Moroccan and meatball magnificent meals in NYC

Katelyn and I met a colleague at Café Mogadore, a charming, delicious Moroccan restaurant in the East Village Wednesday night. At our colleague’s urging, we tried the best halloumi skewers ever (sorry Nighttown), chicken tangine, a strawberry rhubarb crumble and a pear and cranberry pie. Everything I tried was sooo good. I’m not a huge chicken fan, but the chicken that was roasted in the tagine was incredibly flavorful and tender. It also was free-range and organic…yay! I ordered the casablanca sauce, which featured chickpeas and raisins, and the dish was served over cous-cous. There were other meat, sauce and grain options – I was happy with the choice my server recommended.

Chicken tagine with casablanca sauce and cous-cous

Strawberry rhubarb crumble

Pear and cranberry pie

A friend from work in Cleveland (thanks JHo!) made me promise to try one of The Meatball Shop locations during a NYC trip, so I had it on the brain on Thursday. This place grinds their own meat, sources their ingredients locally and also makes homemade ice cream sandwiches, using different cookies (you can mix and match!) for the sandwich.

Meatball smash with spicy pork balls, pesto and mozzarella

I tried a Meatball Smash, which includes three balls with your choice of meat (or vegetarian option), choice of sauce and cheese on a yum bun. A light side salad comes with it. I ordered spicy pork balls with a pesto sauce and mozzarella. The serving size was perfect – not too big and not too messy and YUM!!!

How could I not try the homemade ice cream sandwiches? I sampled caramel ice cream sandwiched by a snickerdoodle and chocolate chip cookie. Amazing!
 We ordered takeout to make it back for a meeting despite a full house, and our order came out in about five minutes.

House made ice cream sandwich with caramel ice cream and a snickerdoodle and chocolate chip cookie

Go to both of these places. They were awesome and I’ll go back to each of them.