made a mistake. They brought the food for another table and we thought it was part of the platter, and then after 10 minutes they noticed they made mistake, and took the food off of our table! Hopefully they didn’t serve the other table with the same plates that were sitting on ours for so long!

I was expecting a really good and authentic taste since I have heard so much about this place but sorry to say that I was disappointed, I don’t recommend the food here since it was nothing like the Arabic food I had before (even here...

Visited Moltaqa to celebrate a dear friend's birthday! What an experience! I have never tried Moroccan food before so this was a wonderful treat! We were a party of 3 & ordered the following:

Vegetarian Appetizer Sampler Platter. We were supposed to get bread but instead it came with roasted carrots. I was a bit skeptical about this because I'm not a huge fan of lentils or beans but omgoodness everything was absolutely fabulous! The flavours were amazing!

Cardamom Duck w/Figs, Dates, Pear & Sesame Tagine - this dish had great flavour & the duck was fork tender. Unfortunately the dish didn't come as described. We didn't get any figs, dates or crackling.

Moroccan Rack of Lamb Flambeed Tableside w/Potatoes & Zucchini - this was the star of the evening. Talk about dinner & show! The lamb was cooked to perfection! It literally melted in your mouth. The flavours were incredible!

We finished the evening off with their Flambeed Moroccan Crepes Suzette & Chebakia Honey Sesame Rose Cookies both of which were amazing & a wonderful end to our wonderful meal.

The service was wonderful & the decor beautiful.

As much as I wanted to give this place 5 stars, I could only give it 4, for the following reasons.

I am the type of person that orders a dish based on the elements of the dish so when the duck was missing key elements without explanation, it was a bit of a turn off.

The gentleman who took our order mentioned the vegetarian platter came with the roasted carrots & beets, but we only received the carrots, no beets as he mentioned & no bread as is stated on the menu.

The music was quite loud, so it was difficult to hear the server.

Also it would be nice if the server explained the vegetarian dishes in the platter as we were served them. If you're having Moroccan food for the first time & suddenly you're presented 6 dishes all at once, it may be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out what each item is, especially when the area you are sitting in is quite dark.

Overall it was a great experience & I look forward to visiting...