Part 1:
Expectations are a dangerous thing. I'd had my eye on this Morrocan restaurant for a long time - ever since Graham found it reviewed on this site. I made sure I had booked in advance - every single review on the site described it in glowing terms - so my expectations were sky high.
Al-Fassia is far off the tourist track, but close to my new favourite bar/arts centre, The Firestation (the building used to be Windsor's Fire Station, but now is a great drinking place for a sunny evening when they open the bar out onto the pavement), so it was a good excuse to combine visiting both places.
I was expecting a tiny but but busy place, 'shabby on the outside' (as the initial website now famously states), but a hidden gem inside. We walked straight past it, but once we did find it, my expectations were immediately confounded. It didn't look shabby at all...and it was very very empty. The service was good and we were bought some marinaded olives whilst we perused the menu. To start we had some briouat - triangles of filo pastry, stuffed with potato and vegetables, deep friend and served with a tomato dip. A lot like samosas, but without the spices. In fact there wasn't a huge amount of flavour which was disappointing. What was a hit though, was the hummous, which was some of the best i'd ever tasted. It had the perfect smooth texture and had a distinct subtle olive flavour. We had to ask for more bread to soak up every last bit of it.
Expectations are a dangerous thing. I'd had my eye on this Morrocan restaurant for a long time - ever since Graham found it reviewed on this site. I made sure I had booked in advance - every single review on the site described it in glowing terms - so my expectations were sky high.
Al-Fassia is far off the tourist track, but close to my new favourite bar/arts centre, The Firestation (the building used to be Windsor's Fire Station, but now is a great drinking place for a sunny evening when they open the bar out onto the pavement), so it was a good excuse to combine visiting both places.
I was expecting a tiny but but busy place, 'shabby on the outside' (as the initial website now famously states), but a hidden gem inside. We walked straight past it, but once we did find it, my expectations were immediately confounded. It didn't look shabby at all...and it was very very empty. The service was good and we were bought some marinaded olives whilst we perused the menu. To start we had some briouat - triangles of filo pastry, stuffed with potato and vegetables, deep friend and served with a tomato dip. A lot like samosas, but without the spices. In fact there wasn't a huge amount of flavour which was disappointing. What was a hit though, was the hummous, which was some of the best i'd ever tasted. It had the perfect smooth texture and had a distinct subtle olive flavour. We had to ask for more bread to soak up every last bit of it.
The starters hadn't been bad, but those dastardly expectations of mine were remained high, as Hazel and Siobhan's main course tagines arrived at the table. They were sizzling hot - too hot to open immediately, but they smelt so appetising that we were all salivating before we'd even seen how good the food inside looked...
Both Louise and I had opted for a dish which had the same name as the restaurant. When our meals arrived, we were shocked to see just how huge our portions were. It looked like we had an entire bag of couscous each, as well as two merguez sausages, large pieces of chicken and lamb and a mountain of vegetables piled onto our plates!
Everything was cooked to perfection but the flavours got lost amongst the huge amounts of couscous (apart from the sausages, which were very tasty). The sauce we were given to eat with our dish had tasted of tumeric and not a lot else. The tagine dishes were smaller and although they'd looked and smelt great, the flavour seemed elusive. So sadly although we couldn't find fault with the service or the size of the portions, or the quality of the food, our high expectations meant that we left the restuarant underwhelmed. The flavours weren't as robust as we would have liked, which could well be down to personal taste, or not ordering the best options on the menu.
Overall:
Food quality: Quality was great, but it was just flavours that were missing (apart from the amazing hummous and very tasty sausages).
Atmosphere: We were initially the only diners so there really wasn't any atmosphere, but it was early on a monday evening. The interiors are lovely (and very morrocan), so potentially the atmosphere here could be great.
Service: Very attentive and friendly.
Value for money: This varies. My giant £12 dish could have easily fed two people if we'd known just how huge it was going to be! The tagines were smaller.
Overall: 6/10 More informed ordering might have helped us, as well as if we'd visited when it was busier. However I think the hugely inflated expectations had a very big part to play in the poor score, so this is no fault of the restaurant itself.
Part 2:
We'd declined dessert at the restaurant but instead bought icecreams from the local corner shop and as very classy ladies, we ate them on a bench on the street. I'd opted for a Magnum Temptation (Chocolate version). Having not seen any of the adverts I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but was initially disappointed when the elaborate packaging revealed a very small icecream (remember "flashy on the outside can lead to subsequent disappointment"!), and this was followed by a slightly disconcerting feeling about how overtly 'sexy' this icecream was trying to be. (It just reminded me of the chocolates they were trying to create in the final of The Apprentice, and it wasn't a good memory). But whilst the others suffered minor injuries and low levels of frostbite whilst trying to hack into the solid ice of their Ben and Jerries mini pots, I was delighted by my choice. The chocolate brownie and white chocolate chunks made up for any earlier misgivings!
Overall:
Food quality: The Ben and Jerries was far too cold, but the Magnum Temptation was chocolatey, ice-cream and brownie goodness on a stick!
Atmosphere: Although the sun had returned after some rain, it was a little cold to be sitting on a bench. There were probably more passers by than we would have liked. The parked cars also adversely affected the ambience.
Service: Siobhan was very unhappy that the Ben and Jerries tubs didn't contain user friendly spoons. Just basic wooden spatulas which weren't up to the task of hacking into overly cold icecream. However the Magnum's wooden stick did a great job - no complaints there.
Value for money: Depends how you look at it - far cheaper than buying dessert in the restuarant at any rate, but at the higher end of the price scale for individual icecreams.
Overall: 9/10 for Magnum. Probably 6/10 for the others.
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